Plan every detail or wing it?

Since you're such a seasoned traveler, why don't you try getting a place to stay to start. If you have a Chromebook or way to get on WIFI, you can easily wing it a day or two ahead--making room reservations, etc.
We often love to go with the flow, and it's never been easier than with the internet.

I like to have a down day that has nothing planned so any recommendations we get along the way we can take advantage of.

How long did you spend in Provence? I'm in the planning stage of that trip for this summer. Where did you stay that worked for day trips thru out the region?
Also how many days would you spend in Paris?

In the pre-internet period winging was usually the way to go. Nowadays with internet you can arrange almost anything at home. For short trips it makes sense as you can avoid this way wasting precious time looking around for places to stay as you can book accomodation at home very easily. Thats what I do most of the time with my yearly trips to France.

But for longer trips I like to keep the planning as basic as possible and book only the flights and the first two nights. These nights or two days give me time to get used to my new environment and finding the drive to explore the country. Four a rough idea where to go most of the time I use a Lonely Planet guide and till so far it works well for me. This is what I have done for instance with my trip to Bulgaria. I used only public transport and not knowing what was going to happen next it was actually a complete memorable adventure. I have met many nice people because you have to rely on the locals to find your way and this way I have learned the country way more better as it is. So it made the trip way more involving and for sure it would have been certainly lesser pleasant if I had planned everything at home. Ofcourse there are also annoying experiences, but were after all not really bad and so became part of the adventure. I will do it the same way again.

After the trip I write a report and together with the pictures I can keep the memory alive as good as possible. Winging makes you travelling around more open minded, so you experience more and for that there is more to remember and that’s a big advantage.

tgreen - I spent 5 days in Provence and stayed in Saint Remy (don't stay at Hotel le Castelet des Alpilles). The city is enjoyable and it's a good central location provided you have a car. Nimes and Aix-en-Provence would also be good bases if you have a car. Without wheels Arles or Avignon would probably be the best choices. If you've never been to Paris then you should visit for a week.

Wil - I was thinking just the opposite! These days you can get electronic versions of guidebooks to put on your phone. Within a few minutes of deciding to go to a new town you can have 5 places lined up to arrange for a last minute booking. It's awesome.

I have ended up with a half planned way of doing things on my trips. I make sure I have a start and end place to stay booked as well as a few places reserved along the way. Everything else, including what sites to see where I have made reservations, is unscheduled. Seems more fun with the unscheduled approach allowing the enjoyment of something found that was unexpected, and by having at least a few definite stops along the way less likely to completely dissolve into chaos.

I like Mark's approach. I think some people overplan to the point they miss the fun of discovery. I think most of my favorite travel moments were unplanned and unexpected.

Thanks FastEddie.

We will have a car.
Between Paris and Provence we will be on a Rhone River Wine Cruise. It starts in Lyon and ends in Arles. So the first of the trip and the last of the trip is our own planning.

I tend to be a planner, but not a to-the-hour planner.

I plan my lodging well in advance, which is frustrating if I want to stay in X longer, but I'd rather do that than risk not having a decent place to stay. I'll book trains and flights ahead too. So the outlines of my trip are pretty set months ahead (4 nights Rome, 3PM train to Florence, 3 nights there, train to Sienna etc etc).

If there is a very popular sight where booking ahead will save a lot of line time I will gladly do it. I'd rather save time and be "stuck" with a certain timeslot than wait for hours - I consider waiting in line a huge waste of vacation time!

I tend to have a loose plan of my priorities to make sure I can see them (i.e. Vatican on Tuesday, Collosseum on Wednesday) but leave the rest of the day open.

I'll have a list of things I want to do (smaller sites, restaurants, walks) and do them when I feel like it/there's time/I happen to be in the area. I like to leave plenty of free time for wandering around and ideally stumbling randomly into something interesting.

I am a bit of an over planner. I made a 32 page itinerary for the last time that we went. Granted about 10 of those pages were the traffic signs :) Yes, there is a story behind it :)

To explain, in www.google.com/maps/d/, i created a map of everything I wanted to see, knowing that there would be some that it would be ok to miss. Then I made a list of the places of interest and why. It was so we had options and weren't looking at each other and saying "what do you want to do? I don't know what do you want to do?" (Which is an often occurance in our household)

I also had a section for all of our hotel reservations, and plane reservations.

