Know yourself:
In planning your vacation and making all of the decisions about where you’ll go, what you’ll do and where you’ll stay, it’s important to know what’s important to you. As odd as that may sound (who else would know what is important to you?), people make decisions all the time that aren’t congruent with what they really value on vacation.
For instance, are you a beach person or a pool person? Is a really nice room important to you or are you a “I’m just in the room when I’m asleep” person. How important is food to you? What about kids activities? If you have toddlers, does the resort your looking at have a program that doesn’t start until the child is four years old?
Pay special attention to past vacations and what you wish had been different.
Knowing yourself and what is important to you on vacation will save you money and give you more of what you like.
Be flexible:
In case you hadn’t noticed, life isn’t perfect. Throw travel into the mix and you really have a potential for some interesting situations. Take for instance, today. I’m writing this post aboard an American Airlines Super 80 bound for Portland, Oregon. I am headed up to visit my nieces for the weekend. My flight was to have left at 9:30am this morning. By 12:30pm. two broken airplanes and two gate changes (one of which was a terminal change) later we were finally ready for take-off.
Things happen. Weather, mechanical delays, oversold flights, illness, resort renovations, and a million other things can happen along the way. If you fall apart at the first sign of a problem, your vacation is almost certain to be ruined.
Also, the crazy things that happen during your trip are the things that you’ll talk about 20 years from now. Just go with it.
