How a Japan Trip Itinerary Turned into my very first Zine

I am normal about traveling and about going to Japan.

As seen in the hotel room in Tokyo.

I design a one or two-sheet itinerary for every trip I take.

Rather than spend precious PTO googling the best way to spend my days from the hotel (eg. which beach is the prettiest, which neighborhood has the most stationery shops, making last minute reservations), I like to go in with a gameplan, and maximize my time away. To be clear, I’m not scheduling bathroom breaks and completely killing spontaneity, but rather, creating a well-designed, easy-to-read reference that will make my life easier while on vacation (and help me to truly relax). I’ve written all about my itinerary design habit in the following:

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(The below is an edited excerpt from a previous post: The Year in Itineraries)

Some tips from a control freak for a well-executed itinerary:

• Excel is great! Clean design is an important element when creating a functional itinerary, sometimes that means a no-frills, easy to read Excel sheet. If it works, it works. An excel sheet is often my starting point to organize the raw data before importing that information into my designed itineraries. There’s no need to get caught up in the details (like I do) to plan a trip.

• Be collaborative. If you’re going to take over, at least get input from the other parties involved. Take a survey, ask people what they’re interested in doing on vacation, and work it into the itinerary to try and avoid any mid-vacay conflicts. (Yes this is a real life lesson learned.)

• Let it breathe. Always leave time to dawdle, to wander, to have an espresso and people-watch. This is often when you’ll discover something new, or really take in the place you’re visiting. Sometimes I’ll just write “explore this neighborhood,⁴” or “free time.” Am I planning spontaneity? Maybe…but it’s the key to a well-balanced itinerary! Do not exhaust yourself with an overstuffed schedule.

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Without further ado, I present to you my most ambitious and complicated itinerary yet: The Zine-tinerary.

Versions 1,2, and 3 of the Japan Itinerary.

A two-week trip to Japan resulted in my very first zine project, but that was not what I set out to do at first…

In the past, I had successfully fit two week trips onto two 8.5x11 sheets of paper, but because this trip had so many components (train QR codes, super-packed days, luggage shipping logistics), I needed more real-estate, and this 16 day trip called for a different format: I created my very first zine to house this massive itinerary, a zine-tinerary.

The purpose of said Zine-tinerary being:

• Create an all-in-one document: Condense all trip details into a compact, easy-to read, physical format, so that we don’t have to dig through our email inboxes for train tickets, museum reservations, etc. Instead, it’s all in the zine.

• Have room for bonus pages such as: helpful words/phrases, a list of foods I want to eat, activities for train rides (Sudoku), pages for self reflection and pages for stamps!

The one-page zine is a great place to start for first-time zine makers,

(i.e. - me), so I checked out my buddy Carolyn Yoo’s video tutorial on one page zines (also found in one of her zine primer posts here).

Since my itinerary could now have multi (!) separate (!!) pages, I decided that one page per day of the trip ought to result in a well-organized itinerary. Because I now had so much more space to work with, I toyed with the idea of bonus pages, such as one denoting helpful phrases in Japanese. The draft quickly expanded into one, then two, then 4 pages of one-sided, 1/8 size, fan-zine templates (this template should really only be used for 1-page at a time). I quickly realized, after testing this zine format¹ out on scrap paper, that this would result in an unnecessarily chunky, and still too-small collection of pages (but would be a great format for a shorter weekend trip)!

The very first draft of my zine-tinerary.

After mapping everything out on Canva (my drug of choice when designing itineraries), I decided I needed at least 32 pages to realize my vision, plus a few extra as insurance (should I have any other grand ideas). This called for a multi-page, cut-and-bound, double sided format, instead of the one-sided folding fan-zine template.

I continued my zine journey, this time, dreaming up a larger booklet (1/4 rather than 1/8) to fit my big plans for Japan, and budgeting 36, double-sided pages. After researching and learning about a thing called pagination², I decided I did not have enough experience to create a template from scratch, and so I bought one from a creator on ko-fi.com. This template cannot be linked³ (for now), as it actually had a pagination error(!!) (which I messaged the creator about), but know that I went with a 36-page quarter-size zine template that could be imported directly into Canva.