I try to be both organized and flexible :) and it worked really well for us.

Since we have to travel during the summer, we usually have hotels and transportation booked. I dont want the stess of having to think ahead for lodging, i want to be in the moment of whatever city/town we are visiting. Also, like most travelers here, we have an outline of actitivites, museums, sights to visit for each day. We have our must sees, our would like to see, and if we have enough time sees. Of course some sights need advanced tickets, like the Vatican, Borghese, and colosseum in Rome, Anne Frank house in Amsterdam, etc so we always have those booked before we leave. We try to plan indoor/outdoor days which are interchangeable if there is bad weather. Also, we usually leave the last day open for anything we discover while in the city, like an exhibition, concert, market that we didnt know about through our research, someplace we want to revisit, or last minute shopping.

I used to be spontaneous about my itinerary, but the big savings on super-economy train tickets changed that. Then the spontaneity dominoes start falling: if I have train tickets, I might as well book rooms, then I nail gown advance tickets for sights that require them, then build the day around those sights...

Lately my spontaneity manifests itself by changing my mind six times at a bus stop. Not complaining, though.

I lived overseas from 1981 until 91 except for two years. This was before the internet and most of our travels were done with minimal planning. Guidebooks were our main source of information. Still, we did sometimes book our hotel ahead when we were planning to stay somewhere for several days.

Since I retired six years ago, we have traveled quite a bit and to all the continents except the frozen one.

I find that researching the choices is the most important. Most of the time we book ahead and have our plans set. However, we were in Vancouver, BC for a week prior to our Alaska cruise and I did book about half our tours in advance, but left the rest to our time open. That worked well.

However, the more you travel, especially by car, planning is even more important. Just knowing about parking in a large city is essential when parking runs $3 an hour.

When we go to a city or area of a foreign country, I have already picked the key sights we will see and it always seems to work.

It all depends if I'm going solo or with She Who Must Be Obeyed.

When I travel solo, I'll generally book my hotel room prior to arrival and have a general list of things I want to see.

When I travel with She Who Must Be Obeyed, We'll book our hotel room(s) ahead of time and we'll have a specific list of things to accomplish during the day.

How I reduce the overplanning: I'll often book a stay of 4-7 days at a time in some town that is central to other places that interest me. This allows me to be spontaneous about whether and when I head out to those interesting places on day trips. My overnight stays are pre-booked, but my time is my own. Sometimes I learn about local events or sights while I'm staying there and work them into my outings.

Part of one's preference is simply a function of personality. Another might be age. We are, quite honestly, old - - 78 and 80. We don't take the stress of last minute hotel hunting as easily as younger people might. Some people see lodging as just a place to sleep; but I like to stay in attractive places that don't break the bank.

A couple of past experiences brought home to us the wisdom of having lodgings reserved. One was a convention in a small town in the U.S., where we'd never before had a problem just arriving and getting a room. The other was a local festival in an English town.
At present, with so many tourist sights offering or even requiring advance reservations, it seems foolish not to get lodging lined up, as well. I pretty much scope out what I want to see and develop an itinerary from that. The super economy prices for some train travel is another inducement for such advance planning.
On the other hand, I just roll my eyes at the itineraries occasionally posted here, on the order of:

11 - 1 Eiffel Tower
1 - 2. Lunch
2 - 4 see Louvre
4 - 4:30 coffee break

I think you've all seen them; and to my mind, they're just a waste of time. However, to each his own.

FastEddie – I know nowadays with the modern tools you can arrange a lot of things more effective. But I did not always made use of the guide book and in several occasions had to ask a local for a good place to sleep or a good restaurant. It brings you in contact with them and had many nice rememberable experiences that otherwise would not have happened if I only had relied on the internet. Internet is indeed effective, but remains impersonal. Ofcourse in the case having a tight schedule it can be very helpful, it depends the way you want to travel.

From one extreme to the other? Well, it depends on numerous variables, time factor, money, how desperate I am to see a place, how many places to see, accessibility, location of the sight, whether I'm solo or not. If I'm not solo, then we split up for the day, "you see your thing, I see my sight." Rendezvous later. I don't plan every hour or close to it, unless I am under a real time constraint and have to get to one sight after another in a town, depends on proximity, and basically how desperate I am to see it.

