Trip planning

Patience is a virtue, they say. I am like you impatient to get it going.

My major hurdles are first, figuring out where to go, then how long to spend in each place. After that, it's a combination of train schedules and choosing hotels. By the time I'm choosing hotels, I rarely have an issue with being too early to get rates and bookings.

Its good planning but even better once all booked and the money empties from the account, then its all about getting excited for the trip.

I take the opposite point of view: I don't like to pay for anything farther out than necessary. Life sometimes intervenes and requires that plans be adjusted.

You saying this in jest, hopefully? You mean summer 2018 or summer 2019? Given how many people make tentative plans and have to cancel (stuff happens in the long interim), hogging up the bookings so far in advance isn't fair to anyone else. If I ran a hotel, I wouldn't want to take on the risk of too many super early bookings either. This forum has an unusual number of people who are worriers that they're going to miss out on something unless they book a year in advance (or more if they can help it). It's like a false scarcity mentality, even in places that don't have supply issues with hotels or some kind of unusual events that would pose constraints. Pre-paying far in advance (if applicable) also doesn't seem like something to look forward to.

Agnes, I'm one of those you mention that books well in advance. I do this not because I'm worried about missing out on something but because we travel in the Fall and have no time for trip planning between April and September because I operate a 40 hour a week Summer business while supporting a full time job in addition to managing a few rentals. So planning happens from October to April.

Edit: As for prepaying, yes, sometimes poop happens (not for us yet, but parents are aging, so you never know) but we have trip cancellation coverage on both Visa ($2500 per person) and MasterCard ($2000 per person) and I make sure never to exceed those limits with prepayments.

I'd say booking things more than a few months in advance, unless for major events, isn't worthwhile. I hope I'm on these boards in Spring of 2019 planning a trip, but life has an ugly way of throwing monkey wrenches into the gears. Reading and planning in advance is a good thing, but locking up details more than a few months in advance doesn't seem to be worth it. There are a lot of algorithms that travel places use to calculate rates, but they're usually not set until around 6 months in advance, at best.

Why rain on another's parade? If planning in advance is fun or desirable to someone, why would you be negative just because you do it differently?

Unfortunately this is a theme we are seeing more and more on the forum. The idea that there is a "right" way to pack, reserve, plan, eat out, (fill in the blank), when really there is just personal preference. It is great that there is a diversity of people who enjoy doing things in so many different ways on this forum. It is that very fact that makes me learn something almost every time i read through some posts.

So, whether you plan early, late or in between, I really am just glad that you are planning and off to enjoy another trip!!

I usually don't pay in advance for anything before I have my air tickets. Once that's done, I feel committed. Then I'll pay up front if I have to, usually for trains to save money and to secure a room, a sight or a day tour if there's high demand or a big saving. I do try to make reservations I can cancel.

However, unlike flights from the US, there are rarely any bargains to be had from here, so I usually don't book flights more than 3-4 months ahead. I have noticed that more people seem to be booking well in advance. On my first trip to Italy in October 2008, a lot of hotels weren't taking bookings more than 3 months out. Now it seems that many are booked up 3 months ahead.