ARKANSASNURSE

Planning a trip to Montauk, for Oct 2005. Also planning and researching for a future trip to Labrador (northeastern Canada) at an undertermined date. I want to go on an iceberg cruise someday. planned the trip to S Dakota for 2 years.

bd

Absolutely! Sometimes I plan for trips we don't get to take, and when someone asks if I've ever been to such-a-place I say "yes", and then realize - no I haven't. I just happen to know all about it!

Sometimes I wonder if the internet is ruining it. Everywhere we go, we pull into town and I've heard of this place, and that hotel, and this restaurant.... No more surprises.

LoveItaly

bd, that is too funny!

jersey

I am a planner, bordering on obsessive. It's not that I like to figure out what we are doing every minute, it's just I like to understand what options are available to me when I arrive there. When we travel to another country I like to know some of the customs of that country so I don't inadvertantly insult the locals. It seems to me that I've seen too many "ugly Americans" in my travels. It always astonishes me to see Americans stomping thru a church, during services, eating and talking loudly. Not to mention dressed inappropriatly. So yea, I research.

JulieR

I spend months researching the places that we travel to, and my last two vacations have been cancelled, one due to Hurricane Ivan and the other by a impending hotel strike in SF. both within two weeks of one another. They were two conferences for my husbands work and vacation tacked on to it. The New Orleans conference has been rescheduled and we are still thinking of going to SF anyways...but it still is a bummer when you are looking forward to this for months!!

stever

Overplanning RULES! I must have 20 pages of notes for our trip to Hawaii next.... Sept already! I'll know exactly what I want to do and know where to eat. It's great for me to have a plan like this. I'd never know what's some of the best stuff to do, which hotel is exactly what I'm looking for, etc if I didn't have you guys. I LOVE you guys/gals!!!

I'm getting the warm fuzzies. I learned NOT to stay in Hana as there is no A/C from YOU guys! We have to have A/C. Who needs heavy travel books when I have all these notes! I will of course bring one, but you guys update me daily.

Planning is a way of life for me now. This forum is like a travel magazine's "letter to the editor" section every day in my mailbox.

Steve
Maryland

jenny

oh, I love to plan our trips - way ahead of time ! I pore over books, magazines, spend ours on internet, scanning countless websites and all in the warm glow of delicious anticipation ! My DH is just the opposite, waiting for the PLAN. He is happy with what I have done, and I think he enjoys the trips as much as I do. He's just not obsessed with details ! I may have to change my ways. We just had a "rude wake-up call". We are supposed to leave on Tuesday on a thoroughly-planned AZ and NM trip, ending at Sedona 's loveliest, most promising (to me !) B&B to be the grand finale of our trip. We had never been to that part of the country, and we both were full of anticipation , ready to soak in the beauty of it all.
An unexpected, urgent, incapacitating medical problem befell me out of the blue (after I worried about not catching cold, lol!) and we had to cancel the whole trip.
It was a bitter pill to swallow, but made me think maybe it is time for me to re-think my methods. More spontaneity, go-with-the-flow-, let's see where it takes us mentality....? It hurts inside, to have the plans come crashing down; and it hurts on the outside, in the pocketbook. As you know, most B&B type of places have stricter cancellation policies :15 days, deposit half of your rates - in our case 4 nights (ouch !), non-refundable unless they can re-book the room).
Some of you have experienced the same type of change in plans. What did you do to protect yourself more - insurance comes to mind - and did you change your ways ??? Does it work ?!
Thanks for listening to me, I needed to vent !
P.S. I am doing better, but still not in shape to tackle airports, hotels, restaurants, trails, the wear and tear of it all. My own corner of the world looks just great to me.

