How to "plan for spontaneity?"

I'm like you as far as planning. What you need to do is find a balance. Do you have the RS Italy 2011 book yet? It helps you figure out what you need to do in advance, and what you can play by ear. As I often say here, it will be the smartest money you spend on your vacation. Certain locations lend themselves more to planning in advance (Rome chief among them), while others can be enjoyed without as much planning, for example Sorrento. The risk in not doing some planning is that you might decide to go to a museum on a Monday, not knowing that it's closed. It's all about finding a balance. Happy travels. (Buy the book.) :-)

Thanks for your tip, Michael. I do have the RS 2011 Italy book. I guess I should just start taking notes as I make my way through!

Over-planner, over-thinker, ...just not sure you can 'plan for spontaneity'...it's still a plan....But I think I understand that you are maybe looking for something more in your travel then just going down the checklist. Most trips I hardly plan anything, however, I am also not sorry when I come home if I find I 'missed' something, because I always look at what I gained instead. You already have a hotel, car, and ideas of what to see...why not just get up in the morning and go? If you find that type of travel 'silly', then maybe its not for you. Not everyone travels the same way...there is no right or wrong. Just do what feels right for you.
Maybe try going to a town that you know nothing about and just explore...just pick a spot on the map and go.

Hi Renee. I am an overplanner (there, I've said it!) and while part of the reason I do it is because I love the research and planning, it is also amazingly helpful to have a good plan so you can go off-plan with knowledge and forethought. I build a day-by-day plan with sites, hours and days open, even my walking routes and what to see along the way. If we are pushed for time, I can hurry the walk along or take public transportaion. If we have more time than I anticipated, we can poke into more corners, explore more deeply. When we decide to go off plan, we know what we are trading. I also try to plan a couple of open hours each day, usually mid to late afternoon, so if an interesting opportunity presents itself, we have some time. If not, we may take a nap, sit in a piazza, explore an item on my Ready Reserve list. (RR=places I'd like to see if there is time.) With a plan like this, if we wake up to rain I can assess which activities I might move around to suit the weather. The Vatican is fine in the rain; The Forum is not so much. In Rome last year, we discovered a huge Van Gogh exhibit at the Vittoriano. We scrapped a plan to hike the Gianicolo that day, because we are not likely to see 120 Van Goghs in one place in Portland, OR and on our 5th day in Rome, we had seen a lot of the city already. But without my plan, I might not have been able to be so logically spontaneous. You only have one full day in Venice. Try to make time for walking without purpose. It's one of the best things you can do. Have dinner in a different sestiere than your hotel is in, forcing exploration beyond the big sights. Rick has great guides to planning for Venice and Rome. Good place to start narrowing down your choices. Lots of info here, too http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/destinations/italy/italy_menu.htm

It is easy for us. Every fourth or fifth day and sometimes third day is completely unplanned -- nothing scheduled. Allows us to catch up on things missed, do some laundry, write postcards, sleep in, etc. Also allows us to decide to do something unplanned on the second day knowing that it can be moved to the unplanned third or fourth day without bumping something else. Also, we are very slow travelers.

After I took my first trip to Europe with my wife & daughter, I felt I really didn't plan well enough in advance for the Paris leg of the trip. Once we got to London, the language barrier was gone (almost) and we found we could move about quickly by taking cabs, so I began to try to pack more into our days and we were able to do more things we wanted to do. My philosophy now, as I'm planning a June trip to Italy, is to schedule one major tour or activity a day and have 2 or 3 alternatives for the rest of the time. If we're tired, we can take it easy; if not, we know what we're interested in doing. Oftentimes, we'll put off one thing because we've found something more interesting along the way. Maybe that's planning for spontaneity. One thing my wife does on vacations is talk shamelessly to strangers on trains & buses about what they're doing, what they liked and what to avoid. We reciprocate by sharing with them, too. Sometimes this local reconnaissance is better than a guidebook!

I overplan too, but I'm working on it. It's more about having enough information so that you aren't standing on the street with a map and a book going 'now what' but not so much information that you're death-marching from place to place (it's 4:20pm, we have to be at the Louvre in 3 minutes or we're off-schedule!) What I like to do is identify the things I'd like to see - Colosseum/Forum, Borghese, Vatican, and St. Peter's. Then I group them logically based on the amount of time I have, let's say 2 days. The Colosseum & Forum are near each other, so that's one day. Vatican/St. Peter's is the other day. That leaves the Borghese which is kind of midway in-between, but being an art museum, I'd put it on the Colosseum day to avoid art burnout. Then, once on the ground, I let things change if they need to.

