LaRee1L

Are you a fly by the seat of your pants traveler, a planner, do you make all of your reservations ahead of time and make sure you get to that hotel/motel, are you on a budget or opt for 4 and 5 star lodging and restaurants, go to only the places you planned on going or make unexpected stops? -Anyway, that's the gist of my question.

When I worked vacations were get from point A to point B and back again and see a few pre-planned sites. Now that I am retired I have no time restrictions and will plan out a basic itinerary, stop whenever I see something that catches my interest, take my chances on getting lodging when I'm ready to stop for the night and prefer eating at local restaurants versus chain restaurants. My favorite time to travel is spring and fall, traveling in the British Isles is my favorite destination outside of the US and love using a British Rail Pass to go all over (wish we had a rail system like they do there or like in Germany) and cruises. Most fun though is on road trips.

Anyhow, that's my question - just wondering.

schnauzer

I am a planner, definately. Do hours and hours of research on the net, fodors and from library books. Book accommodation all in advance, don't want to miss out on that "perfect" hotel. (which of course sometimes turns out to be not so perfect!) Pick couple of restaurants from recommendations and find the rest ourselves at the time. Would never eat at a chain restaurant. Happy to change tack if something takes our fancy but like to try and see what I had orginally planned for. Always make my own plans,never use travel agency or tour groups.

Certainly felt our last trip to Europe was enhanced by recommendations from this site. (thanks Fodorites).

An independant organised traveller is how I would describe myself. Schnauzer

SAnParis

Both - We plan way in advance mainly to save $$. I do the majority of the planning & choose the destinations that I then 'sell' to my spouse. lol...but, we always leave days open to alter our plans & we really don't plan things to do specifically. We have a general idea of what we would like to do or see, if it happens fine, if not, that's OK too. I do like to know I have a place to sleep (particularly when traveling w/our children) & that they will have sufficient sleeping arrangements. Since we mainly go w/apartments & cottages now, there is probably a little more planning ahead required, than when it was just the two of us.

tovarich

We're retired so we also have the time to plan our US tours. We start from a general idea and then start visiting the library ,checking out guide books. A lot is done via internet which saves a lot of writing and waiting. We book our flight, reserve our rental car and take the necessary insurance. The majority of the hotels are booked via internet also some trolley tours and tickets for Biltmore and Monticello. We leave on Monday 9/11 for our Southeast tour starting in Washington DC.Greetings from Belgium.Paul

OO

We are the reverse of you LaRee...we traveled by the seat of our pants when we were younger, and now plan way in advance and have places reserved for trips.

One trip in particular taught us a lesson on planning--one I've never forgotten. Traveling with a 2 year old and an 8 month old, we visited with my parents in the Berkshires, then took off for the Cape on an August weekend. We thought we'd made reservations that day with a Holiday Inn in P'town, but got there that evening only to learn their reservation system had been down for days. There wasn't a room to be had between there and Harwich, with two little ones and all four of us worn out. Ugh.

Now we know how, when and where we'll be. Some of our best trips have been thoroughly researched...the best for all of us was a trip to Bermuda where I had worked out the best of the snorkeling beaches and places to hit on the way to or from our beaches for each day we were there. It was perfect, and still remembered by the 4 of us as the best of our family vacations.

Europe and UK I'm even more inclined to plan, although we winged it two nights in the UK, one in the Cotswalds and one in the Lake District with OK results. One of our planned nights in Wales was the worst of the worst accommodations, but sort of fun in it's badness, from the mirrored bookcase headboard with clocks on either end, both reading different times, all very 70's decor, to the power that would go out if you used both the hairdryer and TV at the same time. Fun memory.

Because of my husband's job, our hotels in large cities are gratis and either 4 or 5*, but that place in Snowdonia has far more fun memories than the Carlton Tower in London.

Day activities are generally planned or we'd never get out of the hotel trying to decide what we wanted to do, but I never plan the restaurants and in truth, if I had my way (and I don't ) I'd probably skip meals in order to see and do more. What meals we do have however, (and my DH manages to work in an average of 2.5 on the road) are never chains, not here at home, nor anywhere else.

