>Then I realized that May is so far away that I can't plan very much yet..<

I've been planning a Sept, 2005 trip to France since last February.

I have the same reaction as most on here...cured (or mitigated) in several ways...I keep a detailed journal while im on the road so when i get home I put together a multimedia presenation for my family and interested friends and coworkers using my travel journal and photographs i took. for me that helps, but then like the rest of you, back to the drawing board for the next trip

I definitely have withdrawal but the fodors support group keeps me going between trips.
Am now planning for next year.

It makes me feel so good to read these postings. I thought I was the only one who mourned the end of the holiday research. My last trip to Europe was two years ago. I, with three other women and 4 men, chaperoned a high school band trip. Our husbands call it "The trip that will not die." I console myself by working on a photo/scrapbook album. I continue to research and add the little tidbits of information to the scrapbook as I go along. The darn album almost gives me a hernia every thime I lift it.

I had a friend going to Alaska this summer who knew of my travel planning obsession who asked me to plan her trip and I tried but just couldn't do it. The motivation wasn't there since I wasn't the one taking the fabulous trip!!

I'm with Underhill: planning a trip for a friend can help - my friend and her fiance needed help planning their honeymoon, and so she asked me (as my duty as her bridesmaid) to investigate some hotels and plan an itinerary for Thailand. NOw, I know nothing about Thailand, but I have had some fun with this, going on the Asia board and reading up on it... Plus, all my friends think I am the travel planning expert so it is nice to have people come to you for advice. My most common piece of advice is to come check out fodors.com!

That aside, I am also planning my own honeymoon, but that is much further away (next December) so I haven't done much yet. We are going to Costa Rica, so I have been on the Latin America board hunting around for ideas for that trip too. Never too early to plan....

I love that all these other people "need" to plan, like me!

Another member of Planaholics Anonymous here... going to Italy next week, and with nothing left to plan am already starting on the details for my March trip to Scotland!

What a relief! I thought my constant planning for current/future trips was an addiction with no end in sight! Now I know I'm not alone. It's funny though - there's always a point right before the trip (about 1 week)that I get panicky I don't enough info or way too much and then I calm down and I actually stop planning and the anticipation begins! I leave for Italy in 26 days and I'm already thinking of where my next trip should be (Northern Italy or Sicily are frontrunners but I also really want to go to Peru)

The trip that has been in the works for a year is now 9 weeks away. I'm going thru planning withdrawal now cause I don't really have anything else to plan or research! I just have to sit and wait for 9 weeks to pass.

I am not that much of a planner but after I book airfare, I, to quote Dr. Frankenfurter, "shiver with an...tici...pation".

I start searching airlines right after I return from a trip, I have to have some adventure on the horizon.

you only get withdrawal symptoms... when you stop! so don't stop.

this has been a good year - France & Switzerland in June... 2 wks later San Francisco... London and Rome in November, and 2 wks after that will be Las Vegas... and I am now planning a trip to New Zealand, I think/hope in March.

and not one of these trips was even a glimmer in my eye before April! heck, NZ only started forming less than a week ago... yippee!

Just wondering how many of you would conclude that your travel planning is the most intensive effort you make. Withdrawal certainly suggests you are quite deeply involved with the details. Is there any other endeavor to which you devote equal or greater time, attention and energy? I too like to travel, but I think my effort is much less than what I read here.

>Is there any other endeavor to which you devote equal or greater time, attention and energy?<

Certainly not my job. I spend too much time Fodoring around at work.

Pshhhh.

If only my job gave me the same kind of returns I might devote the same amount of attention to it!

I can relate...we got married in Italy last month. Not only was I planning our trip, but I was planning our wedding there too. I don't know what to do with myself now! I guess I can live through those still looking forward to there upcoming trips to Italy.....We are already planning another trip to the Virgin Islands for March...that message board is DEAD. No one chats there....I like this board much better!!!! Ciao!!

mgfit
Get yourself over to the Australian board - plenty of fun and good advice, as long as you don't take yourself too seriously.
And arrange a vist to Oz while you're at it!

I'm so excited! Already started planning trip to France in May to rent a villa!! I'm back in the saddle again...

I'm wondering if the planning addition is a resut of meeting fodors.com...before discovering this board, I had never put an itinerary together or planned more than three months in advance. Now, I have all of our trips (both big and small...feel sorry for my BF who feigns interest) planned for 2005 as well as ideas for 2006! It's getting out of control, but I love it!

As soon as I finished all the details for our Kauai trip in June 2005 this past September, I started working on Italy for June 2006.
What withdrawls?
What would life be without a trip to look forward to?
-Bill

Glad to see I am not alone.

I am working on a trip to Italy for my family (kids first time abroad) for April 2006.

The CA vacation this winter needs little planning, and cruise in 2005 needs even less.

2006 Italy trip fun though - but I know I can;t talk about it to my family yet - they will think I am nuts.

DH makes me nuts though. Everything OK or fine until day we leave then on the way to the airport he starts with the ctitiqueing of all my choices - why this? why that?

Used to bother me more, now I have learned to say Too Late - you had over a year to say that when I asked and you didn't so be quiet and enjoy!