Renee - I consider myself to be a big planner - I love figuring out where to stay ahead of time, have gotten great deal, cute places, etc. BUT - for the actual "what and when to see things" plan I don't do very much (after I've determined the actual cities I am visiting). The way I figure it there is SO much to do in all these wonderful places that I know we'll have a good time no matter what. So basically, with the guidebook that I plan to take with me in hand, I do figure out a rough idea of what to do the first day - taking into consideration that I will sleep on the way over and so need to hit the ground running. It is usually an easy bus tour, walking tour of "big sites" - something that's a no-brainer. Then at either dinner or breakfast each day we bring the book to the table and figure out the plan based on weather, how we feel, etc. My exceptions to the rule: single, one time events such as theatre, advance tickets to certain high demand museums or sites. In your case, I'd figure out the golf if possible as that is a very specific thing. And I haven't been to Rome in a few years so I don't know if there are good tours that help you to bypass lines for the Vatican that you can book ahead of time. But other than that I think getting recs from other people on things you might not want to miss is a good idea, but I don't put it into any sort of itinerary. And yes, some of our favorite things have been things we didn't even know about so couldn't have planned for - surfing lessons in Cornwall for example! And though I loved St. Peter's, the Colosseum, Pompeii, etc. my favorite memories of Italy always involve driving around and looking at the landscape, towns (Tuscany), talking the vaporetto to random stops and getting off with no plan at all except to try to "get lost" (Venice), and the food and wine - everywhere!

Thank you all for your words of wisdom. I think I've been avoiding really digging into specific planning because booking four hotels for one trip was stressful enough! There are a handful of things I know I want to do in Rome, so that should be straightforward enough ... right? For Venice -- I figured we'd just wander and get a gondola ride at some point. For Tuscany -- I also figured we'd just take it easy. But, can anyone recommend sights in the Chianti region not to be missed? I'm considering a cooking class at the hotel, and as I mentioned before, my husband would love to golf. And finally Sorrento, I think we'd like to head to Capri for a day, and wander for the rest. Anything we must do there? Thank you all again!

Leave open time if you are going to a museum at 2:00 keep the entire afternoon for that and have so serendipity time, don't plan every hour of every day. If you do it will seem like a check list which is what I often see posted here when people post their itinerary. Every moment is spent traveling from place to place with no time to savor the experience.

Must do in Sorrento? How about Pompeii for history and the Amalfi Coast for scenery? Depends of course on your interests. There's also a lot of great hiking on the Sorrentine Peninsula. Have you watched Rick Steves' shows of the various areas? Great source of inspiration. Once you see some places that "sing" to you, you can research the details in a travel guide and online.

As for just wandering around Venice, I'd really recommend at least a brief guided tour. The one day I was in Venice in 1987, I found I was hanging around the edge of English-speaking tour groups, trying to hear what the guide said. (Is that cheap, or what?) This year, I've booked a walking tour that starts in St. Mark's and ends at the Rialto Bridge. It was quite reasonable and I plan to ask the guide for some recommendations after we're through. I've also downloaded Rick's audio tour of the Grand Canal from iTunes, too. It's free!

Thank you again for the recommendations! I like the idea of booking a short tour of Venice. We'll be fresh off the plane and jet-lagged, and it might be nice to have someone to follow for a bit. And I have checked out Rick Steve's DVD's twice now from the library, and have ended up returning them twice without viewing! I will get them for a third time ... third time's a charm! Thanks so much, all!

Hi Renee, Have fun in Italy! I was going to mention that rather than checking out the DVDs from the library, Rick's shows are all available online. That way, you don't have to 'find the time' to watch them.
If you go to www.hulu.com and then type in 'Rick Steves' in the search box, it will bring up his TV show page. FYI, the shows are listed most recent first, so you may have to go back to previous seasons to see the specific Italy ones you want. In terms of planning, I agree with the other posters that have a general idea of things you want to see and then be flexibile enough to change your plan. P.S. Seeing as we're 'neighbors' if you'd like to pay for my to fly to Italy with you, I'll pay for the limo to the airport! (Just kidding).

Thanks, Gretchen! That is a fantastic tip. I so appreciate it! I noticed immediately that we're neighbors ... and I work right in Andover, too! Have you been to Italy? And tips from one New Englander to another?

As pointed out, just be sure to leave some unplanned time each day. That way you can linger someplace you're really enjoying. Be sure to research closing times and final entry times for museums and churches, though. You can't negotiate with a locked door. :-)

I think most of us are over planners, especially when we only have one or two weeks vacation time a year. I always have firm hotel dates and plan site visits, but the evenings are good times for spontaneity. I also prefer rental cars so that offers a HUGE opportunity to pull off and explore quaint towns you've never heard of.

