Travel Organization

When planning and organizing a major overseas trip, you normally find yourself between two extremes. One is to have every hour of every day mapped out and the other is to show up with no itinerary at all and go wherever the wind takes you. Personally, I fall more towards the organized side of the spectrum, however I try to have a little flexibility built into my travels.

On arrival overseas, I have an itinerary of places I want to go and things I want to do, but I don’t hold myself strictly to it. I normally book my accommodations/reservations one to two weeks at a time, which gives me some wiggle room to adjust things further out in the trip, even though most of the time I do stick with the itinerary I mapped out prior to the trip. When I arrive in a city I normally have a list of things to see/do, however I try to give myself a bit of leeway on how and what order they are done. This is my personal balance between order and chaos, but I've known some people that decided the next city on the fly and booked as they went, which gave the maximum amount of flexibility, but at the cost of normally higher prices for accommodations and a higher risk of not getting into certain sights or finding an ideal place to stay. Some people can travel like that and have a great experience, but for me this would prove very challenging. I like to have a bit of chaos for seasoning and dessert, but I'll stick with order for the main meal.