re: itinerary on vacation: yes or no?

Definitely. Everything requires reservations nowadays.

quote:

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Helicopter parents are terrible. They are men. Stay home old man

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We just let them go to scrapin the coast by themselves and one of them ended up in jail.

Does she order shirts for every family member with their names on them too?

I like a good plan, but just depends on the vaca. If I'm at a resort in Jamaica the plan is no plan. If you are in Disneyland you better have it down to the second.

It depends greatly on the destination.

If am going to the beach, the only “itinerary” may be where I’d like to eat and maybe which bar I want to go to that night if there’s a band I want to see.

If I’m hiking or backpacking, some scheduling will be needed to ensure that I make it to certain places in time to set up camp before nightfall and have easy access to water.

If I am road-tripping, I will need to plan some stops and keep travel schedules in mind when picking activities.

In a weekend trip to a big city for an event, I will likely have a more filled out list of stuff to do.

How I tend to plan is I pick a list of activities (far more than I could ever hope to do in one trip) and places I want to eat, divide them up by location, decide what location to focus on each day, and pick one activity in each location that I absolutely want to do or one restaurant that I simply must eat at.

I then plan to do that activity first for that day (or plan my day around it if it has a specific time when I have to be there for it). I then do the other activities at a leisurely pace with plenty of downtime and sleep.

If I don’t get to an activity, I don’t get to it. I buy everything last minute (unless it’s the one big activity of the day that’s most important), so I simply nope out of whatever I am not feeling and do stuff based on vibes rather than lock myself into an over-scheduled itinerary.

From the outside, it looks like I have this well-oiled and scheduled day. In the moment, it feels like winging it into the right decision every time. The reality, is I just give myself a whole bunch of good options with few, if any, real commitments, and just pick whatever fits the mood in the moment. This prevents me from feeling locked in to a high-intensive activity when I am tired snd allows me to pick up the pace when an activity ends early or was less intense than anticipated.

I feel fully in control without feeling boxed in. I can go with the flow without stranding myself or making myself anxious with uncertainty. It’s like s “pick 2 from column a, 1 from column b” menu where all the options are delicious.

Itinerary yes. Mandatory participation no. Sometimes you just want to stay in and take a nap.

Can't stand the idea of every waking hour being strictly accounted for in advance. We do what we want, when we want, but do usually have a few "things' we'd like to do.

Cities with sights? Plan ahead. If you get tired, just take something out. I tend to overdo it. If I’m in a place like NYC, Boston, Chicago…I want to squeeze in as much as possible.

Destination like a national park or something? Not really. Just pick a thing or two and have fun.