10 years ago I was definitely an overplanner. I found that as I grew to be a more experienced traveler, I started planning less and less. We just did Istanbul this week for 5 days and other than our hotel and flight, we had no plans. We had set out some pirorities of a few things we wanted to see... and then just let things fall into place. We did have an I-Pad with downloaded materials (books, podcasts, etc) but frankly I'd never looked at any of it until after we arrived. We also stayed in a hotel with free internet so we could look stuff up, as necessary. One factor that played havoc was the weather - which is one you just can't control. We choose NOT to do a river cruise as the weather would make the experience less enjoyable. If we had pre-paid or pre-booked, we'd certainly have been frustrated. I guess one factor which changed our travel mentality was... if we like the spot, we plan on returning. We enjoyed our exposure to Istanbul and we do plan on a return trip with friends. One advantage we have is we're already in Europe, so getting there is far less a challenge. But we've long since dropped the "check-it-off, gotta-see-it" approach to traveling. Book your flights, your hotels... and maybe even your airport transport... the BIG things that take up time - and then just relax and enjoy the experience. You won't see it all - but make WHAT you see meaningful!

Hi Renee, I stayed "just around the corner" in Tuscany (Greve) 3 years ago. It was beautiful! As we were driving by a little shop in Duda we decided to stop in for a bite, there was no sign, no one spoke a word of english and the food was amazing! The only reason we thought it might be a restaurant was we saw a couple of tables with umbrellas to the side/behind. It was just a little hole in the wall but when we went down stairs it was cute and they had live music at night. We made a reservation to go back again that night and when we arrive we realized that we were joining a baby's Christianing party. We had so much fun! Also while driving around the wine country we kept seeing these young women coming out of the woods as we neared, I thought what a strange place for a bus stop....my husband just smiled. After 3 days I made the connection that these were actually hookers! I'm a bit sheltered I guess. By the way, I'm also your neighbor, we live in Hamilton. Lastly, as I was looking out our bedroom window on our last morning in Tuscany a tear ran down my cheek, my husband asked why I was crying I said "it's just so beautiful" he snapped a picture of me looking out that window with the amazing Tuscan landscape and it is now framed on our bedroom wall so we can return to that magical place again and again in our dreams.

Susan what a great story! Thank you so much for sharing. I think I'm most excited and intrigued by Tuscany. It just seems so romantic and unlike any place I've ever been. How wonderful that you were able to join a christening party! That is just the spontaneity I'm after! And your stories about the ladies in the woods.... how hilarious! I wonder if we'll see any ... yikes! I appreciate everyone taking the time to write. Each story is just adding to my excitement. We depart one month from yesterday!

The most memorable parts of our trips to Italy have been those spontaneous moments that were never planned. Especially those moments when you make a connection with local people or our travelers. On our first trip we had planned to daytrip from Siena to Cortona and found out that the last bus/train had left. We were trying to decide what to do, when we met a woman, traveling alone, who suggested Montalcino. On the bus there the 3 of us met a young Swiss man, also traveling alone. The four of us walked around Montalcino, then on the suggestion from a TI we ended up traveling to the nearby Abbey of Sant'Antimo, a church in the Tuscan countryside built in 800AD, where the monks sing Gregorian chants. The entire day was spur of the moment and unforgettable.
What I've learned is to plan for options, then go with the flow.

Sorry, but you are probably too far gone to save. My advice would probably scare you, we once took off for Europe, into Athens, Greece, out of Milan, Italy...3 and a half weeks later....0 hotel reservations (not even first night); 0 transit tickets or reservations, nothing. Nearly the best trip we ever took, always had a place to stay, no...we did not "waste" time looking for a place to stay, often found a place quicker than most can find the place they booked six months earlier, and always a quality we found acceptable. The key is; do not confuse planning with locking in commitments. We always knew the areas we were going, had lists of hotels, had scoped out restaurants, knew sights to see, but had the flexibility to firm up a plan a day or two ahead, or change at the last moment. If I were to pass on a strategy, it would be to tag each sight with a rough time factor. Rome for example, the ancient sights (Colosseum, Forum, maybe the Palatine) are a "half day", Borghese, Half day; Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Piazza Navona, Campo di Fiori, all walk bys to an hour or so; the Vatican, most of a day. The idea is, pick only a few things a day, leaving flex time between, it will fill in just walking around. More importantly, do not sweat it if you miss something, just enjoy what you do see.

