To Plan Or Not To Plan?

Among travellers, one of the debates I hear most often is over how much planning should be going into a trip. What are the pros and cons of both? Everyone has their own rituals and habits when it comes to planning, or not planning a trip, as it may be.  I’ll start out by saying that I’m a fairly rigid planner, and I’ll explain why.

Planning Pros

1. Less Stress – You know where you’re going, when you’re going, and how you’re going there. You’re unlikely to have to think up the word for Giraffe in German. Water will always be available, and the chances of ending up in the wrong country are low.

2. Maximize Money – The more planned a trip is, the less chance you’ll get socked with having to go out-of-pocket for a hotel or a meal or a taxicab when you weren’t expecting it, and when the price is bound to be higher.

Planning Cons

1. Loss of Flexibility – Rigid plans make it impossible to “just stay one or two extra days because this place is cool.” Once your timetable is off, everything on the schedule falls like dominoes.

2. Less Neat Stuff – Chances of ending up in the wrong country are low, and you won’t need to think up the German word for giraffe.

What I do:

A certain amount of planning leads to the purchase of a ticket. Once I’ve gotten a critical mass of information and a rough timetable in my head, the tickets come. After that, unless complicated travel plans are involved, I try and keep an open mind. My big upcoming trip right now is going to be to Southeast Asia in February, thanks to US Airways dividend miles. I will be flying to Singapore on Singapore Airlines on their all business class product.

So now that I have tickets in and out, comes the planning. I’ve also identified several cities I’m interested in, and will be taking care of connections between them with low cost carriers Tiger Airways, Air Asia, and Jetstar.

The idea of this trip, besides seeing people in the region I want to connect with, will be to check out some of the major cities in the region, so I expect this trip will be planned out a bit more than some of my others were. On a recent trip to Mexico City, my travel partner and I planned the trip while waiting at the gate to get on the plane to MEX. We were only going to be there three days and were staying in one place in Mexico City, so it was just a matter of what we wanted to see.

I firmly believe in planning. If someone tells you they “went to Europe for [insert number here] months with no plan, or that they’re around South America with no plan, I would be immediately weary. Either they have a plan and are just trying to seem spontaneous, or they’ve spent a lot of wasted time at bus stations. And believe me, the 5 hours you have to wait for the next train can be some of the most boring ever.

Bottom Line, it comes down to what you’re interested in, what you want to see and when you want to see it.

You get out of travelling exactly what you put into it. If you’re a rigid planner, you’ll come home with great pictures of the things you knew you were going to take pictures of, and you’ll come home with stories that match you planned itinerary perfectly.

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