Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I plan detailed itineraries so that I don’t have to research or make decisions during the trip. I find it more relaxing that way. Plus the planning is half the fun for me. If we don’t feel like eating out one night bc we’re too tired, we just cancel the dinner reservation. Better than not having a reservation and having to wait for two hours to get a table somewhere, or to waste a meal on something mediocre. I find that it never hurts to have a plan, as long as you remain flexible enough to ditch the plans if they no longer make sense.

Yes! 100%

+1

We just returned from a trip to San Diego. We had 5 days. One day (Sea world) I bought tickets in advance. The other days I had 4 activities (one per day) I wanted to do and we just decided the night before which to do - so there was a plan but it was loose. I really want to be in the pool playing mermaid with my kids and not having everyone melt down and look at me at dinner so I like agreeing we’re either doing something like Panera or having a reservation. I didn’t book a few things in advance the year I went to Hawaii and ended up not being able to do them which made me sad.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I plan detailed itineraries so that I don’t have to research or make decisions during the trip. I find it more relaxing that way. Plus the planning is half the fun for me. If we don’t feel like eating out one night bc we’re too tired, we just cancel the dinner reservation. Better than not having a reservation and having to wait for two hours to get a table somewhere, or to waste a meal on something mediocre. I find that it never hurts to have a plan, as long as you remain flexible enough to ditch the plans if they no longer make sense.

Yes! 100%

Agreed. I enjoy travel planning before I leave, but that is different from being too scheduled during a trip. I like to know what is possible, identify things that our family might be interested in doing, restaurants we might want to eat at (figure out if we need reservations, distance from hotel etc). I find this approach works well when we travel as a group and it makes the actual traveling more enjoyable. I'm informed about my location, we have scheduled what we want to see in a timeframe that works best for the group, but we have time to adjust and be spontaneous.

A few years ago we did a family trip (I wasn't part of the organizing team) after day two when we showed up at a museum we all wanted to visit (and it was a long train ride from our hotel) on a Monday only to find it was closed on Mondays and tuesdays I stopped leaving things to chance. It was such an easy thing to confirm before we made the long journey - she is a traveler who likes to wing things, which works fine if you are a small group or a solo traveler but it was a reminder for me that having a loose itinerary is very easy to compile.

Anonymous wrote:I plan detailed itineraries so that I don’t have to research or make decisions during the trip. I find it more relaxing that way. Plus the planning is half the fun for me. If we don’t feel like eating out one night bc we’re too tired, we just cancel the dinner reservation. Better than not having a reservation and having to wait for two hours to get a table somewhere, or to waste a meal on something mediocre. I find that it never hurts to have a plan, as long as you remain flexible enough to ditch the plans if they no longer make sense.

Yes! 100%

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine is planned out. What i personally hate on vacation is making decisions. What should we do today, when do we need to leave that spot, what are some options for supper, etc etc etc.

Yes, sometimes my plan for supper is "walk to main street square nd find a spot there" but what I want to avoid is searching on Google recommendations for spots.

I've also found that the hour by hour plannign helps ME because otherwise i underestimate how long the transition time stuff will take. Blocking it all out to "paper" makes sure that we have time to do what we want. We also though take more of a "sampling" approach to site-seeing where I'll allot a few hours to a thing vs "stay until we are sick of it".

How do you cope when it pours with rain on your scheduled beach day or your kid starts throwing up on a certain restaurant day? What kind of destinations are you visiting?

I have contingency plans for stuff that would be outside normally. And obviously if a kid is sick then that takes priority (duh). We've done this for Disney & Universal, for Germany (combo of cities and towns) and most recently to visit Italy (likewise, combo of cities & seeing some towns in the Dolomites). I definitely pre-buy any tickets that can be pre-bought so ensure we have the time slot we want, that they don't run out of openings, and that we don't have to spend long amts of time in line.

I was an intense vacation planner until I ment DH. We don't plan anything and the vacations are so much more relaxing, enjoyable and educational.

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.

^ is how I like to travel as well, be informed about my location, ensure I'm not missing out on something I'd really like to do because it needed advance reservations and everyone gets a say it what is planned. We have down time and flexible schedules but things like hotels, flights are scheduled in advance. Meals are only scheduled if its something special or we are traveling over Christmas when things can be closed. If there is a museum I really want to see and hours/days are limited and you need a timed reservation then I'm going to ensure that's done ahead. Most meals are done on the fly and folks can stay back if they aren't interested. To OP: If I was traveling with a group of friends, I'd want to make my needs/interests were also being considered. Or at least it wouldn't be an issue to pass on something. If you don't have the conversation before you leave, its not going to be better when you are traveling.

Anonymous wrote:Our family rents a beach house. So there is no itinerary. Other than the women cook, clean and watch the kids. The men sit and drink. Just like at home.

That’s not a vacation. Meals should be sandwiches on paper plates, eating out/delivery, or if the men want home-cooking, they can do it themselves.