There are days I set aside now as down time/open days for winging it or plain resting. In Aug 1987 on a "rest day" in (West) Berlin, I overheard three American 20-somethings talking of going over to the east using Bahnhof Friedrichstrasse. Since that was an open day for me, I tagged along unbeknownst to them. As a result I learned where Bahnhof Friedrichstrasse was and how to get over to East Berlin with its mandatory requirements. I had already done a tour of the eastern part three years earlier, this time in 1987 I wanted to go over alone and see the sights on Unter den Linden. Going over this way was winging it.

It depends upon time of year, destination and how picky you are about where you stay. I have taken sixteen trips to Europe, not counting business, and the last time I did not have every hotel room booked in advance was in 2008 in Portugal. (This was in September). My view is that if you don't enjoy the planning part, why interrupt your vacation having to do it on the fly? I have a love-hate relationship with planning myself. I agonize over how much time to spend in this place or that, and always seem to need an extra day or two to have the perfect trip. In the summer it's high season and things will be tighter, especially in Switzerland where the season is shorter. It's a very expensive country anyway and I'm sure more so if you book last minute. If you book last minute you will get what no one else wanted in terms of rooms, sacrificing quality, location, value, etc. Or you could get lucky, you never know. The only advantage to booking as you go is you don't have to decide in advance how long to stay in one place or another. I like to be pretty precise about knowing where exactly a hotel is located and that's easier to do if you plan in advance. You can really get yourself walking in circles trying to find a place sometimes. Having said all of this, I booked an October-November itinerary with just a few days notice this year and despite Rome being crowded with Italian tourists for All Saints Day, my hotels were really good.

I always plan ahead for hotel stays and overnight transportation (trains or ferries). I leave the day to day itinerary open for spontaneity. The only exception is for special sites where advanced tickets are necessary, or when museums are open at night.

One thing to realize is how much things have changed over the years. This is due directly to Internet, and secondarily to advance purchase discounts.

Once upon a time, before the Internet, fewer people booked rooms in advance, as this required trans-Atlantic phone calls or letters. Now, the good value rooms (at any price range or style) tend to get snapped up in advance, leaving the last minute bookers with the leftovers. That's fine if you're not choosy, don't mind paying more and/or getting less for the money, or are going at a slow time. Otherwise, it can be trouble.

Similarly, train tickets cost the same whether they were bought ahead or at the last minute, and few trains required reservations. So, winging it with transportation was no problem. Now, trains can sell out, and last minute tickets that are available can be financially ruinous (look at the Eurostar for tomorrow and you'll see what I mean).

And of course there were no budget airlines, so flying within Europe was only for the wealthy. Now it's very affordable - again, if you've booked far enough in advance to get a cheap ticket.

Finally, almost no sights had advance reservations possible, much less necessary. Now, the list of sights needing advance reservations grows every year.

And as Zoe said, once you have a few things booked in advance, and not changeable without financial penalty, the other dominoes start falling.

None of this means you have to have every minute planned. But it does make a truly spontaneous trip much harder, or more expensive, than it was before.

All that said, my first and last trip without reservations was to Italy in March of 1989. I had a lot of trouble getting a hotel room in Milan (fashion shows), and in Florence I had to take a triple room my first night (at a much higher price than the single I needed), because that was all that was available and I didn't want to keep calling around. I learned my lesson - no more winging it with accommodations for me, no matter how well it works for others.

Harold put into words what I was thinking as I read this thread. In the 1980's, it was easy to wing it, getting a decent, cheap room through the local TI (or VVV in Amsterdam) on arrival. Now, while it's easy to do on a U.S. road trip (there's always a Motel 6 with a vacancy if worse comes to worst), that's not true in Europe and I'm fussy about where I sleep (Motel 6 is fine, BTW and accepts cats if you travel with a companion).

A couple of times I've been burned in recent years because I didn't plan certain sights in advance. For instance, I missed the dolmens in Antequera because I landed there on the only day they're closed. I'm now planning a visit to Naples. I could wing it, but I probably won't be back, so I want to make sure I'm seeing the sights that most interest me. I'm finding that something's closed on each of the 3 full days I have there.

