I LOVE PLANNIING!
There ive said it and I'm not ashamed!
The thrill of anticipation is half the fun for me and I also like getting good value.
Gone are the days when if you waited until the last minute you could pick up a bargain. Nowerdays it pays to book early if you want a cheap flight going from the airport and at the time you want it. There are cheap flights available but they are mostly from London airports which are not convenient for us.
Having said that once my flight is sorted I do like to 'wing 'it on the accomodation front if I'm visiting the USA, as there are always loads of hotels to choose from and you seem to have more tourist offices to help.
the only time we came 'unstuck' was when we visited Florida in March and didnt realise it was the colleges spring break. For us it was 'low season' so we though it would be the same there but had a nasty shock when we arrived in Tampa to find there was 'no room at the Inn'!
We ended up staying in a very expensive airport hotel for the first night and then throwing ourselves on our friends mercy until the break was over. In that case a bit of planning and local knowledge would have saved us a lot of trouble.
Heres a thought, if it wasnt for planners like me we wouldnt have a great site like fodors and I wouldnt have got to know so many wonderful people.
Keep on plannin!
CM

We're with you 100% Donna.

Our planning amounts to setting the arrival and departure dates and having our hire-car teed up. With rare exceptions (see a recent note of mine on this thread concerning the French), such as when we have a late afternoon arrival, we might also have our first night's accommodation confirmed.

After that, it's all left to chance and whim. We do not have a guidebook, preferring to be guided as to what to see and do by the real experts, namely the local people we are staying with at any given time.

We make a point of hanging over garden fences and talking to whoever is on the other side, chatting to people on the street, at bus-stops, on public transport etc, frequenting lower-class eating establishments and so on. And we never come away from a trip with a list "wish-we-had-seens". But we might have a little list of email addresses, so we can keep in contact at Xmas time.

Harzer

DonnaD44, wandering aimlessly has its time and place, but a steady diet of it will often give you travel indigestion.

For every couple who turns right and finds that cute little charming street with the wonderful little shops, another turns left and gets lost in a maze of boring, post-WWII housing tracts.

I've seen too many people waste time and money standing on the sidewalk on day one with a lousy map in thier hands and no idea what thier options are for that location. Then you talk to the ones who go all the way across town and the musuem they had always wanted to visit is closed that day....

In a way I sort of admire the people who mention that they do no planning and just follow their whims. It has even been said that as a result they never come home with a "wish we had seen that" list. Of course not. If you never found out what there was to see there that you missed, you couldn't regret having missed it. Ignorance is bliss. By not planning you will miss a lot, but then you won't know you've missed it, so who cares?

If you didn't know that the David was in Florence, or that the sunset over the caldera was to the west of Santorini, and instead you spent your time there chatting inside bars and restaurants with locals, then fine. You had a good time and fortunately you'll never regret having missed David or the sunset because you don't even know they exist.

Who is David and what does he usually chat about? I'd like to met more locals.

The more you know before you go the more spontaneous you can afford to be while there.

Hi Donna,

>Why is it that so many Fodorites and travelers in general are obsessed with planning out virtually every detail of their trip before they ever leave the house.<

Because that way we can be more spontaneous when we get there.

I am currently planning a motor trip through France for September, 2005.

Because I have so much time to plan, I have found at least 4 places to visit that I hadn't known about at all.

I don't have to stick to my plan, in fact I rarely do, but without planning ahead I wouldn't know what is necessary and what can be skipped.

Wow, lots of thoughtful opinions on this one. And I certainly agree with those who do a lot of reading about the areas they will visit--I do that too, so I feel familiar with a place before I get there. Of course, I always have flights, a house or hotel and a car rental lined up too, but my real issue is with the fine details.
I think my point revolves around comments I've seen on this site like "where can I get the best deal on a scarf in Paris?" etc. and then imagining that poor person, nose down in a map looking for a shop while totally missing whatever else there is to be seen. Or those folks who make dinner reservations for every night of their vacations based on the travel guide number of stars.
Finding tiny, out of the way restaurants with one's nose is still the best way to enjoy a good meal, in my opinion.

