Getting anxious to go

[Alpinista]

One of the things I enjoy most is reading about everyone's trip plans (and gleaning ideas from you about things to do and places to go).

I'm not sure our plans carry as much fun and excitement as a lot of others (always envious of those who are sharing their trips with children), but here goes:

Two months inclusive, mid-May to mid-July.

Taking our jet lag break between Rome and Lucca at the Saturnia Spa and Golf Resort. Stopped there last year and really loved it -- huge thermal pool and a dress code that includes bathrobes for most of the day can never be bad. Found a little restuarant, Trattoria Il Nibbio, in nearby Montemerano last year and hope to go there again.

All unaccounted for days in the list below get spread between the beach at Lido di Camaiore, visits with my wife's relatives in our village (Tempagnano di Valdottavo), hanging out with a wonderful circle of friends we have made over the years, consisting of an eclectic group of Italian natives and American/Canadian/British ex-pats, or just sitting on the patio watching the wind blow in the trees.

End of May, some friends from the US will join us in Lucca for a week -- their first trip there, so we get to see Lucca, Pisa, and Florence (among other stops) through their eyes as we wander around. We then go to France with these friends for an 11 day trip on the Canal du Midi on a self-drive boat (hoping they have bumper guards set up on the boat and/or the canal). Will be taking them to Avignon and Pont du Gard on one stopover on our way to the boat with another day set aside for touring around Toulouse. Highlight of the boat trip for me will be finally getting to see Carcassonne.

After we drop them off at Marseille at the end of the trip, we get to detour to the Rothschild Gardens in Nice before treating ourselves to a stopover in Sanremo.

We start off July in Rapallo for three days to enjoy the infinity pool at a hotel there (where they gave us a nifty backpack as a 4th of July gift for American clients last year -- how could we not go back again?). The actual reason for going is to see the procession and three days of fireworks for Nostra Signora di Montallegro. The bay is set alight with thousands of votive candles; the castle is symbolically set on fire; and three entire nights of fireworks keeps us entertained.

After that, it's just back to the patio in Tempagnano and sadly going back to Rome for the flight home.

 

[artnbarb]

Your trip sounds fabulous! We all have different dreams and different situations, so if YOUR vacation is filled with the fun and excitement that YOU want, then that's good enough!

I always fantasize about staying LONGER in a place, but I love reading trip reports or posts about people who take a last-minute one-week vacation because it sounds so exciting to me!

 

[Alpinista]

I always fantasize about staying LONGER in a place, but I love reading trip reports or posts about people who take a last-minute one-week vacation because it sounds so exciting to me!

I was once in a management class centered around the Myers-Briggs Personality Indicator test. When the instructor arrived, she asked (with no introduction or preamble) me and another manager to come up to the front of the room. She asked me, "How did you plan your last vacation?" I spent about 5 minutes explaining how we started planning about 6 months in advance; assembled preliminary ideas into folders; made up final lists of places that were color coded and prioritized; and how we ended up with cross-indexed tab folders of maps and site descriptions based on time, distance, and type of activity (for sense of disclosure, when I say "we", it is obvious that it is "I" and that my wife just tolerates my excesses). However, back to the class -- the instructor then asked the other student and his response was, "Me and my wife -- we had two weeks so we went east." Needless to say, we had scored as far apart as possible in the indicators and that we were both equally appalled at how the other planned trips.

 

[artnbarb]

I'm not appalled at all, I'm simply amazed that others can leave home without a plan, without reservations and without doing any research, and somehow everything works out perfectly!