I don't plan hour-by-hour, it's too much work and when I've done it, I haven't stuck to it anyway. I'm pretty flexible once I'm on the ground and know where I'm sleeping.

What my wife and I do, which works perfectly for us, is research every location in depth so we know not only all the options available to us, but how to go about accomplishing them, i.e., what train? travel time? how long does it take? etc, and I carry all of this information in a small pocket book... but we plan almost absolutely nothing. Neither one of us are big into touristy attractions such as museums, we enjoy to wander, explore the culture and food, the sights, meeting locals, things like that. We are also both craft beer/espresso junkies, and I keep a list of all the great espresso bars/beer places in the city, especially the underground spots, and I know how to get to all of them.

I even write an example itinerary to give us a rough outline of the things we would want to do, just so I can see what it would look like in the larger picture, meaning, if were in a city for 4 days, and there's a day trip we're considering, I write the itinerary with what would be the best day for that in mind. Every time you go on a planned excursion, you're taking away from your free time, so we weigh each decision with that mindset, is going to stand in line for a museum going to be better than X?

For example, when we were in Rome, I had purchased tickets for the Vatican for our last day. We decided we were enjoying Rome itself so much that we would just eat the $40 or w/e they cost, bought a couple bottles of wine and spent the afternoon in the Villa Borghese. I think the culture of this particular forum caters more to a touristy approach, so that may seem like a mistake to some, but for us it wasn't at all, it was actually one of the highlights of our trip. Mind you we were engaged at the beginning of it, but even now I'd do it again.

As far as accommodation goes, anything under 1 month I say book out in advance, just my opinion, but for a shorter stay I say why waste time trying to figure out where you're sleeping? I think my wife and I at some point might say "F" the corporate world for a little bit and take anywhere from 3-12 months, if thats the case, wont be booking hotels in advance. I've always thought that it would be fun to buy an open jaw ticket and nothing else, the adventure being connecting the arrival city to the departure city-- top thing on my bucket list.

I do some of both.

I plan like crazy so I know my options but I don't book like crazy so I'm not locked into an itinerary. I have an idea how long I'll stay in different places. If I'm done somewhere, I like to have the flexibility to leave. If I'm really enjoying somewhere, I want the option to add extra time.

Once on the ground, my style probably seems unplanned but I always know my options. When I see one thing, I know what I'm giving up to see it. I also know when I'm at my limit on churches or museums, but fortunately know the other options at my destination - because I planned like crazy. In Paris, for example, I checked out the sight options, rated them as either "must see", "good to see", "okay, if I have extra time", or "don't bother". I kept a list on my smartphone of where, hours, cost, how to get there. I generally lumped them into geographic areas and planned for one big sight in the morning and another in the afternoon. When I had extra time, I knew which places were in the area that I could drop into with my museum pass.

The same with transportation. I know the options, how long they take, how much they cost, how often they run, etc. before I ever hit the ground - because I might be on my planned schedule or I might be a day or two ahead or behind, depending on how things go.

The only thing I always lock in is my first and last night of the trip. The first night because I'll be tired and it's better to have things booked ahead. The last night because I need to be at the airport in the morning so I don't have flexibility on where I'll stay.

I think some of it will come down to number of travellers and economics. As we have been travelling as a family of 4 and during the school holidays, booking accommodations and transport in advance is a must. Train tickets are much cheaper in advance as are car rentals. We need 3 beds which can be hard to find. Also, due to the non stop food needs of teens, we find a kitchen or some cooking facilities a real time and budget saver!

During the summer months things tend to book up well in advance and we just can't afford to roll up and pay $500 for whatever is left.

Two occasions on trips to Europe with the kids we left a night unbooked for flexibility. The first resulted in us almost spending the night in the Dover ferry port and the second involved two family members breaking down in tears on the road outside Hadrian's Villa and a long search for the only available hotel nearby. We ended up ringing the bell of a fortress like pet hotel for about 15 minutes before realizing the real hotel was next door. Not our best moments.

Once you have to book the transport and accommodation in advance- all other parts sort of fall into place. Everyone has an idea/list of what they want to see and at dinner each night we reassess and plan the next day based on weather and how we feel.