A little piece of the template I used in Canva.

To use the template, I placed my page layouts as an overlay on the indicated numbered pages, transferring the raw data directly from my family’s shared Excel sheet onto the Canva doc. I knew I’d need at least one print-run before I finalized the project, and so printed my half-finished itinerary to see how it was going.

Version 1 of the zine-tinerary.

And so Version 1 was born, and then quickly annotated for improvements…but the vision was coming to life! I played around with the page layouts to create an itinerary that made the most sense to me. Having a physical copy of the trip’s daily plans on paper also helped me to hammer out the smaller details of the trip.

Pages 2 and 3 in Versions 1 and 2 of the zinetinerary.

Cutting and binding (stapling) the zine was a learning curve in itself, but by Version 2, page alignment became a learned skill, and I felt I was developing a more cohesive aesthetic (and sense of font sizes as they present themselves irl)! The pagination error presented itself, and I spent the better part of one evening re-arranging the pages, but this is exactly why we print drafts and check them! It’s all a part of the process. At this point, I was using Canva stock images exclusively, but soon started to take things one step further.

The beginnings of a hand-drawn map of Tokyo.

In Version 3, I decided I would replace all free Canva images with my own illustrations. This way, I could include maps that were specific to our itinerary, and of course, create the ultimate cohesive aesthetic. At this point, the trip was two weeks out, (a challenging deadline), but I was in too deep, and developing the food checklist of my dreams.

My original illustrations in my sketchbooks vs their final form in the zine-tinerary.

I don’t have a printer/scanner, so I photographed my sketches, and used the godsend that is the Canva image background remover to apply my sketches directly onto my zine template. I absolutely loved the effect of the hand-drawn elements in the zine. (Can you spot my practice soot sprite?)

Various sketches as seen in the zine.

Version 3 was the final draft I ran by the other participants in the trip (my mom and dad, hence, the bilingual itinerary). Minor alignment issues were addressed, spellchecks were conducted, and hotel reservations confirmed. At one week out, I was also able to add our train ticket QR codes to the zine! This way, we could easily scan the zine itself to claim our tickets at the train station, rather than dig through our emails for confirmations, avoiding a potentially stressful situation at a busy kiosk.

Some pages from version 3 of the zine. (Puzzles from sudoku.com), Hiragana chart from japan-guide.com)

After revisions from the board (my parents), Version 4 was ready! The day before the trip, I cut and stapled⁴ 4 copies of the zine (one for each of the travelers, one for insurance). My weekly runs to FedEx printing were coming to a close (all of my print jobs cost me $64 total⁵). The completely custom, hand-illustrated, interactive, appropriately passport-sized zine-tinerary was complete.

Assembling version 4 of the zine!

The Zine as seen in Japan:

A mini map of Hakone in Hakone:

irl!!

Checking Takoyaki and Shrimp Tempura off the list at Nishiki Market:

The food list in action.

Using the designated pages for stickers and stamps (esp. if I didn’t have my notebook on me).

Stamp rally stamp rally!

Getting organized on the Shinkansen:

And it was a success!!

We referenced the zine multiple times, daily, to keep track of our activities. Since we made no reservations, I annotated the zine-tinerary with the names of the restaurants we liked, or if there was a change of plans, wrote down the day’s actual happenings. Not only was the zine a great tool to plan for the future, it also serves as a retrospective, and the most personal souvenir of the trip.

My zine copy (above) vs my mom’s (below).

1. HOWEVER I think the 8-page fan zine is a perfect size for a weekend trip!!

2. The process of dividing, ordering, numbering pages.

3. Not gatekeeping but I cannot in good faith link a template that has a confusing error.

4. If anyone has a recommendation for a stapler capable of doing zine jobs without folding the pages up, let me know.

5. Should I get a printer? Be honest.