Snowmageddon

Snowmageddon (as my family is officially referring to the storm bracing most of the US right now) is a perfect time to think about your next vacation. I know I have been planning my summer trip this year today. Be realistic. Do you like research? If you are going to plan your own vacation, the answer needs to be yes. I have spent countless hours researching trips. Sometimes I buy a book about the place and sometimes I just do internet research. One time, my mom brought me an itinerary for a trip she wanted to take and the price and I told her I could get her that trip for cheaper and would take her myself!

My first thought is always, “where do I want to go?" If you are traveling with someone, they of course, should be included in the decision making process. As you know by now, I am married to a fellow traveler. I usually come up with an idea and run it by him. Luckily, he is game to go anywhere! This makes it very easy on me. That is not to say that he hasn’t suggested places before and we have gone there, I am just usually ALWAYS planning my next trip in my head so he has to work hard to beat me to the punch! One time, we even had our daughters compete on our next vacation local. One had to create a website, one a powerpoint and one a travel blog (according to the middle child). However, as I remember it we told them an area of the world to pick a country from and present to us. They really got into it and hopefully, had fun. We ended up going to Ecuador.

Really, anything can spark my travel interest: reading, watching a movie, seeing someone else’s travel pictures. Then I immediately go into to plan mode. How to make this happen? It usually begins with a mode of transportations search. How am I getting there? I rarely worry about where I am staying and have gone places without having a place to stay booked. My first concern is always how am I getting there. Plane? Train? Automobile? Second, think about what you want to do. This can help guide the entire planning process. My third thought? How am I getting around once I get there? Can I focus on getting to the place and then taking public transport? Sign up for excursions? Do I need a car? From there you can think about where you want to stay. This is usually what I think about last. To me, the experience of being in a new place trumps where I stay. I will admit though, as I get older, where I stay is becoming more important. You need to be comfortable and well rested to have the best travel experience.

I think the best advice for traveling is to realistically think about what is important to you and figure out how to make that happen. I long ago decided that traveling to new places is what is important to me. I look for new experiences. When my daughters were younger, that did not always happen. We ended up taking them to a lot of the places that Andy and I went on our post college trip. As they got older, I felt more comfortable taking them places I had not been and knew little about. Now that they are out of the house, I sometimes pick locations based on the cheapest plane tickets! For anyone new to travel, figure out what is most important to you and start with that. If you do this, you will be on the road to planning your ideal vacation.