Isn't it funny how it seems to take FOREVER for your vacation to get here, and then, once on your trip, how QUICKLY it seems to be time to go home? And start planning your next trip? :)

Yes, that is why I have learned to slow down and savor each minute on a trip. No matter what I am doing, even waiting in line, I think, I am waiting in line and I am in.......

Once when our car needed fixing in Naples I sat at the car repair and just savored the insights into their culture.

I have learned to live in the moment and to forget schedules as much as I can.

I love the research about a place. Then I just drop it for about 2 weeks before I go. Sleepless in an airplane, I then re-hash my plans with a carefully chosen guide-book.
But there is nothing like being there...

I have been planning my upcoming trip (43 days away!) to Europe for about 16 months now. I can say that with any vacation, including Vegas even though I have been there about 20 times, I just immerse myself in the planning and love every minute of it. I find that the "possibility" of what I can experience on a trip is very enticing to me. Which usually results in me overplanning and trying to cram in too many things that I could never possibly accomplish.

But since I haven't been on this Europe trip yet I don't know how it will compare. :)

It's so amazing how different my husband and I are as far as planning. Just this past week he finally picked up a guidebook and picked out a few restaurants in Paris he wanted to check out. I told him too bad but I already have reservations for our dinners; you snooze you lose!!! (just kidding, we'll fit in some of his choices too)

I hope I enjoy the trip more than the planning but the planning has been blissful thus far!!!

I don't think of it as planning; I think of it as fantasizing. But better, because I know it will happen. The real thing is great, but the fantasies before and after make the trip last much longer, and they polish and shape the images that last forever.

There was a television show back in the '70s called "The A-team," and the character played by George Peppard used to say, "I love it when a plan comes together."

I enjoy planning.

I enjoy seeing sights and the travel experience, planned or unplanned. Spur of the moment stuff is great.

But nothing beats the feeling when something that you planned long in advance, based on perhaps less than perfect information, or perhaps with some trepidation, works out better than you had expected.

amydelta
The anticipation is great, but it is the trip that makes all the research fun and worth it. Even our worst trip -- made worse only because we were both sick the whole time -- was good. We still saw what we wanted to see and sat in cafes. Only that time we mostly drank hot tea and orange juice :-)

Sandy

It's all good. Given the choice of planning a trip that I can't take, or taking a trip that I can't plan, I'd probably take the trip. So, I guess that means I value the trip itself over the planning.

But that's not to say I don't enjoy planning in and of itself. I'll even plan family members' trips just for fun.

Edited to add: I'm not much on the post-trip experience. I take a lot of pictures, but I don't bother to take notes, or write trip reports, etc. Instead of re-living a past trip I just plan another new one, even if its to the same old place.

I love both, for different reasons.

I HAVE to plan out the details for most of of our trips, especially the big, special ones. I like to know where we're staying, have restaurant recommendations and have a general idea of what's in the area that's going to interest us. I do tend to get really caught up in the planning aspect, and consequently drive my husband nuts.

That being said, when you're still planning, everything is still "perfect." You haven't had a bad meal, a hard bed or a rainy day. Everything is still new and full of possibilities. Every lodging or site is at its greatest potential.

That being said, you can enjoy that feeling, but then you must quickly surrender it the moment you leave your house. The trip won't be perfect and you will likely have a bad meal, a hard bed and get caught in a downpour and have your afternoon plans thrown out the window. But even though the "reality" can marr the perfect view you had, it's what it makes that place real and creates true memories in your mind. And, as some have said, some of the best stories.

So I love both - planning and the anticipation and trying to sleep the night before is my "pre-vacation," but it's the same vacation I take every year and I have no memory of it. It's the actual vacation itself that lives on in my mind.

When I first started going overseas, the anticipation was big. Now I get so annoyed planning & preparing for the trip, I end up wishing that I was just staying home. Then once I'm there, I have a blast & want to stay longer!

I much much much prefer the trip itself. What you call "anticipation" for me is merely anxiety.