Do you have fun planning your vacation?

I enjoy planning a trip, I make it part of the trip research. I've never had anyone else plan a European trip for me (my wife and I do it together). Having someone else plan a trip of mine, to Europe, would be so, well, odd. I guess people who don't enjoy it should get someone else to plan it for them, a spouse, other travel companion, or travel agent.

I like to plan a trip. In fact I usually layout 3-4 itineraries and let my wife or kids pick out which one they like best. The internet makes it even better as you have so many sources at your finger tips.

I did once use a canned driving trip in Ireland. It worked out well and I would not be reluctant to do so again but I think that I would miss doing the work.

I enjoy doing it myself. I learn a lot from diy planning.

Oh the planning is part of the fun.. the education. I had a travel agent once to plan a trip for Norway. A little off season, and I really wanted to do the Norway in a Nut Shell tour. She couldn't book it for me. That is when I started to do it myself.. a little research a few phone calls and ta-da wish granted. I had a lot fun doing it as well. Now I do it all myself. This year is the challenge.. 12 weeks on two continents.. I had to do everything in order like dominos.. it has been a blast and a challenge to do. I love it!!

I love planning our trips. I think the anticipation is part of the adventure. I have a passion for maps and it is so rewarding for me to actually travel the roads and see the sights that were just lines and words on the map. I do get professional advise, like from the experts at ETTBD, occasionally. But it is so satisfying to plan it and do it and journal it. Happy travels!!

The planning is awesome! Reading about the culture, history, sites to see...making a flexible plan to follow...imagining what it will all be like once you're there. At this point, I bet I spend 4x as much time reading and planning and reserving than we actually spend on each trip! We're lucky in that we visit Europe twice per year, once in the winter and once in the summer, and I build a little library of books on each country in between to read beforehand. That and studying the language and building an itinerary from RS guidebooks. I know EXACTLY what you mean!

I love researching the hotels, trying to find the nicest place for the cheapest price and the places to go. My husband is crazy about Google earth and maps, so we hardly ever have to pull a map out when we go to other cities. He already knows all the landmarks and where to go.

So far, we have been really lucky with all of our hotels and the activities we have planned. We try and do walking tours in every city we go to so that we are orientated well, we use public transportation and we find restaurants where we find them. We have never tried to find those ahead of time.

We are both history buffs, so we do read up ahead of time about the cities we are going to.

I also love planning our trips--for me it's like putting together pieces of a puzzle. I look at various destinations, hotels, transportation connections, sights we want to see, etc. and assemble and shuffle until I find the right combination that fits our budget travel style. Many times, I sketch out a plan and run it by my husband and then he helps revise the itinerary. It's a joint effort and lots of fun.

We like to try new destinations and also return to some of our favorite places to see things we might have missed on our last visit.

I absolutely love the planning- I don't think I would have half as much fun if someone else did it all for me!

Kathleen,

I really enjoy planning my own trips, and don't think I'd enjoy them nearly as much if someone else did that part. I prefer to have a choice on which places I'm going to visit, flight and train times, lodgings and all the other details of a trip. Of course since I travel solo for the most part these days, there's no one else (aside from a Travel Agent) that could do the planning for me. The one exception is that lately I've been combining self-guided travel with a RS tour of about the same length, so the tour portion of my trips is planned by someone else.

I've learned a lot from the planning process, which is knowledge that helps on future trips. I've also found that trip planning is not only a lot of fun but also adds to the anticipation and enjoyment of each trip.

Cheers!

since I am on a budget these days planning is essential.And I really do enjoy it when I succeed in making my goal. no agent would take the time or do what is necessary to research. I thank RS for his guidebks every trip.

I like planning my trips. But I do not agree with the sentance : "planning a trip is half the fun of the trip". I think the planning phase is a small percentage of the fun or pleasure or satisfaction that a person gets from a trip to Europe, if the trip is well planned.

