How Much Planning is Too Much?

The goal of this blog is to share the wisdom that my family has accumulated on the road with you, my devoted readers (there has to be at least one of you out there).  Setting out on a family road trip for the first time can be a scary prospect, and it is nice to know that someone has done it before and that they are willing to offer a few pointers to help grease the skids for you.  We are like this for most new experiences in life - starting a new job, heading off to college, moving to a new town - we take comfort in being able to go in with our eyes wide open, even if the advice that we garner comes from total strangers over the internet.

But is it possible to get too much advice?  That's the basic premise of a column by travel write Seth Kugel in this past Sunday's New York Times.  In a piece entitled, "Don't Let Trip Advisor Kill Adventure", Mr Kugel advocates for retaining our willingness to be surprised, to deviate from our well-crafted plans, and to embrace the unexpected while on the road.  He maintains that some memories are better because they were unexpected, and thus, "if the best travel experiences happen when things don't go according to plan, why do we plan so much?"

Not oblivious to the fact that he travels for a living, presumably alone or with other adults, while the rest of us are likely in a different boat, Mr. Kugel quickly ticks off a few sentences recognizing these differences:

Smarter skeptics might object on the grounds that, as a travel writer, I am on the road countless days a year with time to spare, whereas they get 10 vacation days a year and have to make them all count.  Or they're traveling with kids so there's little room for error.  Or they want to impress a romantic partner, not lead a National Geographic expedition.

Well, yes.  To that list I would add that non-travel writers have to be concerned about expenses, and that our original destinations were actually venues that we wanted to visit and might be willing to pass up - and might not have the chance to see again.  Ican't see passing up Mount Rushmore just because I came across a cool burger joint in central South Dakota (although, if there is a kosher burger joint anywhere in South Dakota, I'm there).

On the other hand, Mr. Kugel's point is an important one as it relates to the homogenizing impact that the internet has on every aspect of our lives.  More and more, we do things because we see others doing them - witness every viral craze that spreads over Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and so on.  Sometimes, this results in the creation of a community of people, bonded by their involvement in something shared and undoubtedly positive.  Remember when we all dumped ice water over our heads a few summers ago?  Yes, it was silly (and chilly!) - but it also raised record amounts of money for ALS research, and the "pass it on" aspect of those videos created a giant chain of people involved in the same impactful project.  On the other hand, what did you gain from posting a picture of yourself with the same Instagram filter on your face that 10,000 people had already posted?

And it is here that Mr. Kugel hits on something for all of us.  If the purpose of our road trips is simply to follow the well-worn paths of those who have come before us, to be able to say "I was there too!", then we may succeed in seeing or experiencing many wonderful sites, but we will be less the protagonists in our travels, and more mere pawns shuffling from location to location, nodding and snapping the obligatory pictures, then piling back into the car to conquer the next site, which has already been conquered by so many before.

Far better it is to come to a road trip with a sense that you are going to chart a new path.  The adventure does not have to come once you are on the road, although pulling over when you see something unique always makes for a good story, but rather it can even come in the planning stages.  Once you figure out your main destination, keep looking at the map or the travel site, and keep talking to people who have been there before.  That's how you will find out about so many of the odds and ends, the off-the-beaten-path experiences, and the places that almost make you forget to take a picture, because you are so busy forming real memories instead.