 

[Sharon J]

My family thinks I'm crazy. I plan at least a year in advance. I already have reservations for our next Italy trip, June, 2018, and had Sant'Antonio reserved for that trip while we were there last May, and our apartment in Rome reserved. I see by their calendar that there is no one else that crazy, as there is nothing booked before us for, at least six months. I knew the place was popular, as it's booked solid for the rest of this year. I want the perfect apartment or room, spending hours reading up on each place, making sure it's perfect. I do use this website for most of my information, and always have. I usually book our flights as soon as it's allowed, as I want the perfect seats. How dare those airlines change aircraft, and I lose those seats

Everything is set for our upcoming trip to France in September, including the overnight hotel at CDG, using points. We will be taking the train from the countryside, as recommended by the owners of La Havre. There is one store in Paris I want to visit, plus dinner in the city that night. Already planned the Metro we will need and the best exit point. I also know the last train heading back to CDG, just in case. I love the planning, and hate when things go wrong. However, because we travel more often now, I'm more relaxed, because I know the areas better. I'm older now, and big cities and crowds make me nervous, so we try and stay away from them as much as possible. Our three nights in Rome are for my husband, who absolutely loves it. We are so glad that we traveled far and wide when we were younger, and also that we took our kids before they left the nest, and we now return to our favorites over and over again. We love renting a car and having the the freedom to do whatever we want. We don't feel the need for adventure anymore, just want to sit and take in the beautiful surroundings. So, we may have slowed down but I'm still always planning that perfect trip. Oh, I check my purchased flights every day to make sure nothing has changed, and maybe, better seats will become available. Crazy, I know.

I must say the conversation about Basilicata has caught my eye, and the search may be on.

 

[joe]

Hi Alpinista, thanks for sharing your travel plans and planning style.

What interests me is how people set up their initial planning priorities - after you've decided on a destination, what comes next? Dates? And if so, how flexible are they? Flights? Reservations of accommodations? When does each fit into the priorities?

For me, it's almost always 1) pretty rigid dates 2) finding the right flight for those dates, and then 3) reservations of accommodations, the first and last days pretty much a given, as they have to be not too far from the airport.

I prefer to depart early in the morning from home (keeps the biological rhythm sane), and leave the foreign country at night (so as to enjoy one more day abroad...).

How do others do it?

 

[Alpinista]

What interests me is how people set up their initial planning priorities - after you've decided on a destination, what comes next? Dates? And if so, how flexible are they? Flights? Reservations of accommodations? When does each fit into the priorities?

Like you, our dates are pretty fixed. My retirement avocation is coaching baseball. My high school team plays until the middle of May, so when that season ends, I'm on my way to Italy (sometimes via another stop, but always end up there). I coach two 12U teams that go to national tournaments in Cooperstown, NY, every August. Practices for those teams start when I get home in mid-July. I then transition to West Virginia University football which takes up my fall months. Some years, when there are gaps in the home game schedule, we do take fall trips during the season or squeeze in a trip between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We have started taking family trips (two adult sons) in January before I go back to baseball, teaching in winter clinics, and then resuming high school ball.

We've always used my wife's home in Italy as our base and our destinations are "Lucca plus somewhere else". Over the past few years, that has included a hike of the Hadrian's Wall Trail, visits to the Baltic States, Prague, Nuremberg, Ljubljana, Malta, and other Italian spots in Puglia. This year is France; next year will be Poland. The recent off season trips have included Machu Picchu, Easter Island, the Galapagos Islands, Iceland, and the Bahamas, so we're doing our best to enjoy retirement. There is a visit to Kruger National Park in South Africa on the boards for the fall of 2018.

We prefer to start in Italy before the "other" part since we have the luxury of storing clothes at my wife's family home and only take limited items with us (my wife has an obsession with packing peanut butter, for instance). On the years that we start with "other", we still try to keep the packing to a minimum.

Flights have some flexibility. On the years we go to England or another country first, we often fly Virgin Atlantic and then enter Italy in Pisa, which puts us close to our final destination outside of Lucca. Other years, we use United to fly into Rome and then schedule an overnight stop (Orvieto, Viterbo, Grosseto) on our way north. We make our flight reservations early enough that there is never an issue with space there, so we start with any planned hotel stays and then go from there to the airlines.