Kathleen, i reallly enjoyed planning our trips, my husband would actually say that i am obsessed with the planning! i spend a lot of time researching, creating our itinerary and then fine tuning it. i love looking for the best places to stay at the cheapest price, i try to find activities for all of our different interests (12 year old boy also), and then when we are on the trip i feel very organized and informed, but i am very flexible to last minute change or suggestion. some of our best memories we're unplanned!

Kathleen,

For me researching and planning is a great way to take my mind of work. Provides me with a carrot at the end of the stick mentality after an 18 hour
day of b.s..I also look at the planning stages as a treasure hunt. Like travel
it's an adventure. I usually travel in Winter. Thus, I establish a base locale
early in the year and then spend the succeeding months arranging, rearranging and finalizing my itinerary. I read reviews, blogs, websites online. Purchase Rick's newest book, and possibly the Lonely Planet, Rough Guides and Eyewitness Travel books. Check out Orbitz, Kayak, Sidestep, Best Fares, Booking Buddy, Priceline, Virgin Air, American Airlines, EasyJet, Ryanair etc. Review Journey Woman, Karen Brown, Frommer's and recommendations from the Travel Channel, friends and colleagues. It's all a labor of love so when I have to go to LAX I do so with a smile.

I think it's probably safe to say that most of the people on this board get a kick out planning the next trip. It does help build the anticipation and I really enjoy doing all of the research. I'm struggling a little right now because my next trip is a RS tour - so not too much planning required on my part. I do intend to do research for planning my free time, and a little time after the tour. I also really enjoy participating in this discussion board, and helping others with their planning!

Like everyone else who has responded, I enjoy the planning very much. I love deciding where to go, researching things to do there, looking for places to stay, etc. I have always loved maps and I like to look at maps from everywhere and think about going to those places. The planning helps make the upcoming trip more "real." Right now I am planning a trip to New England next fall and I am already thinking about our next trip to Europe next year. My husband on the other hand doesn't care to do any planning and doesn't really care that much where we go. Just going is enough for him. That works for us.

I not only like planning my trips I have helped others plan theirs.By the way I use a travel agent for my plane trip and a rental car if I use one but nothing else.That works for me.

Lee said, "In my case, I love the planning. I maybe enjoy the planning more than the trip itself. I have plans already for trips I might never take. I just planned them because it was interesting."

It was for a trip two years ago to Franken, that I also planned a trip to the Rhein/Mosel Valleys. My son liked Franken but regretted the missed trip to the Rhein once he saw pictures of the castles. We are going back this year mainly based on that two year old plan.

Regards, Gary

During the planning process much of the fun comes from the satisfaction and excitement of getting that confirmation of acceptance to certain tours such as the Scavi Tour at St. Peters after a month or two of trying and just when you feel it is not going to happen the confirmation e mail comes through. Hooray!! Pre booking for the Uffizi gallery to avoid the long lines, the secret itiineraries tour at Doge's Palace just to name a couple make the trip seem closer to reality and heightens our anticipation of the trip. It is fun and builds toward the excitement of that departure date. Planning is fun, educational and tailor made for the planner(s).

I'm in the midst of planning a London/Paris trip for September, where I will be playing tour guide to a woman colleague in her late 60's and has never seen either of these cities. So, I am excited for her and for the opportunity to introduce her to London, but particularly Paris. I've rented a wonderful apartment on the Ile St. Louis, and the location should blow her mind (as it will mine). I've been to Paris many times and am now building an itinerary of places to go, places to eat, where we might shop, etc. I'm very detail oriented, so constant research and planning is fun, and my mind is pretty much always in Paris (and a little in London too) all the time!

I love planning our trips although occasionally it is frustrating when searching for hours for something and coming up empty. This year we are combining a guided tour (mainland Greece, Mykonos & Santorini) with several days in London. I felt shortchanged because there was so little for me to do in planning the trip. However, we did decide to split from the group in Santorini so we could stay someplace wonderful in Oia with a fantastic view and great privacy. At least I got to research the places on Santorini!
I leave the day-to-day activities planning to my husband who enjoys that part. I submit my list of "must sees" to him and let him coordinate the logistics. It works well for us.

