Planning or ruining a vacation?
 

It seems people are taking their business skills and applying them to personal trips. Itineraries seem to mimic meeting schedulers and trip reports contain details that only a micromanaging boss would appreciate.

Are we desiccating our vacations and removing the spontaneity and joy from them?

Dessicating?

Well, I suppose if we're planning a desert trek.

Please note the following defintions:


American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source des¡¤ic¡¤cate (d¨§s'ĭ-k¨¡t') Pronunciation Key
v. des¡¤ic¡¤cat¡¤ed, des¡¤ic¡¤cat¡¤ing, des¡¤ic¡¤cates

v. tr.

To dry out thoroughly.
To preserve (foods) by removing the moisture. See Synonyms at dry.
To make dry, dull, or lifeless.

StCirq has a dry sense of humour.

I agree, Aduchamp. I like to have a loose itinerary, but it seems many people have a minute by minute schedule. To me, that leaves room for disappointment if you don't get to see everything on your list. I just like to make a list of what I want to see or do and check it off as I do them, with a little route planning for efficiency's sake.

Hi A,

I spend a lot of time planning my visits.

I derive a good deal of pleasure from having a nice, detailed itinerary.

Once, I'm on the ground, however, I don't necessarily stick to the plan. :)

((I))

If you don't want to do that, don't do it. Why do you care what other people choose to do?

"It seems people are taking their business skills and applying them to personal trips."

Why wouldn't a person take his or her business skills and apply them to his or her personal trip? If you are an organizational genius, why wouldn't you use that skill in planning your vacation?

Different types of trips call for different levels of organization. If I book 4 days at an all inclusive beach resort, pretty much all I plan is the plane ticket and the resort. I would have planned such a trip because I wanted/needed a lot of down time.

But let's say you are planning a trip to Florence. The major museums are closed on Mondays. Some things are closed on the first, third and fifth Sundays of the month. Other things are only open until 2 pm. If you don't plan a trip to Florence in detail, you're likely to not see much of what you want to see.

At Disneyworld, guests staying at their resort hotels can make their meal reservations 180 days in advance....and LOTS of people do...some folks call the afternoon of the 180th day and the restaurant they want is already fully booked. If you DON'T plan a trip like that in detail, you're likely to be eating burgers and chicken fingers all week.

I will tell you that one reason our trip to Barcelona was so fabulous is that I had not only collected a long list of recommended restaurants, but I had plotted them all on a map. That way, whereever we were at meal time, I could look at my map and find 3 or 4 highly recommended restaurants. That is an instance where planning (some would say in the extreme) allowed us to be rather spontaneous, with great results.

I don't plan my trips in that way, but it certainly doesn't worry me in the least if others do. That's probably how they like to do it and good for them.

I do plan a few dinners if I think I might need a reservation.

Not sure where the "we" fits into the equation. I do it this way; she does it that way; he does it another way.

Agreed that to get the most for your money, why wouldn't you want to do some advance planning?? It's all about one's personality, though. I have never been the type to travel without an itinerary or reservations. Who knows, I might like it, but one of my favorite parts of travel is creating (and revising and revising again, etc...) the itinerary. I do not have a "micromanaging" husband, but he sure appreciates the time and effort I put in to planning our vacations!

missypie-LOVE that you mapped out restaurants in advance of your trip. I am glad I'm not the only one who puts food high on the travel agenda!

Missypie, that's a fantastic idea. I wouldn't consider that planning is a rigid sense, but planning in a preparedness sense.

My map was the result of many mediocre and even bad meals in Italy. In Rome, I had gathered lots of restaurant recommendations, but then at meal time, I'd look at my materials and the description I'd cut and pasted would say something like "three blocks away from the Piazza Navona." There were about a dozen streets coming off the Piazza Navona, and we could have wandered for hours looking for all of the places three blocks away. My list of Rome restaurants was pretty useless.

