BLP Ep #141: Travel Notes on the Fly

What about a Hobinichi Weeks? Not sure if it’s too small for her but I use one for work along with a small notebook. It works out well.

Ooh, of course I have SO many thoughts on the travel part! I totally agree that you have to know yourself and your group and what works best for you. Travel is definitely not one size fits all. People have very different tolerances for activity and sleep and opinions on how much is too much or too little. For example, we are just generally NOT “go somewhere at 7 a.m. on vacation” people. For our Costa Rica trip, it gets dark there early around 5:30 pm. and wildlife is active early in the morning, so I kept reading how you “have” to go on tours or hikes “first thing in the morning”…. but we just don’t like to do that really! We enjoy staying up a little later at night and having a more leisurely morning to enjoy a slower breakfast and our coffee or tea… so we didn’t. And it was totally fine.

Like you, I also generally abide by the approximately two things per day rule, BUT I find this can vary wildly depending on the location. In places like Europe you might have many attractions in very close proximity, or you might be doing a lot of walking around to just visit squares/fountains or doing a quick tour of a church or that sort of thing. So sometimes it can seem on paper like you’re doing so many things, but they are all quicker/ shorter. For bigger activities like touring a museum or basically anything that takes more than a couple or few hours, yes- then I definitely try to limit to probably just 1-2 of those per day, depending. Or combine one bigger thing + 1-2 smaller things etc. Also love just sitting in a pubic space/ park and relaxing or people watching- this definitely counts as a “thing” for me!

We very, very rarely, if ever, make meal reservations, however, though I can see maybe this is necessary for certain types of restaurants or locations. We generally prefer to have as much flexibility as possible and don’t like to be locked in to having to be to dinner at a certain time! But we are more micro-brew type people vs fancy/ trendy restaurant people, so maybe this plays a role in us usually being able to walk-in places pretty easily! 🙂 I also agree that it’s increasingly important these days to look ahead and try to get a feel for which activities require pre-booking and which you can just wing. I try to pre-book as few things as possible, but sometimes there’s just no avoiding it and it can be really, really important!

Finally, for us/me personally, my favorite “travel hacks” are: 1) to go on as long of a trip as possible 😉 (which I know we don’t see eye to eye on 😊 ), because this allows me to feel freer/more flexible/not as rushed during the trip, when I have more days to work with (plus, I just like to keep vacationing as long as possible 😜) and 2) TRY to avoid peak times as much as possible! (i.e. I would rather pull kids out of school to travel a different week vs travel over major holidays, for example… though this one gets harder when they’re older/high school age…But prices and crowds and availability and just everything is better (in my opinion) if you can avoid when EVERYONE else is there too….)

Annnnnd, I think my comment is now officially longer than your whole post. 😂 Whoops, sorry!

Thanks to you all who made suggestions! My response will indicate what kind of a “particular” (aka high-maintenance) friend that Sarah has had to deal with for years. I actually have tried all suggested options and had the following experiences. a) Leuchtturm weekly is a nice layout and decent paper, but does NOT have a monthly spread. But I buy one annually to keep at my work desk for a brain dump set up! b) Every year, I attempt the Hobonichi weeks, only to quit after a few weeks. The Tomoe paper is not gel pen friendly and I don’t like the yellow hue. Also, the weekly spread is only on one page and a bit cramped. BUT it’s the perfect size! c) I’ve also tried JIbun Techo Biz. I love the paper and the vertical week layout, BUT why is the printed layout so aggressively dark and busy? I also wish there were better portability options, so it doesn’t get destroyed in my work bag.

HOWEVER, I did decide to take advantage of the April start editions for the Hobonichi weeks and Jibun Techo and give those two another try, and found some placeholder covers. If either of the planners take, I’ll look into investment covers.