Soon we may be able to take a trip on our own! I still think we will plan. But it will be so much easier!

Raise your hand if you've ever gotten to an area with plenty of hotels and restaurants, but since you felt you could drive another hour, you kept going. Then found nothing for another three hours. And ended up in a dicey motel where you piled a few chairs in front of the door and hoped you and your car survived the night. (Wawa, Ontario, 1987.) I may not book a hotel when I'm driving, but I am much more willing to stop early when I find a place. My husband is starting to learn that lesson, but it's sometimes a fight.

Youth sports travel tournaments can fill up a town, as can small local conventions. College towns have orientation weekends. But I hate to book a hotel when I'm on a road trip, because maybe it's too far or not far enough.

I prefer to wing it as much as possible, but my last trip to Italy it took 12 attempts before I could find a hotel room in Venice for April/May, 4 months in advance. That taught me a lesson, and now I try to have a basic outline to my travels. I only plan one event per day, so, for example, in Rome we did the Vatican one day, Domus Aurea another. That way the rest of the day is open to whatever, whether it be a three hour lunch, a spontaneous coffee and gelato tasting, or even a nap in the hotel room.

The fun/danger of spontaneous travel is rolling into town without firm plans and being obliged to sleep in the train station or the only room left over the pub (been there, done that). While that makes a great story later, it is not so much fun in the moment, especially when you are female. On the other hand, with EVERYONE seeming to be online it seems hard to change plans on a whim, especially during any kind of busy season, even early spring and late fall.

Then there's the new hybrid system. Someone's so used to doing everything on their phone that they research nothing. Then, on the ground, instead of just winging it and finding a place to eat, they look up the top 10 restaurants in a mile radius, look up reviews, text opinions back and forth, sending maps and bus schedules, websites and menus, and finally say, look what a great place I just found online! Yeah, it only took two hours, and you spent all of it looking at a little screen. Either research in advance, or wing it.

That's exactly right Karen! I teach high school and I see this method all the time. Pretend to be totally chill about everything and don't prepare. Then be frozen by indecision because something might be better or the perfect thing could be around the corner.

I couldn't explain it before but that sums up why I like to plan. By the time you start your trip all the basic decisions like transport and accommodation are wrapped up so you can concentrate on the fun stuff like how much gelato should/could one eat?

What dag said.

And Karen, yes, my hand is up. I still have no idea where it was that we ended up, but when we pulled off the interstate (this was in the US, around 1989) we took one look at the scary motel and attempted to go down a road to turn around and get back on the interstate, but we were pulling a car behind a 24 foot UHaul truck and got stuck. Unhitched the car from the truck, drove back to scary motel. Checked into scary motel, called tow truck, my husband drove off into the night with a stranger to fetch the car... leaving me alone at scary motel. We were about 21 at the time. We both survived unscathed, as did the car. What a rite of passage.

Hand is raised Karen - one trip back in either the late 90's or early 00's (I remember The Sopranos being on the motel TV, so it may have been our 2001 trip), we were coming thru Boston. Now, this was before the internet was used to the extent it is now. I rem having my Boston guide that I got in the mail. We called a few hotels/motels but the prices were above out somewhat limited budget at the time. Getting desperate because of the late hour, we finally stopped in this motel right off the highway...def a dive. The next morning, when my husband went to the front desk, the person at the desk asked why we stayed there (as in, are you crazy) and told us there was a crack den in the back...fun times!

I travel solo, and without a car, so I do plan and book travel an accommodation in advance, but never go with a list of 'must-see' sights. For me, in France at any rate, just being there is enough. I'll decide on the spur of the moment whether to walk around the town or into the countryside, whether to linger over lunch or in a bookshop, whether to spend several hours on the terrace of a café watching people, reading or writing about what I've been seeing or doing.

This worked well in France last June, when days of rain, train cancellations, and a twisted ankle would have wreaked havoc with detailed plans. So I spent the best part of a day in Avignon tracking down and buying a walking pole, and then sitting for hours over lunch and people watching on the terrace of a pleasant café. It didn't matter to me that I hadn't seen any of the 'sights': I hadn't had firm plans to do so anyway. But I did know how to get to where I was booked to stay that night in St-Rémy.

