Last minute travel?
 

My wife and I would like to plan a vacation without planning. My work situation doesn't allow it. Basically, take 5-7 days and go somewhere and make the best of it.

Does anyone have any advice? I can't imagine showing up at the airport and picking a flight is very cost effective. Has anyone ever done this before? I will have a week to a few days notice.
Thanks!

I'd have a couple places in mind, then keep track of plane fares online. I can often get economical flights to Hawaii or Mexico without much notice (from Seattle, for example).

Same principal with hotels, I'd have a short-list of places that sound nice in your budget, and call them direct once you book the flights.

With the internet, even a last minute trip, doesn't have to mean going to the airport without a ticket, or landing in a city without a place to stay.

You can sign up with airlines for weekend specials, as well as with outfits like smartertravel, travelzoo, farefinder etc for weekly emails of near-in specials. I believe you can register at sites like expedia and travelocity to be notified when a particular route goes down in price. I think it's roomstogo that only sells hotel rooms about 10-20 days out, and there are hotwire and priceline. Basically, sign up with any site that offers cheap rates close in.

Thanks for the info. I have a rough list of likely options (the hard part is weeding the list down to a workable size) so I will follow that idea. If anyone has any good stories or issues to watch out for, please let me know.

We've booked two of the last minute packages through Travelocity. One trip was to Boston and another to Atlanta, both were very reasonable.

Another last minute vacation we've done a few times is to take a cruise. We live near one of the ports in south Florida, so there was no transportation issue for us.