How do you plan your travel iternaries?

I found that the rest of the family and me have different styles of planning travel iternaries.

When I spent an extra week around Germany after my study abroad, and for the weekend trips, I compiled a list of the places I would like to go beforehand, and adjusted the plan based on the actual visit time. For example, when I was in Berlin, I left the Berlin Wall Memorial and finished lunch before 12:30 (I expected to be 13:00-13:30), so I pushed the only remaining sight (German Museum of Technology) ahead by 1 hour (14:30 -> 13:30), and used the rest of the time before dinner to see the Brandenburg Gate, which I planned for the next day. I added in the East Side Gallery because of this for a better utilization of my 48-hour tourist pass.

But my family didn't have an exact iternary when we get to each city during family trips. They literally planned everything on the dot and decided whether to use the pass based on the lowest possible transport and admission cost, which made their approach very relaxed.

What is your approach when it comes to this?

Reply 1

powdered-avocati

My approach is to let nature take its course.

Reply 2

Kallisto

Entertainment Forum Helper, Life & Style Forum Helper

I make plans for the days of my stay, but I am spontaneous and don't make a shedule for sightseeings or places to visit.

Reply 3

martin7

The approach I took on my last trip abroad was to make a list ahead of time as to the things I wanted to do. I built this up over a period of weeks, adding things to the list as I thought of them.

Then I did some research as to what the opening days/times were for the things I wanted to do -- for example, there's no point in going to visit museum X on a Monday if it doesn't open on Mondays; or arriving at attraction Y at 11:30 on a Saturday if it closes at noon. If there's an admission price, you might find that it's reduced or waived if you arrive at certain times. Also check for public holidays in the location you're visiting -- while visiting a friend in the US a few years back, there were a coupld of things I wanted to do in a location 3-4 hours away by train (and for which I needed to book the train tickets ahead of time to get the best price). I discovered that one of the days I was considering was a public holiday and that the places I wanted to visit were closed on that day. Had I not checked that I'd have had a very disappointing day.

But for most things I was prepared ahead of time, and if I decided I didn't fancy doing X on a particular day I did have ideas for other things to do already in place.

Reply 4

PinkMobilePhone

Chat Forum Helper, Life & Style Forum Helper

If it's like a 2 week beach holiday, I don't plan anything really. We just sort of go "yeah we'd like to see this, and this, and this while we're here" and then spontaneously decide whilst we're there which days we're going to go on those particular excursions.

If it's a short city break, then I do plan things fairly rigidly otherwise there'd be no time to do everything - and I book tickets online in advance for attractions.