Travel spontaneously?

[ocean view]

Has anyone here been able to change/retrain themselves from being a planner to being comfortably spontaneous?

When we hit our travel years (after DS finishes HS) DH would like to do open-ended, no plan, RV travel. And I would too. However, I’m concerned that this old dog will not be able to learn to be spontaneous.

 

[Nemo2]

I’m concerned that this old dog will not be able to learn to be spontaneous.

"Did you hear about the bum who walked up to a Jewish mother on the street and said, "Lady I haven't eaten in three days." "Force yourself," she replied. "

 

[gerntz]

With 3 dogs we need to plan. Plus a lot of the fun is the planning and anticipation of the trip.

For those that think trip planning is fun, I'll hazard you probably enjoy doing your income taxes too.

 

[kcowan]

Has anyone here been able to change/retrain themselves from being a planner to being comfortably spontaneous?

I did because DW did. She used to be super planned out at work and associated that with w*rk. So retirement has taken on a life of its own.

 

[audreyh1]

Has anyone here been able to change/retrain themselves from being a planner to being comfortably spontaneous?

When we hit our travel years (after DS finishes HS) DH would like to do open-ended, no plan, RV travel. And I would too. However, I’m concerned that this old dog will not be able to learn to be spontaneous.

Open ended no plan RV travel is easy to do and we did that for 5 years straight, almost never making a reservation. We had a general idea of what direction we wanted to go in, and maybe called that day or a day ahead to make sure a place wasn’t full. If things didn’t work out, we’d boondock somewhere - maybe at Walmart during transit.

I think it’s easier with an RV where you are driving your own home. We don’t do US cross country road trips anymore. For destination lodging I usually do make reservations, particularly in Europe where popular destinations get booked up way in advance.

 

[audreyh1]

For those that think trip planning is fun, I'll hazard you probably enjoy doing your income taxes too.

I don’t enjoy trip planning. I do a heckuva lot of it because we do some extensive travel. But it’s a tough slog. Great when we get somewhere and th8ngscrun very smoothly and I don’t have to figure anything out.

Income taxes are a breeze compared to travel planning. Most of it is automated by software and downloaded data import.

 

[Dtail]

"Did you hear about the bum who walked up to a Jewish mother on the street and said, "Lady I haven't eaten in three days." "Force yourself," she replied. "

Very nice, or the response could be "don't worry the food still tastes the same".

 

[Dtail]

Has anyone here been able to change/retrain themselves from being a planner to being comfortably spontaneous?

When we hit our travel years (after DS finishes HS) DH would like to do open-ended, no plan, RV travel. And I would too. However, I’m concerned that this old dog will not be able to learn to be spontaneous.

I am trying to go there in travel planning, but it is not easy when I have been a planner my whole life.
Working on it....

 

[ocean view]

I know I have to just do it, and try not to worry about every detail...did I mention that I’m also a worrier [emoji23]

Dtail, we can form a support group, Planners Anonymous.

 

[Nemo2]

I know I have to just do it, and try not to worry about every detail...did I mention that I’m also a worrier

Just prepare an itemized, cross referenced, list of all the things you want to do spontaneously.

 

[Palmtree]

Me and my wife don't do spontanious travel but we are spontanious once we get there. We generally will book airfare 6 months or more in advance but only the first and last night there plus rental car. For example, this Fall we are flying from the east coast into Venice. Several days there then over to Slovinia. Plan to tour Slovinia for a week then take a shuttle service back across the border to Italy. Rent a car and do the scenic drive to Tuscany. A week in Tuscany then hop a plane to Paris to meet up with a dozen friends (in Paris on vacation already) for a few days. Then fly home.

 

[RunningBum]

I had a notion to be spontaneous with a 3 week eurail pass once. I thought about it and decided I didn't want to be arriving in a city, perhaps in the evening, and having to look for a place to stay, worrying about whether things were booked or having to stay in dumps. I just enjoyed things a lot better knowing we had a place to stay that at least seemed decent. We made a list of things we might want to do in each place but kept that flexible, and I had full train schedules so I'd know if we could bolt to the next town early, or how late we could stay if we enjoyed it. I also had some places that could be cancelled, which was nice when I saw the Alps had heavy rain. We spent those 3 days in other countries and it worked out great, other than a terrible restaurant in Strausberg.

 

[athena53]

I had a notion to be spontaneous with a 3 week eurail pass once. I thought about it and decided I didn't want to be arriving in a city, perhaps in the evening, and having to look for a place to stay, worrying about whether things were booked or having to stay in dumps.

I had a two-week Eurailpass when I was 28. I had flights to and from Brussels booked, and from Brussels I used the equivalent of an 800 number for one of the major chains to book a hotel in the next city, etc. It was mind-boggling to me that I even changed my mind about what country to visit next when that particular chain didn't have a room available in the capital, so I went to another country. That was as close to spontaneous as I ever got.

 

[Freedom56]

In my early 20's (a time before cell phones, internet, portable GPS devices), my friends and I used to book our tickets to either Paris or Amsterdam and book the first night at a hotel plus our rental car for our 2 or 3 week trip. It started as a thing we had to do after university and before starting our careers and became an annual event to get away from our jobs. We took a good road map, money, and a large suitcase full of clothes each. Our starting point was usually Paris because of the rental car prices that were better back then from that hub. We looked at Eurail passes but none of us were too keen on taking trains and lugging our belongings around. We were young and liked the idea of driving in another country (and still do today). There were better priced hotels away from city centers and parking was much easier. Some hotels chains (such as Scandic Hotels) had a pass system - pre-paid vouchers for one or more night stays at any of their hotels and you can show up to the hotel and if they had a room, you could stay there. Otherwise we would look for vacancy signs at the hotels when we passed by (remember those?). My parents did the same thing when we went on our summer vacation road trips.

