Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is about how to structure a vacation so
Speaker 1: you know you'll do fun things, but also have room
Speaker 1: for serendipitous adventures when it comes to time. I think
Speaker 1: that making plans and being spontaneous are often presented as
Speaker 1: either or things. You're either the soulless sort who must
Speaker 1: plan every minute, or else you are free spirited and
Speaker 1: open to all manner of possibility. I tend to resent
Speaker 1: this presented dichotomy because I do all sorts of adventurous
Speaker 1: and 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 one. When we went to Hawaii a few
Speaker 1: years ago, we knew we wanted to visit Pearl Harbor
Speaker 1: and take the boat trip out to the USS Arizona Memorial.
Speaker 1: Tickets are strictly limited. For this, I had to know
Speaker 1: we wanted to go do this and get on the
Speaker 1: system at exactly seven am the day before. Tickets were
Speaker 1: gone by seven oh five. But once you have certain
Speaker 1: structures in place, vacation days are often vast. The day
Speaker 1: we went to the uss Arizona, for instance, we got
Speaker 1: up to go for our time tickets and pay our
Speaker 1: respects at the memorial. But once we did that, we
Speaker 1: let the rest of the day go as we wanted.
Speaker 1: Maybe we felt like going to our hotels, water park,
Speaker 1: or maybe we wanted to read, maybe we wanted to snircle.
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 in 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 muse 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. Just connect with
Speaker 1: me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod
Speaker 1: that's B the number four, then Breakfast p o D.
Speaker 1: You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: podcast at i heeart media dot com that Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much,
Speaker 1: I look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is
Speaker 1: a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from
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