I have traveled solo to Europe and Japan on occasion booking my flights through Orbitz, and include a low cost hostel for the duration of the trip. This lets me use the hostel as a base for the trip. During my stay I have left for one or two days and stayed overnight at a place I locate while on the trip. This has been a cost effective approach and gives me flexibility to be spontaneous. When I check into the hostel facility, I let the manager know that I may be gone for a bit during my stay. Sometimes booking a flight with accommodations has actually been a lower cost than the flight booked by itself. For the other trips, it just added about $100 more than the flight. Seems odd but these combo deals are available even in the US. This is what first got me to consider this approach. With a hostel stay I have found I get a lot of great recommendations from the local staff and other guests. I have a general plan for places to visit and see, but remain flexible during the trip. As long as you are okay staying in a hostel with shared facilities, consider this approach to set up a 'base camp' for a spontaneous trip.

Travel is more relaxing if I limit the decisions I have to make on the trip. By planning months in advance, I can do a little planning at the time so it's not oppressive and stressful.

It also depends on how long the trip is. . Since the upcoming trip starting mid-May is over seven weeks, I tend to plan more to squeeze as much time out of it, eg, taking two planned night train options, reserve most of the Pensionen, hotels, etc , have contingency plans set up, plan and tailor various train routes, not just the quickest from A to B as offered by DB, and so on.

I'm in the same boat as cala. Hotels and B&Bs are reserved (sometimes prepaid), long distance train tix purchased, car rental reserved. Day-to-day itinerary is set, including when to get laundry done. This doesn't mean that there aren't small adjustments, there are. I just prefer to do a ton of research, glean sage advice from this form, knowing that I won't need to spend vacation time trying find a place to stay or how to get there. One time in Spain I didn't plan the last week, just winged it. Felt like I wasted time and didn't maximize my experience.

I've been working on this summer's 45-day trip for three months, and have a lot more to do. That being said, I DO enjoy the planning aspect.

I will plan the major itinerary items such as transportation, destinations and lodging in advance. I'll also make a list of the stuff we want to try to see and do during the trip but am flexible on when - and my list is always longer that what we end up doing. We also find fun things to do we didn't plan for - they just happen!

At least within Europe, we are on the era of advanced purchase discounts, yield management and online connectivity everywhere. Those who decide to travel as if it were 1989 suffer the financial consequences on transportation and accommodation costs. More and more high-speed trains charge really hefty fees for last-minute departures.

The omniscience and prevalence of Booking.com, which has very extensive coverage in Europe from global chains to B&Bs and small pensions, changed hotel pricing a lot. Even small hotels now can, through a couple clicks, engage in dynamic pricing, provide discounts to advanced non-refundable non-changeable reservations, and set the boundaries of prices so an algorithm takes place of repricing them thrice a day to follow competition.

I follow, just for fun, the pricing of hotels in Amsterdam, it is amazing how they change often, more than airfares. It is not only individual hotels changing prices, but dozens of hotels that let Booking.com manage their inventory as the primary interface, so you see wild fluctuations regarding discounts.

This change on accommodation pricing heavily impacted the feasibility of winging it on the less expensive strata of hotels. If you can spend € 400-500/couple/night (Northern/Central Europe/Italy), you will probably find somewhere reasonable on every major European destination except on major event dates. If you want to keep it below € 250, then it becomes trickier: what is to be found at last moment is usually of poor price/quality ratio - and some 'bottom feeder' operations specialize on providing overpriced beds on major cities for last-minute travelers.

In any case, this is my philosophy: I like to travel with accommodation and transportation set. I prefer to reduce the number of "changes of bed" and do more day-trips. That way, I'm more flexible within each stay to adjust for weather, spur-of-the-moment decisions, and so forth.

Then, I research my destinations a lot before traveling, reading what is available, when things are opened or not, and go on TripAdvisor and else to decide what is prudent to reserve in advance or not. I like to have a long list of possible things to do in or around places I'm staying, so I can decide on site.

A word of caution, though: a rapidly increasing number of busy venues (world-class museums, attractions with crowding problems etc) are moving towards time-slot advanced reservations. These things get rid of long waiting lines, and in some cases, deliberately restrict the overall number of visitors to a lower threshold than before (e.g., Anne Frank House in Amsterdam).