emd

Oh my gosh, are you kidding? Of course I spend more time on trips than the trip itself takes. I plan all kinds of trips, but the big granddaddy of them all so far is a 2 wk trip to Japan w/my 14 yr old son next March. I have been planning for 7 months already, so it will be a year by the time we go. It took that long as I had to get our free frequest flyer tickets like 320 days ahead of time (thanks to posters on the Asia board, I knew this and got up at midnight the first day I coudl get the FF reservations and I got them!), and Starwood hotel free nights on points had to be booked very early also. I pour over Asia board posts here and on another forum, print out many of them on Japan (all sorts of subjects like trains info, eating, sights, hotels, timetables, money/yen issues, public baths, on and on- all things totally foreign to me when I started planning. Now I am much more comfortable that we can do this, and the itinerary is starting to take shape, and I am starting to understand the Japanese rail pass and train/bus/subway sytstem. But we are talking a year of planning! We read books and watch films relating to Japan, my son is taking Japanese in school, and I am starting to feel like I know some of the people on the Asia board. I enjoy giving it back and answering questions that come up. Even though we haven't gone yet, I have this big set of manilla folders for each subject (eg: Rail Pass Info; Getting from Narita Airport to the Hotel; Hakone sights; ATMs, Sumo, Japanese baseball games, etc.) and when questions come up I can at least steer the person to what posts and resources to look at as I have them printed out. This is pleasurable for me, a big stress relief and way to focus some attn. on a good goal w/my son. It will help us maximize our time there, not that we will be overplanned, but we will know what we want to see, have the right reservations, know what time the trains leave to go where we will be going, and not spend alot of time figuring out that stuff while in the country. It's worth it for me. I coudl not just go to Japan and figure it all out when we got there- that would make for a stressful trip for us, and we'd be lost.

nibblette

Absolutely, yes! And I discovered fodors and the forum site during one of my internet researchs.
The planning helps build the excitement and anticipation. Also helps prevent some little bloops (like avoiding taxi scams). Don't usually plan out tight itineraries but research to allow for flexibility.
Used to be more spontaneous with trips but discovered that we would accidentally miss something really wonderful nearby because we didn't know it was there. Also found that just having guidebooks is not enough. Have gotten lots of great info from other places (including here).
Have to say honestly that the planning and researching of trips has become a hobby.

jenny

emd , I'm so impressed by your planning. You put a lot of time and effort into it, but it must be very rewarding.
You'll have a great trip ! Enjoy and report back, please.

radiofanatic

But of course! That's half the fun of a trip! I plan for weeks/months to get the best deal. Once we decide where to go, my hubby and I spend a day at a bookstore coffee shop going through tons of books getting ideas out of them, writing itineraries and walking tours down and buying 1 or 2 of the best books for the trip. That adds just more time for the fun!

Dreamer2

My brother thinks I'm insane. When our kids were little and we took our first trip to DisneyWorld, I was absolutley obsessed to do things on the right days and at the right times to avoid lines. He and his wife were going to join us for one day (they live in the Ft. Lauderdale area), so I mailed him my planned itinerary so he could pick which day. He was laughing hysterically, and quoting things like: "Tues., 9:15-9:45, leave Thunder Mt. RR and proceed to Haunted Mansion. En route, leave name at Diamond Horseshoe Review for early lunch table." I even had alternate rides/routes planned in case of long lines at any particular attraction. BUT - I got the last laugh, as he admitted he had never visited a Florida amusement park so efficiently and pleasantly!
I even emailed him my Calif itinerary for old times sake this past spring. Just for the record, I'm not QUITE as bad anymore. (But we did have all our tickets for Alactraz, Hearst Castel, Warner Bros studio tour, etc. at least a month in advance!) Okay, so it's a disease...
But there seems to be a lot of us out there with the same affliction!

Ellijay

I certainly do! And when we get home, I move all of our trip photos from my laptop to my desktop, create a slide show screen saver and enjoy for another year! That makes a year planning, two weeks to a month traveling, then a lifetime enjoying!

prettyinpink

I absolutely now what you mean. I do this all the time! When we plan to go to a certain place, I do a lot of research and it's good to know a more than nothing at all about the place we are going to. We have more fun, and everyhting is planned ahead of time. We never get bored. There is just too much to do!!

Jed

I am planning a 3 week trip to New Zealand for 2 couples, and it feels like I will have spent more hours researching the trip than the hours we will be there. It's a good thing I'm retired. My wife says that I am happiest when I am planning a trip, and it keeps me from bothering her.