How to review your trip
How to look back on a holiday honestly, and use what you learn to make your next travel plans even better.
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The trip doesn’t really end when you get home. A little planning for the days after you’re back helps you hold onto the good bits, and gives the holiday the ending it deserves.
The journey doesn’t really end when you get home. The days and weeks after a trip are often when the post holiday blues hit hardest. Everyday life starts up again, and the memories begin to fade faster than you’d expect.
This is the final stage of our Platinum Travel Planning Roadmap. It’s about holding onto the experiences and giving your trip a proper ending, rather than letting it dissolve into a blur of unpacking and laundry. It’s also where the next trip quietly begins.
In short: Post holiday blues are normal and usually pass within a week or two. Ease back in with a spare day at home, keep one holiday habit going and put something to look forward to in the diary. Then capture the trip while it’s fresh, in a shared travel journal and a holiday photo album, and review what worked so the next plan is even better.
Post holiday blues are that flat, tired, slightly low feeling that can arrive in the days after you get home. You’ve gone from new places, shared meals and no alarm clock straight back to work, school runs and a full washing basket. It’s no wonder it can feel like a bump.
It’s very common, and it’s a sign of how much holidays matter to us. ABTA’s Holiday Habits report for 2025 to 2026 found that 80% of UK adults say holidays are important for their mental health. When something matters that much, it’s natural to miss it when it’s over.
For most people the feeling fades within a week or two as routines settle again. If a low mood hangs around for longer than that, or feels like more than missing the trip, it’s worth talking to your GP.
We’ve come home from enough trips to know what helps. None of these take much effort, which is the point.
The other thing that helps most is giving the trip a proper ending, which is what the rest of this page is about.
We use the Journi app to bring our photos, notes and locations together into one shared digital travel journal. Everyone in the family can add to it, which matters to us, because we don’t always travel together and we all remember different things.
The best thing about a shared travel journal is that it captures the small details that fade first if you don’t write them down. The inside jokes, the unexpected detours, the favourite meal nobody can quite remember the name of. Those are the things you’ll want to remember in ten years’ time, and they’re the first to go.
You don’t need an app, of course. A paper notebook works just as well, and some people love having something to hold. Whatever you use, these prompts help.
Write a little each evening while you’re away, then finish it within a week of getting home, before the details blur.
Most of us come home with hundreds of photos that never get looked at again. Turning them into a holiday photo album, printed or digital, is one of the nicest ways to give a trip an ending.
The trick is to do it soon and to be ruthless. In the first week back, go through the photos and pick one or two that tell each part of the story, rather than keeping every version of every view. Add a short caption to each so you’ll remember where it was. If everyone in the family took photos, ask them for their favourites too, because they’ll have seen things you didn’t.
A printed photo book is lovely to pull off the shelf, and it’s something the whole family will look at. A shared digital album is quicker and easier to add to. Either is far better than a camera roll nobody scrolls back through.
Giving a trip a proper ending also means looking back honestly at how it went. It helps you reflect on what you loved and what you’d do differently next time, and it’s the most useful planning you’ll ever do for the next trip. Our own trip reviews are how this site came to exist.
We ask the same few questions after every holiday.
Our guide to reviewing your trip goes into how to do it, and why the notes you make in the first week back make the next plan better. And then, of course, it’s back to Stage 1 and the question that starts every trip. Who’s coming this time?
These are the guides to read once you’re home, and the ones that help you start dreaming about the next trip.
How to look back on a holiday honestly, and use what you learn to make your next travel plans even better.
The light-touch planning that keeps a trip on track once it’s started, from the next day’s timings to the booking you meant to make.
A novel for every destination we’ve visited, for reliving a trip once you’re home or getting in the mood for the next one.
Ideas for where to go next, collected from our trips, our reading and the places still on our list.
When you’re ready to plan again, start where the Roadmap starts, with the people who are coming.
For most people, post holiday blues last a few days to a couple of weeks, fading as everyday routines settle again. If a low mood lasts longer than that, or feels like more than missing the trip, it's worth talking to your GP.
Leave a spare day at home before going back to work, unpack straight away and keep one holiday habit going. Look through the photos together, cook something you ate on the trip and put something to look forward to in the diary, even if it's just a day out.
Write the best thing about each day, what surprised you, what you ate and what it was called, the people you met and what went wrong. One or two lines a day is enough. The small details, like inside jokes and unexpected detours, are the first things you forget.
Go through your photos in the first week back and choose one or two that tell each part of the trip. Ask everyone else for their favourites, add a short caption to each and then print a photo book or make a shared digital album.
We use Journi, which brings photos, notes and locations together in one shared journal that the whole family can add to. Other journal and photo book apps work in a similar way, so choose one that lets everyone contribute and makes it easy to export or print.
The best trips stay with you long after the suitcase is back in the loft. A shared journal, a photo book and an honest look back are what turn a good holiday into a story the whole family still tells.
So give your next trip a proper ending, and let the review be the start of the next plan. When you're ready, head back to the Platinum Travel Planning Roadmap and begin again with the who.
Until the next adventure.