WHY PLANNING IS A GOOD THING - EVEN ON "ADVENTURES"

It's itching. Right now, everything seems itchy. We're pendling between Jonathan's and my father's when we actually just want to be gone already. Three weeks tomorrow. Seems like three years and, strange enough, three minutes at the same time.


I know this trip is well planned, some may say too planned. We have a starting date, we have a home date. We know where we will be when, for the most of the trip. It might not be very spontanious, but we've decided we like it this way, this time. We have a lot of reasons for planning everything, such as:

1. My sister is graduating 

 First of June (or second? Sorry Julia), my sister is graduating Gymnasiet, the same as high school in other countries, I think. It's a big deal in Sweden and is celebrated with a whole day, starting with the students' "run". They literally run out of their school to symbolize that they are now running away from it. After that there's a whole lot of hugs and cake and party and champagne so we really don't want to miss that. Therefor, we could have stayed 4 weeks more tops, and if then, risking still being jet lagged.

Jonathan at his "Champagne Breakfast", a central part of the Swedish graduation traditions.
God look at that face. So smooth... 

...and my own "run", or Utspring. I think I am hidden behind the Turkish flag...  

2. We are broke ass mf's

Pardon the language.
The problem is, we want to do A LOT. If we just wanted to wing it and go whenever or whereever the wind takes us, that could resault in some unexpected costs. By booking in advance, we can now make sure that our hotel are under our budget, leaving us with more to lay on trips and hikes and entry fees.




3. VISA for China is.... erg... 'tricky'

= You have to have it all figured out beforehand. And we are actually STILL working on that. Huh. Three weeks and we don't have VISAs for China. Oh the horror.

BUT Monday. Everything will be all right on monday.

Swedes doesn't even need VISA for Hong Kong. We love Hong Kong. Hong Kong is nice. China, be more like Hong Kong.  

4. This is our first trip together... for longer than 2 weeks

We are great together. We are best friends. We have lasted more than two years in each others company without being (completely) insane... and yadayadayada. There's still always that possibility that things doesn't turn out as we hope. My thought is that.. if we plan the trip, we find out if our hopes for the journey are the same. By making a detailed itinerary, we'll kind of "ok"-ing each others plans for the trip.




5. We don't want to miss anything

Sometimes, when we use our famous (infamous?) strolling&exploring-as-we-go - technique to get to know a city, we stumble upon a real treasure. Sometimes. Sadly, most of the time we instead end up getting lost (on the other hand, I think we subconciously like getting lost...) and take half a day getting back to some place where we recognize ourselves.

In Barcelona, we found the zipline up to the mountain by just walking around the marina. BUT since we had not checked it up beforehand, we missed that day's admission and the next day we were going home.

Last time in Thailand my friend wanted to go to the Tiger Temple in Krabi. I was not eager to climb over 1,000 steps for a temple, and therefor declined the invitation to join her. Had I known it offered a view like this

Picture borrowed from krabi-hotels.com 

,I would have definitely gone with her.




6. Planning actually IS half the fun

I got a little bit hyper, exited and crazy happy when we had managed to book Garden View Resort in Railay, since all the other times we tried, the hotel was full. I was there only one night when I traveled alone for a couple of days in Thailand last year, and I immediatly fell in love. The staff was so nice, the bungalows was super cozy and the view was spectacular.

So of course I was happy for a week when I finally got to book it.
And it has been the same for all the preparations we've done.

Booked Chiang Mai Tree House Resort - smiled for two days straight.
Found out about Elephant Nature Park - told EVERYONE I know (and doesn't know) about it. (Seriously, I'm that embarrassing.)
Found a daytrip from Hanoi to see the beautiful Ninh Binh province - walked on clouds so high Jonathan had trouble bring me down for sleeping that night.

I'm like that. I get exited, more than the avarage Svensson. It's OK. It's actually pretty awesome.

How are you when you travel? 

Do you plan everything 

or do you go where the wind blows you 

- or a bit of both?

Inspire us by leaving a comment!