Of it was up to me, I'd plan 2-3 activities each day of travel to a location (not including beach vacations, which we rarely go on). But, it's too much for my family (kids and spouse want down time), so I usually plan one daily activity, occasionally 2, and leave the rest open for downtime (I bring books) or spontaneous ideas

We generally fly by the seat of our pants. We have a list of ideas of what to do and where to eat (99% of the time generated by me) and we figure it out as we go.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, I make a detailed itinerary. We have very few vacations, so we make them count. I do extensive research before each trip, and include activities that each person likes so no one feels left out. It's not go-go-go all the time, OP: planning doesn't have to mean packed schedule! A lot of our desired activities usually require reservations, tickets, bookings, so they need to be scheduled in advance, and the distance of travel to and from our hotel or rental needs to be calculated, to avoid having to stress at the last minute that we didn't plan enough time.

Over the years, I've found that this meticulous planning helps me have a relaxing but interesting vacation.

Case in point. Do you schedule pee breaks as well?

DP. I don't have a strict schedule time-wise, but I do form a basic itinerary and scope out where the bathrooms are in advance. I have a medical condition that makes this necessary.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, I make a detailed itinerary. We have very few vacations, so we make them count. I do extensive research before each trip, and include activities that each person likes so no one feels left out. It's not go-go-go all the time, OP: planning doesn't have to mean packed schedule! A lot of our desired activities usually require reservations, tickets, bookings, so they need to be scheduled in advance, and the distance of travel to and from our hotel or rental needs to be calculated, to avoid having to stress at the last minute that we didn't plan enough time.

Over the years, I've found that this meticulous planning helps me have a relaxing but interesting vacation.

Are you in the infamous Paris Planner?

PP you replied to. I am FROM Paris, so no, I don't schedule anything when I go there, because that's my hometown. And I don't spend enough time on the Travel Forum to know who you're referring to.

Why are you and another poster so rude?

OP here. I have friends who are planners and they like to have the detailed itinerary. Because I don’t book everything in advance, I have missed out on sold out tickets or scrambling during meals. However, I hate being forced to go to a meal reservation when I’m in bed more. I would rather do room service and lounge by pool or rooftop than trek across town. My friends especially like Instagram worthy meals. I’m going on a girls trip to Asia and my friends have every meal booked. I’m thinking we have 7pm or 8pm reservations at all these swanky places and it will be 7am EST. I know I will get crap for being lame if I don’t want to get dolled up and go to these places.

But don't you eat breakfast anyway at 7 a.m.? The difference is being dressed up.

It depends - but here's what I do in general. Usually the first day I try not to have set plans if there's a time change and we need to adjust to jet lag.

Then, I try to plan one activity a day. Anything weather dependent that could get canceled (like a boat trip for example) - I try to book on the front end of the trip so we have time to reschedule if needed.

I often try to also leave the last day of the trip free to leave time to fit in anything we missed earlier in the week or to leave time to do something we only just learned about while on the trip. Or to relax or souvenir shop!

Sometimes if things require reservations and you're just guessing how you're going to feel on the trip - you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

depends on where I'm going, beach vacation I might pick a local park or two I want to check out but no set day during the week picked out a trip to a city out of the country yes plans on what touristy/local things I want to see/do.

I tend to have a pretty set itinerary. But I plan pretty touristy stuff. Even when I was in Hawaii, there was only one laze-on-the-beach day -- other days had Volcanoes, stargazing, botanical gardens, snorkeling boat trip, etc.

I plan one activity a day and have a list of potential other activities to choose from. With kids, we need to keep something of a schedule. And I don't like the stress of scrambling to figure out when something opens or how far away it is, etc. So I do that in advance.

Depends on where, when, and with whom. Prekids we didn't even make hotel reservations for many trips, if it wasn't someplace/time where it would be hard to find a place to stay. With kids we definitely need reservations because we don't want to risk driving another 2 hours late at night or walking across the city.

If there's a site or museum we really want to see and for which tickets sell out well in advance, we get tickets. Similar for a specific restaurant, but that's rare. We also try to spend time thinking of our schedule in advance so we're not up late each night trying to figure out what to do the next day, but we don't necessarily stick to that.

It's great to play it by ear, but if we're traveling to a city we won't be back to for 10 or 20 years, we don't want to come home and realize we missed something we really would have enjoyed.

If it is a place with activities that require reservations I make a set itinerary or book special meal reservations. I don't schedule every minute of the day though. For example, when we went to Maui I booked activities for every other day. Things like surf lessons, sunrise at volcano, luau, and snorkeling tour. Then I had a list of other things we wanted to do while there and pick what we felt like doing from there.

