Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is about how to structure a vacation so you
Speaker 1: know you'll do fun things, but also have room for
Speaker 1: serendipitous adventures when it comes to time. I think that
Speaker 1: making plans and being spontaneous are often presented as either
Speaker 1: or things. You're either the soulless sort who must plan
Speaker 1: every minute, or else you are free spirited and open
Speaker 1: to all manner of possibility. I tend to resent this
Speaker 1: presented dichotomy because I do all sorts of adventurous and
Speaker 1: random things on my vacations. I also plan like crazy.
Speaker 1: As a practical matter, These things are not in opposition
Speaker 1: at all. First, the reality is that in our world
Speaker 1: of seven billion people, if you want to do some
Speaker 1: cool things, you absolutely have to plan ahead. For my
Speaker 1: family to stay at the Old Faithful Inn at Yellowstone
Speaker 1: National Park last summer, I had to make a reservation
Speaker 1: on May first, twenty seventeen. When we went to Hawaii
Speaker 1: a few years ago, we knew we wanted to visit
Speaker 1: Pearl Harbor and take the boat trip out to the
Speaker 1: USS Arizona Memorial tickets are strictly limited. For this, I
Speaker 1: had to know we wanted to go do this and
Speaker 1: get on the system at exactly seven am the day before.
Speaker 1: Tickets were gone by seven oh five. But once you
Speaker 1: have certain structures in place, vacation days are often vast.
Speaker 1: The day we went to the USS Arizona, for instance,
Speaker 1: we got up to go for our time tickets and
Speaker 1: pay our respects at the memorial. But once we did that,
Speaker 1: we let the rest of the day go as we wanted.
Speaker 1: Maybe we felt like going to our hotel's water park,
Speaker 1: or maybe we wanted to read, maybe we wanted to snarkle.
Speaker 1: I don't know. There was plenty of time to do
Speaker 1: other things. Likewise, on a different day of that vacation,
Speaker 1: we planned to drive around the island with an audio guide.
Speaker 1: So that was not the day we were going to
Speaker 1: go see the USS Arizona, of course, But within day
Speaker 1: of driving around we did all kinds of random, spontaneous things,
Speaker 1: even stuff we might not normally try, like going to
Speaker 1: the Dual Plantation, where the kids had fun running through
Speaker 1: a pineapple maze and eating pineapple ice cream. As I
Speaker 1: look back on my life, the vacations that have been
Speaker 1: the most stressful have been those when we've had big
Speaker 1: groups of people and every morning we had to debate
Speaker 1: the entire day because no one was empowered to make plans,
Speaker 1: not an every minute plan, even just one thing, you
Speaker 1: wind up getting a late start and then not being
Speaker 1: able to manage your energy. So my advice for combining
Speaker 1: the best of having plans for cool things while keeping
Speaker 1: space for relaxing a random adventures is to plan one
Speaker 1: anchor event per vacation day. As you plan your vacation,
Speaker 1: think of one thing that would make each day memorable.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a dinner reservation at a place you'd love
Speaker 1: to try. Maybe it's tickets for a show, or time
Speaker 1: tickets to the Royal meuse at Buckingham Palace. If the
Speaker 1: event is weather dependent, you might need to be somewhat flexible.
Speaker 1: Choose a first choice day and then choose a second
Speaker 1: choice day if the first doesn't work out. But this
Speaker 1: way you know you're doing one thing each day that
Speaker 1: will make the vacation awesome, and then the rest of
Speaker 1: the time, whatever happens happens. Try things you usually don't
Speaker 1: walk down an alley that looks intriguing linger at an
Speaker 1: art gallery that turns out to be really cool. Plans
Speaker 1: and spontaneity can go hand in hand. Indeed, a lot
Speaker 1: of contradictions aren't really contradictions. We just need a broader
Speaker 1: vantage point where we can take in the whole view.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
Speaker 1: here's to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. You can send me
Speaker 1: your tips, your questions, or anything else. Connect with me
Speaker 1: on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod. That's
Speaker 1: b E the number four then Breakfast pod. You can
Speaker 1: also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast podcast at
Speaker 1: iHeartMedia dot com that Before Breakfast is spelled out with
Speaker 1: all the letters. Thanks so much. Should I look forward
Speaker 1: to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartRadio.
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