Trip Planning: Your Ultimate Guide for Midlife Adventures
We often get asked about how we plan our travel and we tend to adjust our planning based on whether it’s a short trip, a short but important trip, or a long trip. We shared the way we plan in our latest video, Trip Planning: Your Ultimate Guide for Midlife Adventures and offer up additional info below.
Regardless of the length of the trip, we tend to look for women owned and operated businesses and those owned by LGBTQ+, Black people, people of color, and other people who are not cis gendered, white men, (hotels, restaurants, tours, bars, cafes, etc.). We use ChatGPT or Bing AI, and we reach out to friends and trusted resources either through social media, in person, or via email/text. We like to crowdsource our travel ideas.
Terri is an anxious traveler so when it comes to important and longer trips, she prefers to have a fairly concrete plan with reservations. But occasionally, we will do a short trip and we’ll be more spontaneous.
Terri is a professional project manager and takes on the majority of our travel planning although Zeke has been known to plan a thing or to, but pays less attention to detail which drives Terri crazy. And yes, we are going to do an experiment with our June 2024 Vancouver trip where Zeke is 100% in charge. We are doing a home exchange so we know where we are staying and Terri booked the flights so that’s set too. Beyond that, Terri’s ‘girding her loins’ for the experience of letting go of control.
Shorter Trips
For shorter trips (2-4 days), we don’t do a lot of planning. We’ll identify an anchor like a hotel or an event and build the trip around it. We’ll crowdsource ideas by putting a call out to social media and we’ll even ask people what to do or where to eat while we are on the trip. We like to leave time for spontaneity and serendipity. Once again, these are for the lower-risk and less expensive trips.
When we don’t have an idea on where to go, we may look at our credit card rewards programs to see if there are any deals or specials for us to take advantage of. We’ve had mixed success with this. Most of the hotels require pre-payment and we prefer to have some flexibility if something comes up.
Short but Important Trips
Terri does not like to be disappointed (and she tends to have FOMO) so for short but important trips, like her recent birthday, we do a fair bit of planning while also leaving room for naps and spontaneity. Like the shorter trips, we like to ask people what to do and where to eat before we go, and when we are out and about on the trip itself.
Once we have an idea of where we want to go, and the purpose of the trip, we will search online for ideas, use ChatGPt and Bing AI, look at IG, and we’ll even look at Google maps and check out reviews there. (Terri is in the top 10% of Google reviewers on Google maps if you want to follow her for ideas and reviews on restaurants, bars, places, and hotels) Terri says she also uses Trip Advisor depending on what it is.
We’ll make reservations for the important things like a birthday meal and the hotel (we’ve stopped using AirBnb’s and VRBO’s when traveling together), and the important activities, especially since many places now require reservations for timed entry (post-pandemic).
Long Trips
This is where we tend to put in significantly more effort, especially if we are traveling a fair distance and our budget is bigger (or tighter).
We’ll have a discussion about the trip, do some basic research on YouTube, ChatGPT, Bing AI, and ask our friends for some suggestions. Then, Terri likes to come up with a theme for the trip and build the activities and locations around the theme.
As with the short and important trips, we may look at Trip Advisor, Google maps, and IG for ideas and reviews.
Terri creates a Google sheet and shares it with Zeke (and/or whoever else she is traveling with) with the following tabs:
To Do List
Itinerary
Trip Ideas
There may be one for each city for trips like to Europe
As cities are added to the trip, new tabs will be created and as cities are eliminated, they are marked as ‘old’ and moved out of the way but available for future reference
Within the To Do tab, Terri will include the following:
To Do (task or action item)
Due Date
Status
Booking Code
Cost
Prepaid?
Details
Breakfast/Parking?
Cancellation policy
Within the Itinerary tab, Terri will include the following:
Activity/Location
Number of Nights (if applicable)
Start Date / Activity Date
Days of the Week
Departure Date (for hotels)
Travel time (if applicable)
Highlights
Hotel name
Vendor
Other notes
Within the Trip Ideas tab, Terri will include:
Description
Type (museum, hotel, tour, restaurant, etc.)
Location (city)
Notes: ideas
Links (website, social media, YouTube video, etc.)
On long trips, with some exceptions, we generally don’t make restaurant reservations in advance as we like to see what we find and ask locals for suggestions. We’ve had pretty good success with this, but also some complete fails which always add to the travel ‘story.’ We accept that something (and possibly many things) will not go as planned on our trips despite Terri’s extensive planning and documentation.
Travel Agents and Advisors
We’ve been travel DIY’ers (typical GenXers) but know that not everyone has time to research, nor is everyone willing to take the risks associated with planning their trip. As we learned from our friend Anne Murphy, owner of My Travel Key, a virtual travel agency, some people only have so much time and budget for a trip and want it to be perfect, so they hire her and her team to provide expert and experienced guidance. They are also the single point of contact in the event that something goes wrong on the trip which gives some people greater comfort and reassurance to better enjoy their trip.
We’ve learned that the role of a travel agent, or travel advisor, has changed.
You’d think that with all the information available at our fingertips, and in our pockets, we’d have an easier time making decisions about travel, but the opposite is true; for many people, it’s completely overwhelming and these same people really want to avoid mishaps and disappointment. Thus, they can pay a travel advisor or agent to provide various options, and reservations, to make it easier and improve the likelihood of success.
Final Thoughts
Travel comes with risk, and it can be uncomfortable, which is why we encourage people, especially those of us in midlife, to do it. It’s good for our brains to experience new things and build new neuropathways. It’s good to avoid complacency and travel can be a lot of fun! It’s also a great way to meet new people, gain greater empathy for others, and expand our world views.
Any travel that makes us even a little bit uncomfortable is an adventure.
And every trip leaves you with a good story regardless of how the trip went.