I overplan every vacation and wouldn’t have it any other way. August 2022

Four years ago we took a trip to Austin so that my wife could go to see Florence and the Machine in concert and we could have a weekend getaway. It was a fun trip however we spent one day by going to top golf and watching a movie. I remember leaving Austin feeling like we should have done so much more, i didn’t ask anyone for recommendations on things to do and i did no research myself, instead we just didn't things we could have easily had done in Tulsa. Luckily a few months later we would be going back to Austin for a friend's birthday party (which resulted in us not trusting deep discount airlines anymore, aka ViaAir) and I vowed to make more of this trip. I started by making a spreadsheet (no surprise) of everything that tripadvisor recommends, how long i would need to spend there and what it would cost. 

There was not much to this spreadsheet but it provided many memories and places we could see relatively close to each other. Plus now I have a  “vacation” Spreadsheet that I can look back on and reminisce on any trip we have taken.

I still primarily use tripadvisor and swear by it as a first stop for vacation planning, the ability to find restaurants near different attractions makes things easier and makes it easier to follow a budget. Eating out seems like one of the most expensive parts of vacations and I want to either find affordable options nearby or feel like I got my money’s worth at the restaurant. We went to Chicago in June to visit some friends and I once again started a trusty spreadsheet. 

It's more organized now, and yes I am one of those people who have days broken down by the hour  but I will never go back to just showing up somewhere new and hoping to have fun.

What’s something new you have learned from traveling that you will never go back to the old ways of not doing it?