Judging from the response on this site (no one has said they prefer to have a travel agent plan it), I wouldn't think travel agents would have much business. But I think that is just the nature of people on this site.

I can't imagine someone who has a travel agent plan all of their trips contributing to this site. What would they say when asked for advice?

In my case, I love the planning. I maybe enjoy the planning more than the trip itself. I have plans already for trips I might never take. I just planned them because it was interesting.

A few years ago, in June, my wife said, "Let's go to Germany for Christmas." Within two weeks, I had everything arranged. I had been thinking about my next trip for a year, planning on where to stay, what to see, how to get between places. All I had to do was make the reservations.

I really don't think a travel agent could plan my trips. I don't use hotels that pay a commissions to travel agents, so they probably wouldn't pick those places, and it would cost a lot more. I don't think they would have access to the discount rail tickets or Länder tickets that I use. They would probably want to sell me a rail pass. I always compare using a rail pass to the way I plan on getting tickets, and a rail pass always costs more.

A few years ago, I signed up for a community college course called "How to plan a trip to Germany". It was "taught" by a travel agent who brought in the broshure from a packaged trip to Germany she was trying to sell. She had no tips on planning a trip, except to buy her package. A few of us demanded and got our money back.

Lee, I guess you're right, most of the people here wouldn't use a travel agent. I almost did but she wasn't much help. I still haven't heard from her about lower fares, which have been going on and off for over a month since I talked to her.

I enjoy planning and have developed a trip-at-glance spreadsheet that I use to keep track of my research as I do it. At the end I print and also email it to myself cause it has all the important links I might need. I've posted a few at our personal blog at:
http://gadtravel.blogspot.com/

I love planning my vacations and I only went once on a semi-guided tour in Mexico and hated it.
Letting a TA to do it is for begginers or lazy people.
Internet is such a powerful tool for research, and it's FREE. Books are also free from the library.

I love the planning. You get a lot of knowledge from planning yourself and that is valuable on the trip. The biggest benefit is that all the anticipation makes the trip last longer!

I get a big kick out of trip-planning. I tolerate certain details like train and hotel reservations, but greatly enjoy the development of an itinerary that flows and reflects my own personal interests. I also really enjoy researching cities and figuring out the feel of different neighborhoods. Google Maps Street View has been awesome at orienting me to the streets in Paris. I haven't gone so far as to memorize all the main streets, but that's something I plan to do before I leave in a few weeks.

Main areas I research before a trip (in this case to France):

Food. I read books on the subject. Biographies. Journalists memoirs. Food blogs. Friends. I have been cooking some traditional French meals at home and buying imported wine and cheese.

History. I haven't been able to read any historical novels this time around as I have focused more on the food. But I've been pouring over various summaries and timelines to really orient myself to the different terms applied to buildings, people, and places.

The people. The customs, etiquette, current events. Migration.

There's more, but I don't have enough time to study it all.

Adore the planning. I, too, have trips semi-planned that I may never take. I suppose that most everyone who is drawn to this helpline feels pretty much the same way about all the research and planning. Just too much fun. As a young reader, I began to travel in my mind, and that hasn't changed a bit.

I enjoy planning for the trip almost as much as the trip itself. This is good because it takes way more time. I love researching the sites in potential destinations, and I love picking the place to stay. However, when it gets to the nitty gritty stuff at the end -- how to get from the airport to the place we are staying and that sort of thing, I find it to be pretty tedious. But I do it because it saves so much precious touring time to map out the details out in advance.

But I'm not completely anal; I do build in some flexibility.

Planning the trip is soooo much fun. I view it as a necessary preliminary step to set the atmosphere for the trip. It gives you so much more background information about the culture of where you're going, & what to see when you get there and certainly can take you off the beaten path. I could spend hours researching this stuff. I too should have been a travel agent.