I will also research things like restaurants in different areas so we have some ideas and don't waste time standing on a corner googling places to eat.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, I make a detailed itinerary. We have very few vacations, so we make them count. I do extensive research before each trip, and include activities that each person likes so no one feels left out. It's not go-go-go all the time, OP: planning doesn't have to mean packed schedule! A lot of our desired activities usually require reservations, tickets, bookings, so they need to be scheduled in advance, and the distance of travel to and from our hotel or rental needs to be calculated, to avoid having to stress at the last minute that we didn't plan enough time.

Over the years, I've found that this meticulous planning helps me have a relaxing but interesting vacation.

Are you in the infamous Paris Planner?

PP you replied to. I am FROM Paris, so no, I don't schedule anything when I go there, because that's my hometown. And I don't spend enough time on the Travel Forum to know who you're referring to.

Why are you and another poster so rude?

OP here. I have friends who are planners and they like to have the detailed itinerary. Because I don’t book everything in advance, I have missed out on sold out tickets or scrambling during meals. However, I hate being forced to go to a meal reservation when I’m in bed more. I would rather do room service and lounge by pool or rooftop than trek across town. My friends especially like Instagram worthy meals. I’m going on a girls trip to Asia and my friends have every meal booked. I’m thinking we have 7pm or 8pm reservations at all these swanky places and it will be 7am EST. I know I will get crap for being lame if I don’t want to get dolled up and go to these places.

DP. I think not wanting to go to the meals is fine, but some people in this thread (you or someone else) is being oddly aggressive towards people who do plan (either for meals or other things). If you'd like not to go to the same places as your friends you should figure that out with them, plan to skip some of the meals or something.

There's nothing wrong with either choice, though. If your friends like those meals and can handle the jet lag, of course they're going to make reservations for experiences they want to have.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, I make a detailed itinerary. We have very few vacations, so we make them count. I do extensive research before each trip, and include activities that each person likes so no one feels left out. It's not go-go-go all the time, OP: planning doesn't have to mean packed schedule! A lot of our desired activities usually require reservations, tickets, bookings, so they need to be scheduled in advance, and the distance of travel to and from our hotel or rental needs to be calculated, to avoid having to stress at the last minute that we didn't plan enough time.

Over the years, I've found that this meticulous planning helps me have a relaxing but interesting vacation.

Are you in the infamous Paris Planner?

PP you replied to. I am FROM Paris, so no, I don't schedule anything when I go there, because that's my hometown. And I don't spend enough time on the Travel Forum to know who you're referring to.

Why are you and another poster so rude?

OP here. I have friends who are planners and they like to have the detailed itinerary. Because I don’t book everything in advance, I have missed out on sold out tickets or scrambling during meals. However, I hate being forced to go to a meal reservation when I’m in bed more. I would rather do room service and lounge by pool or rooftop than trek across town. My friends especially like Instagram worthy meals. I’m going on a girls trip to Asia and my friends have every meal booked. I’m thinking we have 7pm or 8pm reservations at all these swanky places and it will be 7am EST. I know I will get crap for being lame if I don’t want to get dolled up and go to these places.

I plan one, maybe two activities a day (morning and afternoon). For meals, I like to scout ahead of time and have a couple of options listed: casual close to hotel, casual, nicer -- depending on how much energy we have.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, I make a detailed itinerary. We have very few vacations, so we make them count. I do extensive research before each trip, and include activities that each person likes so no one feels left out. It's not go-go-go all the time, OP: planning doesn't have to mean packed schedule! A lot of our desired activities usually require reservations, tickets, bookings, so they need to be scheduled in advance, and the distance of travel to and from our hotel or rental needs to be calculated, to avoid having to stress at the last minute that we didn't plan enough time.

Over the years, I've found that this meticulous planning helps me have a relaxing but interesting vacation.

Are you in the infamous Paris Planner?

PP you replied to. I am FROM Paris, so no, I don't schedule anything when I go there, because that's my hometown. And I don't spend enough time on the Travel Forum to know who you're referring to.

Why are you and another poster so rude?

Definitely the infamous Paris Planner.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, I make a detailed itinerary. We have very few vacations, so we make them count. I do extensive research before each trip, and include activities that each person likes so no one feels left out. It's not go-go-go all the time, OP: planning doesn't have to mean packed schedule! A lot of our desired activities usually require reservations, tickets, bookings, so they need to be scheduled in advance, and the distance of travel to and from our hotel or rental needs to be calculated, to avoid having to stress at the last minute that we didn't plan enough time.

Over the years, I've found that this meticulous planning helps me have a relaxing but interesting vacation.

Are you in the infamous Paris Planner?

PP you replied to. I am FROM Paris, so no, I don't schedule anything when I go there, because that's my hometown. And I don't spend enough time on the Travel Forum to know who you're referring to.

Why are you and another poster so rude?