In all of this, my priority is to mix in a few luxury stops along the way as a thank you to my wife who (a) absolutely loves being in a 500 year old home passed down through the generations; and (b) puts up with the plumbing, heat, electricity, water heater, and a two-burner gas stove that might have been part of the original construction (?), as well as the mosquitoes that wait eagerly for us to go from the door to our covered gazebo at dinner time. So, the very long answer is that my priority is finding and scheduling those "thank you" spots first and then filling in all the rest. We are history, architecture, and ornamental (gardens, tapestries, etc.) folks and not much into specialized dining or wine. A picnic on the walls of Lucca counts as a pretty good meal for us.

 

[artnbarb]

My family thinks I'm crazy. I plan at least a year in advance. I already have reservations for our next Italy trip, June, 2018, and had Sant'Antonio reserved for that trip while we were there last May, and our apartment in Rome reserved.

I certainly don't think you're crazy, @Sharon J ! Now that we know what date the cruise ship arrives in Southampton I'm ready to book hotels, vacation rentals, cars and flights between countries!

 

[DDTraveler]

(my wife has an obsession with packing peanut butter, for instance)

I have been known to pack a small jar of peanut butter myself -- one can almost always find bread!

May I just say you seem like a very nice husband, alpinista, to plan "thank you" spots for your wife!

For me, the trip usually starts a year in advance as I look for spots in Europe where my frequent flyer miles can take us (preferably in business but that doesn't always work out). This year we are flying from San Francisco to Amsterdam for five days then down to Italy for the remainder of the trip. We are meeting up with a variety of friends and family as we go from Tuscany (five days), Rome (one week) and Umbria (one week). We fly back home out of Florence. Once the flights are booked, I then look for accommodations, then other transportation reservations (train, car), then walking tours or day trips, museum tickets.

Nearly everyone I know waits until a few months out to start thinking about where to stay and what to do, and they sometimes get irritated when I bug them to make a decision on our accommodations or hiring a driver, for example. That's one of the reasons I enjoy this group -- you all understand the need for early and extensive planning!

 

[SMJ]

Not crazy at all, as I plan as obsessively myself!
I do masses of research, not about where I'm going, though I do that after everything else; but the flights, the seats, the apartments, the local transport, where the nearest grocery store is to the apartment, etc.
I've just checked my bookmarks, and I have over 200 apartments in Italy bookmarked. Those are then sorted into : different cities and towns, then For one, For Two, For 6, etc.
Then we have the bookmarked ones for all the other countries.....
Couldn't go without a plan.

 

[joe]

In all of this, my priority is to mix in a few luxury stops along the way as a thank you to my wife ...

Well that certainly makes things easier....and a great idea.

We are history, architecture, and ornamental (gardens, tapestries, etc.) folks and not much into specialized dining or wine. A picnic on the walls of Lucca counts as a pretty good meal for us.

I'm with you on that one :

 

[Mom83]

I am an obsessive trip planner also! We thought our Fall, 2017 trip to Tuscany and Rome was falling through until our friends finally decided in mid January that that they could go with us. Fortunately, I had researched many of the places I thought we could stay near Siena last fall, but when I went to my favorite, there was only one available week that was left. So, I planned the rest of the trip around that one week. Thankfully, the apartment we love in Rome was available for our dates, so I was all set for accommodations. Next, I got our flights. Then I got our Scavi reservation. Then I made a list of when I needed to make reservations for the Academia, Vatican Museums, and the Coliseum Underground - places that our friends want to see. My husband and I have visited all these places before, but this is the first Italy trip for our friends. Now I am simply making lists of restaurants in the various towns we will visit and researching other towns/sights that we may want to visit this trip. The research and planning are a big part of the fun for me!

 

[artnbarb]

I am an obsessive trip planner also!......The research and planning are a big part of the fun for me!

A kindred spirit!

 

[Ian Sutton]

I'm not appalled at all, I'm simply amazed that others can leave home without a plan, without reservations and without doing any research, and somehow everything works out perfectly!

I've done it in UK before, but it's so easy to find B&Bs that the flexibility allows you to adapt to what you see & means you don't have to rush off if you really like the place. When backpacking in Australia it's also been easy to be flexible.