We would do road trips that would cover France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Italy. Other than our flights and first night, and rental car bookings, nothing was planned. We would go out at night to clubs and found ourselves at strip clubs with some locals we met. Who plans for that? Most people from Northern Europe headed south during the summer months, so finding hotels was not really a problem.

We met lots of interesting people and ironically, the three of us that traveled together ended up marrying women from Europe (Italian, Dutch, and Swiss) and are all still married today. One even moved to Italy after his wife had a hard time adjusting to life here.

It's much easier to do what we did then now with smart phones guiding your trips, finding vacant rooms for you, and good places to eat.

 

[Scuba]

DH has planned a trip this fall and we have reserved some amazing hotels. He has done so much research for almost a year, but only two activities seem to need advance purchase of tickets, so he will do those ahead of time. We are going with some friends, and one has just decided we need to each spell out now exactly what we want to do and when and then coordinate with each other. Even DH, who has never in his life left an uncrossed t or and undotted i, thinks this is a ridiculous. We will decide these things at breakfast every day!

And hopefully everyone is on the same page that you don’t have to do everything together. When we travel with friends, we talk about that up front and we each do as we please on the trip. Otherwise someone ends up compromising and being unhappy. It’s also fun to share adventure stories over dinner!

 

[njhowie]

Frequent the Southwest Airlines low fare calendar and when you see the low fare take it. We routinely fly from NYC/PHL to FL for $25 to $59 per person per flight...booking anywhere from a week to a couple months in advance. If the fare drops further, go back, click a few buttons and you can change for no fee and retain credit of the difference for use for one year from original purchase date.

Also check Priceline for Express Deals as many excellent offers show up within the week prior to travel - most often for hotel and car rental.

If you are flexible you can find many good deals.

 

[Bestwifeever]

And hopefully everyone is on the same page that you don’t have to do everything together. When we travel with friends, we talk about that up front and we each do as we please on the trip. Otherwise someone ends up compromising and being unhappy. It’s also fun to share adventure stories over dinner!

No question at all about doing everything together—we’re too good of old friends to need to do that! We’re locked into the same travel and accommodations together, but that’s all.

 

[brett]

nemo2.....do you book your Pullmantur cruises direct or through an agency?

We may be interested in the Rostock-Trondheim route later this summer.

Started to look at vacationstogo. Then went to the Pullmantur site and there was a significant delta in pricing. The latter being high. Did not bother calling VTG but did check some of the other on line booking sites that we use and Pullmantur did not turn up.

 

[Nemo2]

nemo2.....do you book your Pullmantur cruises direct or through an agency?

We may be interested in the Rostock-Trondheim route later this summer.

Started to look at vacationstogo. Then went to the Pullmantur site and there was a significant delta in pricing. The latter being high. Did not bother calling VTG but did check some of the other on line booking sites that we use and Pullmantur did not turn up.

We always booked Pullmantur, (and prior to that CDF, which they absorbed), through VTG......however, on this last eastbound transatlantic, we heard that Pullmantur were no longer (either short or long term we don't know) going to Europe from the Caribbean and vice versa.

I just went to VTG and pulled up Pullmantur:

https://www.vacationstogo.com/ticker.cfm?r=0&l=56&edged=1

(You may have to log in to access it, but there were numerous non-transatlantic 'cruises'.)

 

[brett]

Thanks. We use vtg as a reference point but have never booked through them.

I did compare a vtg listed price to the Pullmantur web site web price. The latter pricing matrix was considerably higher than the vtg listed price. But...I did not call vtf as I am only a lookie lou at this point. Did not try our usual on line ta either.

 

[Nemo2]

Thanks. We use vtg as a reference point but have never booked through them.

I did compare a vtg listed price to the Pullmantur web site web price. The latter pricing matrix was considerably higher than the vtg listed price. But...I did not call vtf as I am only a lookie lou at this point. Did not try our usual on line ta either.

Have PM'd you re our VTG rep.

 

[brett]

Nemo2-Got it, noted it, thanks.

These are the old Celebrity Cruise line ships-Mercury and Century. We have been on them in years gone by.

 

[Scuba]

No question at all about doing everything together—we’re too good of old friends to need to do that! We’re locked into the same travel and accommodations together, but that’s all.

That’s great, then it should be a fun trip. Enjoy!

 

[Scuba]

Thanks. We use vtg as a reference point but have never booked through them.



I did compare a vtg listed price to the Pullmantur web site web price. The latter pricing matrix was considerably higher than the vtg listed price. But...I did not call vtf as I am only a lookie lou at this point. Did not try our usual on line ta either.

We have used VTG and had a great experience. I think going directly to the cruise lines, one pays more. VTG or any travel agent can usually get a better deal. They mark up the wholesale price with their commission, but still can sell for less than the cruise line will sell to retail customers directly.

 

[Dtail]

Okay just decided to go to St. Augustine for a few days in 2 weeks. For me, that is spontaneous!!!!!