Plan of Attack

Okay, I've spent plenty of time and a lot of bandwidth drifting around with a variety of topics, and not really talking about the actual planning/execution of a trip. Time to change that. 




Doing it Right

Planning a trip – those meant for fun, of course – should be part of the game. Even if you choose to use a travel agent (which, if you have the budget, I highly recommend) you ought to be heavily involved in the process. In sports and business we’d call this “having skin in the game”.

Road Trip!!!

I’ve never been an advocate for what I’ll call the Follow-Along trip. You know the kind. Someone else decides the itinerary, someone else makes all the arrangements, someone else makes sure you get from point A to destination B and back again. And while I have genuinely enjoyed cruising as a form of vacation, cruising is a Follow-Along voyage. The cruise line determines the ports of call; the cruise line determines the off-ship adventures. I like to be a bit more spontaneous than that, even though I recognize and appreciate the value of such planned adventures.

The author, in Hell

(Disclaimer: I have taken a cruise precisely six times. Two of them are in the far distant memory of childhood so don't really count. Two of our four adult-aged voyages took place along Mexico’s West Coast, and one other in the Caribbean. If you've been reading the blog -- and one has to assume you wouldn't see this line if you weren't, well, reading the blog -- you've already read about number four, the recent Windstar adventure around the Italian boot last August. On the side trips we took for each of these cruises, we went to some fascinating places – the town of Copala in the Sierra Madre; Positano; the ruins of Tulum; and the town of Hell in the Cayman Islands. Genuinely enjoyed all of these trips, but were, in essence, along for the ride rather than in control of our own itinerary. Nothing like finding a wonderful place to explore, only to have to keep checking your watch to make sure you're not missing the bus.)

In the planning of your trip you have four major considerations: destination; time; transit; and budget. Everything else will fall under each of those categories. Sometimes these parts of the overall adventure can be as much fun as the trip itself. Sometimes.

Destination

Take an Umbrella

The "destination" might not be an actual destination at all. It may be a series of destinations, such as a cruise or self-planned "hopper" voyage, or the final place may not even be the focus -- maybe it's the transit to that place that's the central point. For example, driving across the country is not about arriving at the other end. It’s about the part in the middle, the areas you see as you progress from state to state and region to region. A drive, say, from New York to Los Angeles is not about Los Angeles, it’s about the towns and cities and landmarks in between. In the central US you will see the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the Gateway Arch, Zion Canyon, the Rockies and the Great Plains (though not in that particular order unless you’re lost). If you choose to dip further south and take route 40 across, you visit Virginia’s battlefields, Graceland and Nashville, Meteor Crater and (with a short side trip) the Grand Canyon.

So. Where are you going and why??? If the destination is the thing (going to Key West for a week), that’s where you ought to focus. If it’s the trip, then that is where the energy should go. Don’t sell yourself short and spend time on things that will mean little to you in the long-run. Make the trip memorable, and to do that you need to understand what it is you truly want to accomplish.

Time

Explore the local culture and shopping

How much time do you have for the overall vacation? Do you really want to try to see the entirety of the middle United States if you’ve only got seven days? (It can be done, but you’ll look back and realize it was more like counting coop than actually seeing anything).

Likewise, don’t eat up your time in transit. If you want to see Australia but only have a single week for the trip, do you really want to spend nearly a quarter of that precious time on a plane? Be realistic. Unless the point of the visit is to “count coop” -- for example: I intend to visit Point Barrow, Alaska, some day. It will be a day up and a day back. I don’t anticipate more than a day or two in Point Barrow, but it’s the seeing of the Arctic Ocean I’m after not visiting the surrounding tundra. In this case, the destination is the purpose, but won’t require more than a day to take in. (I could be wrong -- I'll let you know if this  earns me a nasty-gram from the Pt Barrow Visitors Bureau...).

Transit

How are you going to get there – and is the conveyance part of the enjoyment? Is it a necessary evil? Do you intensely dislike airports but are headed for a small Caribbean island? There are compromises, but also common sense.

If your destination is New York City, for example, and you live close enough to drive there – but you know you won’t need a car once in the city, why would you pack everyone up into your Ford and spend the money on gasoline? If you’re lucky you may find parking for less than $100 a day somewhere near your hotel, and – if you’re lucky – getting into the city won’t be too difficult with the traffic patterns, and – if you’re lucky – you don’t get too lost in the one-way streets and racing taxicabs.

I’ve driven in New York -- and Paris and Washington, DC and London and Los Angeles, to name a few. "Behind the wheel" isn’t a good way to see Times Square. Trust me on this.

Take the train in or a plane. Likewise, don’t count on driving to Santa Catalina Island off the coast of Long Beach. You can’t get there with a car, so renting one from the airport just to park it at “Catalina Landing” is likewise not a good idea.

On the other hand, a car is essential to trips to the Grand Canyon or most of the other destinations you may be considering – while it would be ridiculous to plan on driving fromFlorida to Seattle if you’ve only got a week.

Budget

Look. I LOVE to splurge as much as the next guy. Okay. More than the next guy. Okay. A LOT more than the next guy, but that isn’t my point.

"Free" is good!

If you’re on a motel budget accept that reality and move on. There's nothing wrong with being prudent. Don’t put your house into foreclosure for a week at the Bellagio, when deals can be found at the Imperial Palace and Circus, Circus for a fraction of the cost. Don’t book expensive and time-consuming flights to Saint Martin when you can drive to Virginia Beach, South Padre or Laguna Beach in the same six-hours it would take to get to the islands. (And probably with a good deal less stress. Have you been to Miami International Airport??? There’s a reason they call it “MIA”)

Overdoing your budget might make for an extravagant vacation, but the stress of each swipe of the credit card – not to mention the months’ long process of paying it off – negates the very purpose of the trip. Understanding and accepting your budget will pay off (*ahem*, forgive the pun) in the long run. If you genuinely, truly, must splurge find an expensive restaurant on the waterfront somewhere and ask for patio seating. That is far more memorable than the extra bucks you might plunk down for that suite at the Venetian – and a much more relaxing way to count the dollars as they peal out of your wallet.

Time to Chill, Grab a Burger

If you have a champagne budget, weeks of freedom, love the airports and have been everywhere at least once before, then knock yourself out and let others plan your vacations for you.

If, on the other hand, you enjoy the process, know what you want to see, know how you want to get there (and spend the time once you have), and understand that monies are not unlimited -- then get involved, get your hands (and feet) dirty and plan the trip out so that there is room for adventure but not for unpleasant surprise. You’ll be astounded how much more fun you have while actually vacationing instead of counting coop.

Blaze your own trail!