I plan detailed itineraries so that I don’t have to research or make decisions during the trip. I find it more relaxing that way. Plus the planning is half the fun for me. If we don’t feel like eating out one night bc we’re too tired, we just cancel the dinner reservation. Better than not having a reservation and having to wait for two hours to get a table somewhere, or to waste a meal on something mediocre. I find that it never hurts to have a plan, as long as you remain flexible enough to ditch the plans if they no longer make sense.

Anonymous wrote:Depends where you go and who you're with. If u went with a bunch of girlfriends to Asia I'd provably plan to the hilt too and I'm actualLY Asian and know what's happening there you can always change plans but it's good to make them esp if you're off to a foreign universe which many parts of Asia should be considered as. It's just very different for the typical American if not well travelled.

I often plan things to infinity even with my family when we go abroad with at least one activity per day but I leave a day free and I don't always have places to eat planned out.

I'm a planner though DH more like you but I say at least have a plan so you have a Plan B

The best meals we had in Japan were at places we found by chance walking by. The best time we had was after our flight was cancelled giving us an extra day. We found ourselves in a city off the tourist circuit and attended a tea ceremony at a small arts festival - that was a happy accident.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine is planned out. What i personally hate on vacation is making decisions. What should we do today, when do we need to leave that spot, what are some options for supper, etc etc etc.

Yes, sometimes my plan for supper is "walk to main street square nd find a spot there" but what I want to avoid is searching on Google recommendations for spots.

I've also found that the hour by hour plannign helps ME because otherwise i underestimate how long the transition time stuff will take. Blocking it all out to "paper" makes sure that we have time to do what we want. We also though take more of a "sampling" approach to site-seeing where I'll allot a few hours to a thing vs "stay until we are sick of it".

How do you cope when it pours with rain on your scheduled beach day or your kid starts throwing up on a certain restaurant day? What kind of destinations are you visiting?

DP. How do you not know what you're doing? I Jean on holiday 1/2 way around the world how do you approach daily activities? Do you just have a bunch of things on a list you want to do and hope to find time for them? I'm totally opposite of your perspective sorry!

To answer your question I always leave 1-2 days free. Shopping, relaxing, etc. I can always take that as the rain day for something if needed and swap it out.

Otherwise, how do you actually decide what to do???

I spent 4 months Eurailing around Europe not knowing where I'd be staying and it worked out. I met people along the way and altered my schedule sometimes to travel or stay with them. That was pre-internet and I had my trusty Let's Go Europe and chose activities from that or from suggestions from locals. I did things I could never have planned for.

I was in England a couple of weeks ago. We had a fine time. Visited well known sites and also happened upon other places we'd never heard of before by accident. We booked centrally located accommodation and could go in whatever direction we wanted. We had a couple of guidebooks downloaded to get an idea of the region. We took restaurant suggestions from the hotel owner. We did lots of walks and bird watching, and went to pubs and historical sites. We sat on a beach of stones and stared out at the ships. When we'd had enough for the day we returned to the b&b for rest and reading.

To answer your question, we don't try to do everything. Just as I can't read every book in the library and can't watch every TV series on every streaming service, I realize I can't see every church, museum, beach, mountain, palace etc in the world, so I choose a few things and am happy with that. I guess we're older, and it's not our first or hopefully last time visiting these places.

Likewise here in DC, we go down to a museum, see an exhibition or two and go home, happy with that experience without having to visit every Smithsonian. I do see tourist families being herded around every museum and monument as if they'll never have another chance to see them again. The kids don't always seem thrilled.

No. We book things we know we want to do and will do some research ahead of time so we can make plans if we need to. Otherwise we just love to walk and wander and discover things. Even with DS we've found having a rough itinerary is more fun than having things set in stone. We hate being tied to set itineraries. But we also travel a ton and I think that helps.

The only things on my itinerary:

1. Flights and hotel info

2. Anything requiring a ticket, tour guide/driver (eg: sporting event, show, chartered boat, etc).

I rarely make reservations for meals ahead of time. We need the flexibility. If I make a special lunch or dinner reservation, then I build in lots of flexibility for the rest of the day.

Fwiw, our best vacations are the ones where we wing it. Luckily, I’m good at having a loose plan and pivoting when necessary.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine is planned out. What i personally hate on vacation is making decisions. What should we do today, when do we need to leave that spot, what are some options for supper, etc etc etc.

Yes, sometimes my plan for supper is "walk to main street square nd find a spot there" but what I want to avoid is searching on Google recommendations for spots.

I've also found that the hour by hour plannign helps ME because otherwise i underestimate how long the transition time stuff will take. Blocking it all out to "paper" makes sure that we have time to do what we want. We also though take more of a "sampling" approach to site-seeing where I'll allot a few hours to a thing vs "stay until we are sick of it".

How do you cope when it pours with rain on your scheduled beach day or your kid starts throwing up on a certain restaurant day? What kind of destinations are you visiting?

DP. How do you not know what you're doing? I Jean on holiday 1/2 way around the world how do you approach daily activities? Do you just have a bunch of things on a list you want to do and hope to find time for them? I'm totally opposite of your perspective sorry!

To answer your question I always leave 1-2 days free. Shopping, relaxing, etc. I can always take that as the rain day for something if needed and swap it out.

Otherwise, how do you actually decide what to do???