I agree that planning is essential so you can know what your options are. For example, yuou always want to have a backup plan in case of bad weather. Wandering around in the Forum in a pouring rain is not my idea of fun. Happy travels.

thanks for posting such an interesting topic Renee. I do plan a lot; I plan the days activities, for instance, the market I want to go to, the museum,..... BUT, if I don't get all the planned things done because I sat at a great outdoor cafe for lunch and needed to have a second glass of wine while sitting and people watching for a while, I am ok with that. The cafes are a highlight for me. This works for me; if I don't get to all the sights , I say, I will have to return!!! I feel more comfortable with booked accomodations, so that is planned. I do much of my planning in advance, while looking at what museums are closed on particular days, Ricks books are good to point that out. I try to group activities in a certain area of a city; in Paris, I usually take the Metro to the farthest activity and walk my way back to my hotel, getting on the bus if my feet start to complain. While on my trip, each evening I look at my plan and decide if that is what I will stick to or make changes, I also look up and write down the metro stop or bus number I should take. I am not a morning person, so it works for me to have everything planned for the day. Have a great trip.

Florence: we planned on our arrival day to go to the Duomo and climb to the top... then find a nice place to have dinner. On the way over to Italy, we got a message from friends that they were in Florence on an Expat assignment for his work, and would we like to come to their place for dinner one night... out went the plans for dinner at a restaurant and instead we got treated to a traditional tuscan meal in a 500 year old house on a local fattoria (vineyard and olive grove) that still has a partially working 2000+ year old Roman road running next to the house... It was by far the most "spontaneous" thing we did, and was the best day/night of the trip. In Rome, the spontaneity was a bit more deliberate (if that makes sense). With more time in Rome than in the other two cities, we deliberately didn't have a set in stone plan. We wanted to be flexible based on weather (which turned out not to be necessary... we had great weather almost the whole trip) and based on our stamina. Mostly, we ended up sticking to the broad outline that we had in mind, but on our last day - when we planned to see the Colosseum, Forum and maybe Palatine Hill, we decided on the spot to forgo the Forum itself and climb Palatine Hill... after three solid days just before of sightseeing, we were worn out. We figured we didn't need/want to go through all of the Forum in detail since we'd been to the forum in Pompeii and instead we climbed Palatine Hill... it was a great choice as we had a chance to sit in the shade and rest when we needed to and finally when we made it to the edge of the Farnese gardens overlooking the forum I got some of my favorite photos of the whole trip capturing the vast sweep of the forum all the way back to the Colosseum. If we had stuck to our "plan" we would have surely cut out Palatine Hill and not seen that view, which will stick with me.

We just returned from 10 days in Italy and we did the "plan for spontaneity" thing. We basically did exactly what Ron described in his post above. Back in January when we decided to go, we worked out flights first and booked those, then we found lodging (with a combination of RS guide books and TripAdvisor ratings). After that was in place, we used Ron's coaching service to help us flesh out the "skeleton" of what we wanted to do with just "enough" historical sights/architecture/museums so that we would feel like we had gotten our value for our money/time out of the trip, but not so much that we were beating ourselves into the ground. I LOVE to research vacations/travel - it's nearly half the fun for me - but I also don't like to be on a forced march through museums and sights... I'm traveling, but I'm also on vacation... it's time to relax. Here's our spontaneous highlights from the trip. Venice: our arrival was supposed to be in early afternoon - time to allow us to see some sights on the arrival day of our two night stay. Thanks to Alitalia, we arrived about 4 1/2 hours late - but it was GREAT, because our private water taxi/tour of the grand canal happened at sunset - I can't believe the arrival would have been any better. The next day we still had time to go to Murano, and then visit St. Marks and the Rialto bridge. more in the next message

I definitely plan a lot so I can be flexible on the ground. The planning allows me to know all the options for sights, things to do, parks, transportation, etc.. I've been doing this since I visited Okinawa years ago and missed what would have been my top sight because I didn't know it was there (until I got home). The one area I never plan is restaurants. Any travel guide recommendation for a restaurant is useless once it's in print. I do locate grocery stores ahead of time but my cafe choices are based on local recommendations that day. Same for menu choices. Tourists often order a dish in June that is only made with fresh ingredients in September. It's better to ask a waiter what is good that day and go with that. When I'm actually on the ground, my time isn't planned to the minute. Knowing our options, we can focus more on what we'd like to do. We don't see everything but the things we see are our top picks based on personal preferences.

Thanks so much for all of your thoughts and suggestions. I almost missed getting to do a Vatican tour until I realized yesterday I had to book it ahead! By the time I did, there was just one slot left on the day we had to do it. This taught me a lot -- make sure what I want to do is actually open and available the days I'm going to be there! Sounds like commonsense, but, with all of the other details swirling in my head, it's amazing how I almost overlooked it. Thanks all!