I vowed that in future trips, I would try to find every recommended restaurant on a map. If I can't get an exact address for a restaurant, it comes off the list. If the restaurant is not near any place we plan to be, it comes off the list.

I think the OP should realize that for some, "joy" can easily come in the most UNspontaneous situations. Perhaps the OP's post itself is a good example.

It just makes sense to plan ahead and the internet is such a wonderful tool, it's crazy not to use it to it's advantage. Of course, it could get crazy but some people like crazy.

I don’t want to get to a museum I’ve been planning on and find out an exhibit I would have loved to see , just closed the day before. A well planned agenda is a joy. Micromanaging is just stress.

I intentionally over plan because I like to stay busy. But I'm comfortable letting go of things and trusting that if it's important, I'll be back.

I like to tell people that I plan as much as I do so I know what I'm missing once I arrive.

Wow,

I plan my trips with significant detail. My brother-in-law and I are the planning type; we travel often with my husband and sister, and they literally do no trip preparation -it's a wonder they are not married to each other. I do all of the research in advance, and plan out detailed suggested itineraries. In order to make DH and little sis make some decisions, I send them the itineraries (with hyperlinked info)and force them to review, submit comments, and answer any questions I may have; that way, I avoid most of the complaining on the trip.

I'm a lawyer, and you bet I apply my business skills to my trip. (E-mail and memos are sometimes the only way DH and little sis will focus!) But, the difference is this: I totally enjoy every minute I spend researching and plotting out my travel plans. It gives me a break from the stress of the "real world" (like right now), and it reminds me why I work in the first place. I have suggested itineraries for vacations we probably won't take before 2010...

Yes, I literally plan every vacation day; when you have limited vacation time, you make the most of it. I am happy to say, on many an occassion, we have thrown our itineraries to the wind, sat back, and smelled the travel roses. But, I can safely say, I usually know what I am missing!

LOL stevefrat - too true.

I love the planning and the research, and like to have all the closing dates and times, directions, etc noted.

But, I don't plan the trip minute by minute. I just know what I can do and when, and have no problem throwing something out if needed. Or adding something that just looks grand!

But by planning this way, especially for trips where I might not be able to return, at least I don't miss something just because of ignorance or poor planning.

Of course, the friend who dated a guy who did plan every minute, and then laminated his itineraries, may be an example of "gone too far."

I also love to READ all the details in trip reports - not only may it save me time having to find those details for our trip, but it gives me a more vivid picture of the trip!

There are two sides to this coin: planning can result in cramming too much stuff in, but it can also help you cram a lot of stuff OUT.

For instance, I'm a walking tour kind of guy. I like to collate the advice of as many sources as possible into my routes, which I plot out on a map, turn by turn. I do this partly because I'm a crazy person, and plotting out routes on a map is my primary pleasure in life!

But also for this reason: I have gone walking in areas without a plan, and made myself miserable with the wrong ways and wrong turns.

Specific example: London. Once you have wasted three days walking past every tunnel vent, parking garage entrance, and the rears of soulless 90s office towers, while missing the dozens of Christopher Wren churches, Georgian terraces, and medieval guild houses that are just one block over, you'll make a plan next time.

Of course I'm not locked into it; I can stop and vegetate in a cafe or pub if I get tired, and walking routes can be thrown over at a glance if something interesting appears. But if I've done my research, that interesting thing is probably already marked.

If it's too much, I stop.

I think the OP was in part, referring to the tendancy of some to 'overplan' their trip. For example,I have seen some posters list their intinerary down to the hour, including which restaurant they will have lunch and dinner at. I think this takes away from the spontaneity of travelling - when you've 'scheduled' every moment you may miss out on the unexpected, or the new, which could be wonderful. I am a planner and a very organized person by nature. I love to research and plan my trip activities, this is part of the fun for me. But I never schedule out an entire vacation or even a day. My daily life is scheduled to the moment, travel (for me) is to get away from all of that.