Nothing like showing up to tourist attractions only to discover that the only way to see them is with a timed entry ticket. So much for winging it.

I do not wing hotels. I don’t want to get stuck in a dump or paying more than I’m comfortable with.

I'm a single mom that just took my pre-school and ES aged kids to Japan. Compared to everyone else here, my plan was pretty loose. I had the flights, rail pass and hotels booked. Other than that, I didn't know what we were doing until the day before. I had to call audible a couple of times due to our energy levels or weather, but the kids had a lot of fun.

No because I find planning to be half the fun!

Not anymore. We winged it entirely for our honeymoon (trip of the canyons), and had booked nothing at all apart from the plane ticket. But with kids, I research the heck out of every trip, book everything in advance, and generally schedule things militarily. It gives me peace of mind.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're about to take an international trip to a country where we don't speak the language (but a part of Europe where enough people speak English to get by) and we have hotels booked, a car booked, a plan for a hike, tickets to a few things (some open ended times), and otherwise no agenda. Never been this loose before. We'll see!

Uhh, many people would call that a full on plan.

+1, especially when I got to 'tickets to a few things'.

Anonymous wrote:We're about to take an international trip to a country where we don't speak the language (but a part of Europe where enough people speak English to get by) and we have hotels booked, a car booked, a plan for a hike, tickets to a few things (some open ended times), and otherwise no agenda. Never been this loose before. We'll see!

Uhh, many people would call that a full on plan.

I don’t mind doing things last minute, but you always book. It’s just a question of how late you do it. And I don’t do it unreasonably late if there’s not a reason. The idea of it just being late for late’s sake doesn’t do anything for me.

We're about to take an international trip to a country where we don't speak the language (but a part of Europe where enough people speak English to get by) and we have hotels booked, a car booked, a plan for a hike, tickets to a few things (some open ended times), and otherwise no agenda. Never been this loose before. We'll see!

We just did this sort of. We planned a trip to Yellowstone. Flew into Denver and got a car (did have a reservation for that). We booked the first two nights on a horse ranch in Wyoming and then we drove to Yellowstone. We knew we would decide the second portion of the trip on the fly and we did. We had no problem extending our hotel reservation although it cost considerably more than it would have if we planned it ahead. We had the BEST time and zero pressure to do anything.

We always have hotels booked but make sure that we can cancel them without penalty at the last minute if our plans change which we’ve done several times. But if not having made any plans or bookings means the risk of staying in a crappy hotel I won’t do that. And I have kids so I wouldn’t risk not having any plans in place.

With kids, I've never totally winged it. I like to know where we're sleeping. Other than that, I don't plan a lot. I might get tickets here and there for things I think will sell out, but I usually just read a bit about a place and then happen upon things in the area that look interesting.

Tips? It really depends on where you're going. Lots of popular places on the crowded east coast are long booked up.

No. I am a planner. I also hate research so prefer to do it all at once and get it done, and then just follow the itinerary (we build in options).

Have you ever taken a trip that you wanted to go without a plan or a booking? We may have just decided to do this.

I think we’ll book a first night, and see if we want to stay in the area or drive to a different town.

We’ve done this of course in cross-country interstate trips. But not beachy/city trips on the east coast. We’ve done a huge amount of research on hotels in the area. It’s about 6h from here, so we’re not out on a limb.

Any tips?