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No I dont think I plan much.... I intend to before leaving but I think I enjoy the not knowing and discovery of new places... Last time in Ireland we drove over a bridge and didnt realize we were on an island at first..... what a surprise, it was the beautiful Achill island.. stunning views with interesting history... We're off again soon to another part of Ireland, and again, Ill scoot over the brochures on what to see but really dont want to know..
No. Traveling with a tight itinerary and a scheduled list of stuff to see is an extremely stressful way to travel. When you travel, you have to come to terms with the fact that it will be simply impossible to see all of the sites in the country you're going to, so there's simply no need to be uptight about trying to see everything. A vacation should be just that--a vacation, and not a stress filled journey. You should come back from a vacation more rested than you started.
Let's say you have a week in Rome. Ok, plan one morning for Vatican City/Sistine Chapel. After that just walk around, hit up a nice lunch spot that you didn't find on the internet, and then walk around a little bit more for a late afternoon coffee and pastry while people watching. After that go back for a nap, get up and go out for dinner, followed by a cocktail.
I find also that in almost any country, the most interesting place to visit is the food market. There you really get the culture and atmosphere.
Planning days like that is much much less stressful than traveling like a tourist that has a list like morning 730 AM be in line to get into Sistine Chapel. 1-2 PM lunch. 2-3 PM Spanish Step. 4 PM Trivi fountain. 5 PM eat.
Rinse and repeat in the next city along the way.
One thing I really enjoy is planning trips/holidays/vacations - I'm not one to plan everything to the nth degree, like for instance, on day 9 we will visit the Sistine Chapel at precisely 9am lol, for me, planning is just drawing up a rough itinerary (if self-guided), possible hotels, sights to see, researching a place, watching videos or reading/learning about a place. Even if I'm going somewhere in a month I love to just read/think/plan it a lot ahead, it's kind of like a hobby. I sometimes think I should've been a travel agent but that might take the shine out of it a bit.
Yes, immensely.
They almost never go exactly as planned, though, and I'm fine with that. During my NYC trip in 2007 I wore the shoes I had worn only once before, and they were terribly uncomfortable by the second day. It was a wild goose hunt around the island of Manhattan until I found shoes wide enough. During my Mexico trip in 2011 I planned on visiting about half the country - Yucatan, Tabasco (where my friends live), Chiapas, Oaxaca, Mexico City, Belize. I was going through a hard stage in my life (which was about to get even harder) and ended up depressed in Valladolid for a few days, and then spent 10 days in Merida after I lost my ATM card and had to convince the credit card company to increase the limit on my credit card despite not being an authorized user (my mom tore up my authorized user card with my consent to prevent UNauthorized use by somebody). I only ended up going to the first three destinations on my list, but I think the quality of my trip was far less diminished than the amount of destinations I visited. Heck, I even went to a few destinations that I was not planning on.
I do enjoy planning trips, though, even when I know I most likely won't be able to go.
One thing I really enjoy is planning trips/holidays/vacations - I'm not one to plan everything to the nth degree, like for instance, on day 9 we will visit the Sistine Chapel at precisely 9am lol, for me, planning is just drawing up a rough itinerary (if self-guided), possible hotels, sights to see, researching a place, watching videos or reading/learning about a place. Even if I'm going somewhere in a month I love to just read/think/plan it a lot ahead, it's kind of like a hobby. I sometimes think I should've been a travel agent but that might take the shine out of it a bit.
I am a nerd for research, so yes I do... I like to gather as much info as possible and then wing it based on the weather and how I feel.
Nope. At most I'll make a list of things I want to do and maybe remember to take it with me and check it off as I do them.
Took a 1-year trip around the world, the only planning we did was to buy the outbound tickets and get a general idea of in which direction we'd circulate around each continent. Oh, I did have to make up a fake itinerary with hotel confirmations to get a Schengen visa. That took some annoying planning to make it look convincing, then I had to go cancel all those reservations once I had visa in hand.
The train/bus/boat ride to each destination was time enough to skim a bootlegged travel guide and figure out what we were supposed to see.
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I like to gather as much info as possible and then wing it based on the weather and how I feel.