I doubt we'll do it again though, as the brains of the operation prefers certainty, so even when driving through France to get to Italy in 2012 (and back a month later) each accommodation was booked in advance.

 

[KeithfromVA]

I suspect most of us here are planners. That's why we're here constantly gathering information. I married to someone who would plan a trip like Alpinista's manager colleague. And that's why I always do the planning.

 

[Amy]

I seem to have 2-3 trips in play at a time, at varying stages--from "Gee, I read about this cool place, let's start reading and collecting links on a Pinterest board, and set up a Google Map" to "OMG we're going in a week, where shall we have lunch near X museum/church/castle?"

Right now we have Venice and Friuli in May; Umbria and Rome in September; and I'm watching fares to Barcelona for early Spring 2018 and reading about Catalonia. And avoiding thinking about having to escort MIL to Switzerland next Summer, oy.

Alpinista, which outfit are you renting the barge from? That's always been something we've thought about. (Hoo boy, better set up another Pinterest board)

 

[Alpinista]

Alpinista, which outfit are you renting the barge from? That's always been something we've thought about. (Hoo boy, better set up another Pinterest board)

We are using Le Boat and are very happy with all the information and assistance they have given us to date. We are splitting the invoice with the other couple and that was handled flawlessly. We went back and forth from "no parking" to "park at the origin spot" to "park at origin and have company transfer to end point" and that was also taken care of for us. We are starting at Castelnaudary and ending at Port Cassafieres and using the 11 day option for the trip so that we can go at a very leisurely pace.

The other couple is also similar to Keith's situation above -- my friend's wife and I are the OCD people. My wife and her husband are the "Hey, there's a squirrel -- let's go look at it" types. We have used the planning as an excuse for a growing number of beer/wine outings where my fellow spirit and I huddle over maps and guides and the other two eat all the appetizers and drink most of the wine (I'm the beer guy). The good news is that we've traveled with them before and they are a delight to be around (and the wife speaks French -- true to her personality, though, she is taking a crash course in Italian to try to use during their week in Italy).

Just a further note on Le Boat -- the rental includes an option for bicycles and the daily distances are short enough that you can split up and use the canal trail to pedal along while the others are on the boat for a little break in the routine.

 

[KeithfromVA]

The other couple is also similar to Keith's situation above -- my friend's wife and I are the OCD people. My wife and her husband are the "Hey, there's a squirrel -- let's go look at it" types. We have used the planning as an excuse for a growing number of beer/wine outings where my fellow spirit and I huddle over maps and guides and the other two eat all the appetizers and drink most of the wine (I'm the beer guy).

That's funny. It almost sounds like you could be traveling with the couple we normally travel with.

 

[Alpinista]

Just had a very nice dinner with the folks we are traveling with on the Canal du Midi. It appears that, aside from the visit to Carcassonne, the other 10 days of our trip are listed as "visits to quaint French towns we discover along the way -- with market places and other attractions". I am not sure there is enough anti-anxiety medicine allowed for foreign transport for me to accept this level of vagueness. I considered sitting at my computer typing the phrase, "A little serendipity is not a bad thing" over and over again, but feared that Jack Nicholson in The Shining might overtake me. My wife reassures me I can continue to plan the other two months of our trip to an excruciating level of detail -- for the first time in our 34 years together, I have a feeling of distrust. Thank you for the on-line therapy session.

 

[Mom83]

Haha - I feel your pain! We travel abroad fairly often...sometimes just my husband and me, sometimes with one or both of our adult children (my favorite trips), and sometimes with friends. I love to research and have everything that has to be reserved or planned ahead of time nailed down. But then I just make a list of "other possibilities" that I have researched and found interesting. Depending on the weather and how we feel, I throw out various options the night before a free day and we decide at the moment. In my book, nothing beats researching the areas you visit...time consuming, but so rewarding.
My husband and I will celebrate 35 years of marriage next month - he has learned to trust me completely when it come to planning a trip. Thankfully!