Road Trips!

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KristinCB

Sweet Shoppe Designer
We are going away for a few days at the end of june.. not 100% sure where yet somewhere close by

When you plan gettaways do you plan 100% of the trip before hand or are you someone who just packs up and drives and see where you end up.. or somewhere in the middle?
 
I like to plan in advance....with 4 kids I need to know where we are going and what we are gonna do so pretty much everybody can be happy....plus my kids range from 19 to 5 so we have to plan in case my DD has to work or I have to give my daycare notice...maybe when they are older I'd be more willing to get up and go (polus we have pets that we have to make arrangements for as well)...
 
definite planner :)

if it's just a daily thing or maybe even a weekend nearby then I just roll with it but for a longer trip man I have to plan it
 
Well, I'm a planner by nature, so I like to do SOME planning. In general, I like to at least have hotel reservations made. I don't like getting somewhere and finding I either can't afford what is available, or being afraid I'll be mugged or worse in whatever is left. LOL.

Some of my favorite trips involved hopping off of the airplane, renting a car, and just exploring a new part of the country. Mom and I did that a lot when I was younger. Now with DH and Rachel, our family tends to map out the best way to our destination (usually the fastest way considering short vacation time), including a few side trips if at all possible.
 
Depends on how long. If it's longer than a 2-3 day jaunt then some plans are made, especially if we will be staying in a motel rather than camping or if there are specific things we want to do or see; museums, amusement parks, hikes, etc.

However, on any given weekend, Cheyanne and I have been known to throw the camping gear and cooler in the trunk and jump in the car and head out with no specific place in mind. As we are headed out the drive, we choose one of our numerous state parks and head there for the weekend. I have Sundays and Mondays off, so we will head out late Saturday afternoon and spend 2 nights then come home on Monday whenever we feel like heading that way.
 
We used to be more spontaneous before our son was born. Now we have to be planners more so. He isn't spontaneous and not having some solid plans throws him in to a tizzy. So, I need a good idea of where we are going and what we are doing to let the kids (boy mostly) know in advance. I leave room for surprises in there that we don't tell them about ahead of time or stops we might want to make that weren't on our list but we need to start with a plan or we don't get anywhere.
 
we will plan the destination like we are going to Chicago... but as to what we will do there - totally wait and see. :D I use to be such a planner when I was single... we would be on a business trip and stay the weekend and would try to see everything we could, typically driving 4 states to see something... haha... now that I'm married and with kiddo, we just wing it... see what people recommend, what fliers we find at the hotel, etc.
 
We have a road trip through Eastern Oregon (and into Northern Cali) in July. I have planned almost all of it. For several reasons:

1. MOTELS: I wanted nice hotels with a King Bed & roll-away or fold out sofa for our kid. Having an indoor pool was a big priority.

2. ACTIVITIES: One of the activities we wanted to do is only open on Saturday, so I had to plan around that. And another activity I had to buy tickets for (the Shasta caves).

I've been burned before thinking that something was open (because it was in a guide book). and then it wasn't. I always call ahead. And when making hotel reservations I always call the physical hotel with their local number rather than calling their 1-800 numbers and get some clearing house.

I've done other road trips where I booked key events (like the weekends or friday nights) and then had the middle of the week a little more floating.

Good luck with your planning!
 
Oh, it definitely has to be planned. DH + SS have ADHD and DD + SS + DD have blood sugar/hypoglycemia issues and DH has a gluten intolerance, so there's no winging things when you have to account for that. The food issue alone takes a tremendous amount of energy and forethought and I am the only person who has the attention span for it!

As much as having a rigid schedule benefits everyone in the family, sometimes I will pretend that I don't so DH doesn't feel 'suffocated' by the plan. If I pretend like I don't know the exact location of such-and-such or when such-and-such opens or closes, DH feels more vacation-y, so I go with it.

The only time I would ever risk a random road trip would be if it was a short day trip somewhere when DD was a couple years older and no longer needing a nap. Even then, I'd much rather take a random trip with adult friends who can be responsible for themselves so I could actually enjoy myself. :)
 
I do general planning........like location and hotel. As for activities and attractions.....sometimes I plan 1 or 2 but mostly just kind of plan that once I am there. I want to RELAX on vacation so I don't have a daily itinerary or anything. I like to have some spontaneous fun. :) (but the planner in me always looks to see what is in the area and how much it cost to plan budget wise. KWIM?)
 
I'm an odd ball. I print a list of places I'd like to see in a 4 state radius. Like Mount Rushmore, and Devils Tower, and Seven Falls, and Garden of the Gods we did in one trip. We just drive untill we reach something we wanna see, usually trying to go through as many National parks as possible. And then we go sight seeing and then find a close hotel. Then wake up in the morning and drive on. We are pretty go with the flow types, sometimes I just like to drive the 3 hours to OKC or Dallas for the day for the heck of it. :)
 
I'm the exact same as you tara. Especially with where we are staying I like to know that in advance - I really read reviews and such because I can be kinda picky (I NEED places that are quiet so i review and review to make sure where we stay isn't going to be noisy (i'm really odd though)

I'm a geek and so I told darcy today that I"m planning on planning it around geocaches. hahahhaha
 
I'm somewhere in the middle. I like to have an idea of what I want to do and do some research on the area, but I don't plan when we will do each thing. I figure it out while we are there.
 
KristinCB said:
We are going away for a few days at the end of june.. not 100% sure where yet somewhere close by

When you plan gettaways do you plan 100% of the trip before hand or are you someone who just packs up and drives and see where you end up.. or somewhere in the middle?
Click to expand...

I like to get travel guides and find out what activities are available when we get there. We may not do all of them, but I like to have an idea of what there is to do so we don't miss out. But we'll often spend time just exploring too. A little of both I think.
 
It depends, but we definitely lean toward planning. We always have a hotel reservation and an idea of some of the major attractions we might want to see there, at a minimum. We don't go on too many "big" trips these days because it's too hard and too expensive with the kids. I'm guessing the first big one we'll do with them will be Disney in a year or 2. For those big trips, I plan most of it ahead of time and leave a few "open" times for us to be spontaneous or change plans if something needs to be moved around last minute. For most trips, I have a list of what we think we want to do and any schedule restrictions for each thing, and then we wing it.
 
I am a planner. I have schedules, lists, etc. I am just happier knowing what is going to happen. Even if it is chilling out by the pool, it's part of the plan. :)
 
I plan the location and I also make sure I've done some research about the place we'll be staying. We also carefully plan the road we're going to take, times of departure, arrival, stops etc. But once we're there, we just see day by day what we're going to do.
 
Definite planner here!!

When I was younger though, my dad would take 2-3 weeks off work and we would hop in the car and go. We would have a definite end point and a few check points along the way but there were always things we saw that we hadn't planned on seeing. I miss our big family vacations!!
 
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