Preparing to Travel: Making It Less Stressful

Better Preparation saves money and energy, but there are always stores for things you forgot!

I want to think I am skilled at planning for big trips. And compared to some folks, I am sure I am. I am in the process of preparing for a trip. This is a long trip with my husband and my dog. It is much easier to plan for just me. Have a Walgreens in the area - I will be fine.

When you are planning for that big trip, how early do you start planning for it?

I am going to share a few tips I am learning myself on this trip, some of it is because… Charlie. Charlie is our Goldendoodle. We are bringing him on the whole trip. Will I be glad about that? I have no idea. First time traveling extensively with my largish, most well-behaved dog.

Pack What You Can in Advance

I packed my clothes several days in advance. I can’t do that with the work clothes because they will wrinkle badly. But casual clothes are picked out and mostly packed.

I pack in small breaks in my work. Refilling all my vitamin slots when I need a break from work. I repacked my toiletries because I need different products than for work trips. And it needs to go easily in and out of hotels. (That is a cruise benefit - one room - one time unpacking. Road trips require hotel hopping.)

Road trips require easy access to everything. Toiletries, clothes, and vitamins are done. Work items yet to do. Because… work. Still working and working hard to get ready for the trip!!

Use a “Travel Table” or Bin

Put things you think of randomly on a table or in a bin when you think of them. When my mom used to travel to Sweden for long trips, she started collecting things she wanted to bring weeks in advance, and she put them on a table. She could see everything all the time and didn’t overbuy. And she would take full size items like you see in the photo. Everything I travel with is smallish.

We may not travel with as many items overseas as we used to because more products are available more broadly, but there are always little extras we want to bring. I have a running list in my notes for things I want to bring on a different trip. It isn’t too long, so I just write it down instead of putting it on a table somewhere.

Take Less Stuff

Somehow, just take less. Fewer toiletries, fewer shoes, fewer clothes.

Less books? No, no! I am always tempted to bring too many books. But, those are some of my favorite things to buy on a trip. When I need a book “now”, I buy what I want to read now.

When you have less stuff, you have fewer choices. Even for a decisive person like me, I don’t want too many choices on a trip. There are so many food and doing choices, I want my stuff choices to be simple and easy to move.

Pet Lessons So Far

The Bring Fido app is not as good as I need it to be. I guess I will add to it while I travel.

Chain hotels charge so much for a pet, so I look for local hotels/motels where Charlie stays for less money. Or I use my points for Hyatt, which are reasonable, and pay the dog fee, which is not reasonable, but they work well together.

Here is the big one that was new to me - doggy daycare on the road. We want to have a couple of days seeing sights without the sweet pup. One is easy, just what I hoped for. Bring the vaccine list, $40, all day care. Sweet!

Our other day - very bougie location with not many options. We found a nice dog walker whom we had to meet with on Zoom to organize it. Not $40! Ha.

These things take time to plan and get with folks. What do you want to do, and how much time do you need the beast to be cared for? I always like learning new things, though, so there you go.

Deciding Where to Eat

How do you decide where to eat?

In this day of foodies and restaurants requiring reservations, I have found I need to be at least somewhat engaged in where we will have dinner. Breakfast and lunch seem to come a bit easier, or we eat simply.

This is my plan. I do have a few recommendations I have gathered from friends when I told them I was traveling, so I put them in my spreadsheet - yes, I do have a travel spreadsheet.

General practice, though, will be for my husband or me to do a Google and Yelp search sometime during the morning. He is gluten-free, and we are a little bit cheap, so it takes a bit of work. We love places with interesting architecture and history. We care more about that than the food, actually.

I still want to see 3.5 - 5 stars, mostly 4-5 stars. I do read the reviews. Is the food good or bad, are people fussy about something like parking, what is the situation? Better expectations lead to a better experience.

If you wait until you are hungry to choose a restaurant, you will compromise because you just want food. And if it is a weekend, you may not be able to get into the place you want to go. If I look in the morning, I can make a reservation or discover that I cannot get a reservation and I choose another location.

I always look first for waterfront properties if we are in a water area. Outdoor seating will be important because of Charlie, so that is a new factor for us that may make everything else irrelevant. It is temperature-specific for sure.

Tell Me Your Tips!

What are your favorite travel planning tips? Do you travel with a pet too? I’d love to hear your thoughts!