How Not To Plan For Your Next Trip
Trip Talk USAShould you plan your next trip or just let it happen?
While browsing for quality content for this web site ( www.triptalkusa.com ) it suddenly occurred to me how much I disagreed with an article I was considering. In fact I opted to immediately jot down a few thoughts racing around in my head. For instance, how 30 years ago on a Friday afternoon, we would go to our favorite mountain lake campground and stake out our family site and maybe one for my sisters family too. It was my obvious chore because I was the only one that could leave work early and beat the rush. Then as years went by and the campers turned into mobs, I had to take Fridays off and claim our sites on Thursdays. Soon though if we wanted a Weekend waterfront site I had to show up on Wednesday to corner people, asking when they were leaving so I could be first in line when they vacated. I remember all too well how stressful it was, not knowing if we would get a good site or any site at all. I remember being forced to take sites we didn’t want, because the option was to go home. Then one year it was all over, the forest service hired a reservation service, we no longer stressed out over getting the perfect spot. All we had to do was reserve a site six months to the minute before our arrival. If it was five months twenty nine days, twenty three hours and fifty nine minutes, we were too late and the site we wanted would be already reserved. I would have to pick another day and try again. So in effect the stress was in January and February to reserve a site for July or August. Which brings me to my disagreement, the author was stressing how important it is to have done your research, to make plans, to leave nothing to chance. Right down to having games and reading material readily available so there is no chance someone might be bored or say I have nothing to do at any time during their travels. I respectfully offer alternatives, now before anyone jumps on me, I already know what I’m going to suggest will not work for all people, on all trips, all the time. To illustrate I will outline a trip my wife and I embarked on a few years ago. The plan was to go to the Grand Canyon and visit places in the area and on the way.
We would allow up to three weeks and leave asap. We both packed several changes of clothes including cold weather and hiking shoes. I grabbed an Insulated cooler, portable cook stove, coffee pot, flash lights and a few books we were currently reading. We pulled both bench seats from the van and tossed in a foam mattress and sleeping bags. Five minutes at the fabric store plus a bag of clothes pins and we had some cheap curtains for privacy. After talking with the children about responsibility and outlining chores, we were ready to hit the road, alone. Heading south on I 5 we both were totally relaxed and stress free. How could we have stress, two days earlier we had no idea we would be leaving on a trip. I had no idea what road to take or where we would stay the first night, but we brought with us a ten year old road atlas and figured we could buy in route, food or whatever we forgot or needed. Whoa, not so fast pilgrims, it is true we had previously talked about how we would like to take a trip to the Grand Canyon, but we had never made plans or set a date. We had certainly never discussed any camping or lodging arrangements. On the road again, Linda studied the atlas maps observing potential routes to take. One choice was to drive south until opposite Las Vegas, then turn left, another was turn left sooner and visit Lassen Peak or Yosemite. So we settled on Lassen Peak as our first destination. Now what about dinner when we get there, we had left home with only a bag of trail mix and some fruit. Linda checked the atlas and decided that Redding, CA was our turn off point and last chance to find a major store. While in the store we realized we better buy breakfast also, but dinner tomorrow could wait until tomorrow. We settled into this routine for the entire trip, we stopped when and where we found ourselves. We went on some hikes and spent all the time we wanted at visitor centers. We didn’t move on until we were ready. Every morning before school we talked with home, and every afternoon after school we talked again. Even though I never knew for sure where we would camp, I never worried about it because I knew we could sleep in a rest stop (we did one time) or take a room at a motel (we did twice). I am not advocating not planning your trips, and I don’t totally disagree with those that plan and plan and plan. Just consider that you can take off on your traveling before the stress catches up with you, stay one step ahead, and make it happily home again. In my opinion, truly a good way to travel. Now then, can you leave tomorrow before noon or would breakfast on the road be better? John 2010
No comments:
Post a Comment