The Happy Wanderer on a Schedule

I haven’t done a Daily Post in a while and this one is particularly fitting since I’m planning a white water rafting/camping trip in May.

What’s your travel style? Are you itinerary and schedule driven, needing to have every step mapped out in advance or are you content to arrive without a plan and let happenstance be your guide?

I will drop everything in a heartbeat and go somewhere. Example. Last year for my birthday, I decided to go to San Fransciso and the next day at the butt crack of dawn I was on a plane. However, during my flight and my layover I was planning, planning, planning my things to see and do list.

For some reason, I can drop everything and go but then I have to plan out every minute and if every minute is not accounted for I tend to have panic attacks.

A little off topic, but it’s the same principle when I go out of town. I’m going to use last Saturday as an example:

8:30 – Allergist

9:30 – Target

10:15 – Starbucks

10:30 – Mani & Pedi

12:30 – Whole Foods

1:30 – Giant for things I didn’t get at Whole Foods

2:30 – Headed home and if I were feeling particularly frisky I’d go to the bookstore instead.

That’s my schedule and I do not deviate from it. Ever. I’m calm and happy and a pleasure to be around.

Now there are times in which things happen and when they do (i.e. DC traffic, mother calling asking me to make another stop) I spiral into a tail spin and become the absolute opposite of calm, happy and a pleasure to be around. In a nutshell I become the Tazmanian Devil or as some people say, “I’m bat shit crazy.”

Basically the above schedule is how I plan my vacations. I have tried to just winging it and it’s always a FAIL. And this is one reason why I travel by myself. The other is I can’t stand to be on someone else’s schedule.