“Go With The Flow”� or “All You Can Know”�

A glass of good wine (no we were not marinated) last evening with some friends (each of whom are frequently leisure travelers) spawned the following:

When you travel, especially to a new place, do you tend to just go with the flow and discover on the fly or do you obsess about researching and learning as much as possible before you arrive?

We were surprised at learning the other four individuals tend toward picking a destination, possibly glancing through a guide book, and tend to let their travels develop as a work in progress.

We, on the other hand, sort through and identify possible destinations, carry out extensive internet research, check as many independent reviews as possible (often communicating directly with members of tripadvisor.com - certainly directly with LL members) and frequently exchange several emails with properties in which we intend to stay.

We finished our wine and discussions and agreed to disagree on the best approach. Our friends felt we work too hard at enjoying leisure travel and miss out on extemporaneous possibilities.

How about your guys?

I side with your approach. While your new friends viewed the process as work, we find it is part of the dreaming and anticipation of the trip. It helps us to maximize our time, planning out times to see the things most important to us. Pre-booking of tours can save us time once we get to our destination and it is often cheaper doing it in advance. Another benefit is that we can do research on the destination's sites and learn more information on what we will be seeing, allowing us a more in-depth experience once we get there. We still build in "open" trip time, so if there is something we discover on the trip that interests us, we can still accomodate it.

Shy ~

I start w/ ALL to KNOW, fret about everything I might have missed and have had success with most trips that way.
I have a spouse who says, "whatever you decide", which makes me BERSERK, but he's right and I know it...haha
I do know what I'm doing!! and it almost always pans out!

I split methods pending type of trip. I agonize over our personal travels yet go with the flow when he's flying and I am accompanying him. Only a few times have I been disappointed when NOT armed with knowledge of a destination and options there.

I am currently freaking out because the more I research the more $$ I want to spend on our trip to Egypt next month . (ummm LL, you need some offers here...HINT HINT)

I kinda like the LL package in the middle, with flexibility on each end. We hardly ever buy air tickets so we're at the mercy of standby space available. I find that most countries besides the US have tour office by the gobs and you can arrange darned near anything last minute. BUT--I do need to know what's out there first.

So, here I go again, freaking out that I missed something, mild anxiety (no sleep stuff) and end up with incredible trips and memories.

Hi,

I tend to be the "unofficial" travel agent in our family. While I have an easy going husband, the "whatever you decide, dear" type who says "surprise me", I tend to do my homework before embarking on a trip. I want to make sure, that I get the best deal for the money. I also want to be informed on what we are going to see, where we are going to splurge to eat, so I bring home guide books, check the internet, and generally ask questions of people who have been there. Once it is clear in my mind what we are going to see, I go with the flow. The order in which we are going to visit museums, or schedule leisure time isn't that important, as long as we do and see the most important things on any given trip. I have organized a number of trips in England, France, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and Hungary for and with our friends, and they all worked out swell, and our friends keep coming back for more... so I guess I must be doing something right. However, a large part of the credit goes to the well thought out packages of Luxury Link. They combine luxury accommodations, with just enough extras, like breakfast, museum tickets, a dinner here or there, a spa/massage to relax by, to make those trips fun, especially, when we string two or three different Luxury Link packages together. So we keep coming back for more.
Message Edited by LL_Travelfan on 12-31-2009 07:26 PM

O....I am on your side. I LOVE to find out as much as I can about a destination especially if it is the 1st time. Most people we know do not travel as much as we do so they don't understand. There is a phrase which I can't remember who said it but "If you have have to ask why you never would understand." This is how we are...our honeymoon was to Yugoslavia in 1989 .....everyone asked why. Now, with our travels to Central and South America, everyone asks "why!" I was raised travelling and my family always felt we would learn more travelling than anywhere else. (and most of them were teachers.) I just love researching our trips PLUS researching other trips in the anticipation of visiting them some day!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR AND HAPPY TRAILS TO YOU!

I guess you'd consider me a combination type of traveler. Since I make all of the travel plans for our family, I spend considerable time in choosing the destination, figuring out how we're going to get there and where we're going to stay, and what we're going to do when we get there. I may make a few reservations if we are trying to go to someplace in high demand, i.e., a restaurant that's very difficult to get into (Herbfarm, French Laundry), or a Broadway show that requires attendees to buy tickets well in advance. However, I prefer to leave a lot of open time in which to sightsee and do things that we discover once we arrive at our destination. It's not unusual for my wife to spend a lot of time reading about our destination and then I find a place on Luxury Link or somewhere else that ispreferable to the place that she's chosen.



There's really a balance that we like tomaintain between planned and unplanned time and we find that it's best to leave a substantial portion of our trim unplanned so we can take advantage of opportunities that arise once we get to our destination. In addition, by doing this, one can price shop, since it can be difficult to do so from a distance. For example, on our cruise to Alaska this summer, my brother-in-law booked many side trips prior to the cruise, worrying that everything would sell out. My family of four is more laid back and we waiting until deporting to make our plans. We were still able to zipline in Ketchikan and bike down in mountain in Skagway and those were the only side trips that we really wanted to do. We ended up paying a little less than my well-organized brother-in-law and were able to choose the best times to do our excursions based on our arrival time in town as well as what else we wanted to do in that town.



My advice is to not overplan, but to be knowledgeable about where you're going. It's remarkable how many people travel and know absolutely nothing about their destination. They end up missing a lot of great opportunities from their travels. However, don't overplan or you will miss some opportunities that arise only if your travel plans are flexible.

thePiranha's last paragraph sums it up for me--great points!

Just depends.



Sometimes I do the flow thing and sometimes I do the know thing. I tend to lean toward know in more cases than not.



Sometimes if I have too much flow time on my hands, I get into trouble.

...another habit we have developed for gaining "insider" information is visiting museums and requesting guided tours by docents or student perform internships. Recently, we had a conceirge call the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Santaigo a day in advance of our visit, and request a tour to be lead in English. The museum normally has English speaking personnel on hand to do lead tours, but we wanted to see if could arrange something a little more detailed.



When we arrived, we were met by a docent and given a brief background history of the institution, then introduced to a young female intern who spent the next couple of hours "educating" us rather than just touring us.



At the completion of our visit, we invited her to tea/coffee with us....which she accepted....and she shared some additional ideas for dinner locations and other perspectives on Santiago and the coming national elections (now completed...her candidate was the winner and new President of Chile).



Much, much better than a guide book or a typical tour guide....in our opinion.

I do all the travel planning in my family and I do some research before we go if it is a place we have never been to before. We like to do stuff that is somewhat off the beaten track - hate group tours - especially in buses!

If we are some where where we can rent a car, we usually get in the car in the morning and just drive around looking for interesting stuff - that is what we did on our Mexico trip in May - most of the time we were the only ones in lots of the Mayan arcaheological sites that we visited there and saw lots of neat little towns and villages. We always go in the local supermarkets to see what kind of interesting food and snacks we can pick up for our "rides".

We usually wait until we get to a destination and book local tours there if we need to.

In places like Guatemala, we usually do not rent a car and just hire a car or van to take us to a particular destination and then give them a time to pick us up - while we are there, we will walk around on our own and check out the sites and look for interesting places to eat. We have never had any problems doing things this way. Some places it is real easy to drive around in a rental car - Mexico, Belize, Costa Rica, other places it is not or the roads are pretty bad. We have never done the car rental in Ecuador, Peru, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Nicaragua - maybe we should?



So... I would probably classify us as a "go with the flow" couple .