I think you're making a false assumption that people gather information here and then use it to make a minute-by-minute intinerary and never waiver from that, come hell or high water. But for what I'm sure is a vast majority, that simply isn't true. We just like to know all that is available to choose from, and which days some of the things are not open, then we can decide which activities to group together based on location and see how we feel each day of our trip.

As an example, I've now been to Paris twice but somehow never learned in advance about or stumbled upon the "Passages". I've since read degas' wonderful walks encompassing the Passages and can't wait to explore them on my next trip there. Had I not done this planning, I might never know about them. Of course, I wouldn't miss it, but I'd rather know and choose to skip something than miss it by chance.

Also, you mention restaurant reservations. The people who never leave any openings in their schedules for discovering that quaint little place to enjoy a meal may indeed be missing something. But there are many (and I don't include myself in this group) who truly enjoy fine dining in the most popular, high-end restaurants and consider this one of the most important aspects of their travels. Someone in this group must make reservations well ahead of time for those restaurants, as they are very popular and cannot be "stumbled upon" very frequently.

Anyway, it's good we're not all the same, or all the places we like to go would be waaaaay too crowded! :D

Hi Donna--I did not read all the answers to your post, but I agree with you about liking to just find things, "Finding tiny, out of the way restaurants with one's nose" is how we pick almost all the places we eat. This topic was addressed before here if you want to read other posts.... http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34512977

With Degas' other thread on this, I got to 'thinkin'. I'm not so much a PLANNER but a voracious reader. Then, armed with what I know, I can go with the flow that suits me... I figure I know helpful things that other's have done that might amuse me. On the plane over I entertain myself with "guide books" and maps. And its there I make a sort of agenda...like, on the sunniest morning you're there, go to St. Chapelle.
I cram a lot in a trip, which includes trying lots of cafe's and terraces ... its not my "vacation" vacation, a trip to me is part of my life-long self-imposed educational system. A vacation for me to regroup and recoup is at the beach...there I can do my impression of broccoli.

I'm a big planner if I'm headed to a destination I don't already know well. Otherwise, why go? Traveling to Europe is an investment, and I'm not going to waste my hard-earned dollars focusing on walking around aimlessly and chatting with the locals, although both of those activities do occur in most of my trips and can be enjoyable. I, too, read extensively before I go anywhere - then, when I'm there, depending on the weather, my frame of mind, my companions' frames of mind, etc., I may or may not try to visit each and every landmark I've identified as interesting. I hardly ever plan where I'm going to eat, as that would probably curtail my on-the-ground travel style. Maybe if there's a special place I've heard of, but normally I'll choose where to eat on the spot. I almost always book hotels - who wants to spend vacation time driving around popping into hotels and taking the leftover rooms?
I don't think most people who frequent this board are obsessive about their planning, but I do think I know where Donna is coming from. I'm often surprised at questions that people pose here and on other travel boards - like where's a good place to have breakfast on a Tuesday in the 9th arrondissement? THAT level of planning would drive me to distraction! For me, a good deal of the pleasure of traveling is discovery - and if you've got every detail all mapped out ahead of time, there's no room left for discovery.

Originality is all very well, but as with art, a good reproduction of a well-known itinerary is usually a better investment than a bad original. Besides, creativity has often very little to do with spontaneity or with something different every time. (Monet did many, many versions of the same garden scene.)

We leave for Rome/Venice next Friday, my first trip there. I've been planning since January, reading this forum, reviews, etc. I haven't planned every detail, but I've read up on restaurants I might want to try, places to see, etc. I've made reservations for some tours (which have filled up, such as a Scala Reale tour and the Scavi tour, which I never would have known about without the planning). I'm sure things will pop up while we're there, but the planning part for me has been a lot of fun and has kept me really looking forward to the trip, kind of like an escape before I ever even leave. With only 4 days in each city, I wanted to make sure I found out about the "can't miss" things, and find some really good restaurant info, so I'm informed when I get there. It's just part of the experience for me.

I also love to plan, but it`s also an important help for me as I (female) often travel alone and like to know where I will stay and where I will go in advance.

And it is true; if you research carefully you can find so many more interesting things to see or do!

After planning you know what is "on offer"-I never stay with what I planned, but I know exactly what I really want to see and I feel free to do with the rest of my time what I want...