Statia

I'm in the both category. I research and plan a lot beforehand and I like to have an itinerary just as something to go by to ensure we don't miss any important things we want to see or do. However, once we arrive at our destination I don't necessarily expect to stick with our plan to the letter and we do a lot of spontaneous things, as well. One thing I don't care for on vacation is to have to meet any reservations or appointments. It just doesn't seem like vacation when we have to be somewhere at a specific time since we tend to kind of go with the flow each day.

starrsville

Both.

Suerich68

I think that asking a question like yours on a travel forum is a bit weighted - the people who read these posts are, for the most part, planning trips down to the last detail.

beach_dweller

Plan the basic logistics pretty carefully and well in advance: lodging & travel (plane, car).

Do a lot of reading about the place, the possibilities. Get specific recommendations of things to do, places to see, restaurants to try from fodorites & other friends who've been there.

But where we have evolved over the last few trips is to be very, very free about what we do and see (within the framework of where our B&B reservations put us for a specific period of time). We take possibilities with us and then just see how we feel when we get there, and see how things turn out. That makes it more like an adventure and a real vacation.

marleneawe

DH and I are retired. I do all the planning and spend hours and hours here on the internet, send for travel books, brochures, sit for hours and read and pick out what DH and I would be interested in. Make up my itinerary, make needed advanced reservations mostly online. We usually just wing it for motels, never have had a problem, as we do not know from one day to the next just how far we will get. Not a 5 star motel type people. Usually do Comfort Inns or Motel 6. Never have had a bad one. And on our trip through Canada going to Alaska we had alot of small mom/pop motels that were just as nice as the expensive ones. We do not rush, if we see something that looks interesting we do it, our made up Itinerary is just a guide line, to be adjusted as needed. No rush.

kureiff

We had a couple of bad trips because neither my husband nor myself did much planning. We spent a lot of time trying to decide what to do and not knowing what the options were and eating some okay but not great food. We missed seeing a couple museums that we really wanted to see in Paris and Florence because neither one of us checked to see what days the museums would be closed.

Now I do a lot of research on our destination. Husband still doesn't do much research but relies on me.

We don't have a set itinerary, but I want to know what our options are for activities and I want to know what restuarants are good and close to each activity.

fromMA

Both here too. I do enormous amounts of planning before a big trip. I compare the result to when you were in collage and actually studied for a big test...you look at the questions and say to yourself " hey I know this"!!!To me its a great feeling getting to somewhere and theres a certain familarity with it...it certainally doesnt take away from the excitement. That being said, I always keep some days totally unplanned so I can do something that looks intriging. Different strokes for different folks

J_Correa

I am definitely a planner. I read a lot while in the planning stages - make notations in guidebooks, create a spread sheet with an itinerary, budget, and lists of restaurants and sights to see. I make all hotel reservations before the trip - I like to know where we are going when we get into town and I don't like to spend valuable vacation time looking for a hotel. I also research restaurants ahead of time so I have a list of good candidates for meals.

For planning the itinerary, I generally keep that rather loose - maybe 1 activity planned per day and then a list of other things we could do. Or sometimes I just bring the list to breakfast and say "Here are the options, what do you feel like doing today?"

We travel on the budget end of things, but not bargain basement budget. One of the reasons to plan ahead - to find the good hotels with the nice rates

GailLK

Also a PLANNER and prefer to stay in 4 or 5 star hotels, especially if I can get a great rate. But I'm always making last minute changes BEFORE we travel since I usually find better hotel rates later than what I originally booked. Some hotels offer seasonal packages that are not always offered a year or 6 months in advance so pays to check back from time to time. We usually make reservations for a few of the more popular restaurants in advance, rest play it by ear. Early Fall and Late Spring are my favorite times to travel. If I was retired and had plenty of time, I probably would not plan so much, and just see where the day takes me....