From the “Planning is guessing” essay in REWORK:
Make decisions right before you do something, not far in advance. It’s OK to wing it. Just get on the plane and go. You can pick up a nicer shirt, shaving cream, and a toothbrush once you get there.
It’s something travel backpackers have long known. That’s why they pack light, avoid rigid itineraries, stay frugal, and follow a mindset similar in many ways to Getting Real/REWORK.
Marcel Uekermann noted that similarity and recently wrote about how he’s been applying Getting Real guidelines to his traveling habits for years. He breaks it down into three points. The first: Planning is Poison.
There is no need for pre-planned routes or pre-booked hotels. Get on the road and figure your way from there. I find the idea of not knowing where to stay overnight exhilarating.
Next up: The Less Principle & Avoid Preferences.
How many hours have you spent preparing your bag for every eventuality, packing too much stuff you did never touch while on the road. I once lived through 10 days just with just my hand baggage (My main baggage didn’t make it). Sure, I stocked up on underwear, a toothbrush and t-shirts but I imagined it far worse. I perfectly understand this doesn’t work for long trips or hikes, but you can believe me, I do no longer feel like I forgot something at home.
Along the same lines, “How To Think Like A Lightweight Backpacker” [The Ultralight Backpacking Site] lists some basic questions you should ask when planning a backpacking trip or looking at gear. Examples: How can I make this lighter? What lighter version can I carry? Can I leave this behind? What multiple-use items can I use to cut weight? Etc.
Ask of each item, “do I really need to bring this?” A small kettle can be used to fry things, in, so leave the frying pan home. Another question to clarify this is, “will I use it?” I carried a small chess set on more than one backpacking trip, but never found another player.
Simple, fast, light = freedom and agility.
Justin Jackson
on 19 Mar 10This is one area where I disagree. I’ve found “just getting on a plane and going” far more expensive and disappointing.
Putting some thoughtfulness into a travel plan isn’t like writing a business plan. Unlike a business plan you can actually make educated decisions:
1) you can get better deals on hotels when you book online ahead of time 2) you can avoid really bad hotels, and choose hidden gems that you might not of known about (if you hadn’t researched) 3) you can avoid not having a place to stay, a place on the train, etc…
Plus, an added bit of “romantic” wisdom: if you’re traveling with a partner, it’s nice to have some reliable plans. ;)
Brad
on 19 Mar 10My favorite travel blog - Without Baggage - is named after this principle: http://www.withoutbaggage.com.
Check out this great essay about Denali National Park and Reserve in Alaska: http://withoutbaggage.com/essays/alaska-mckinley-river/
Great photos, too.
ML
on 19 Mar 10Justin, it depends what kind of trip you’re planning. If you want a romantic getaway at a resort with fancy dinners, you’d take one approach. If you want to travel solo from Bangkok to Hanoi and be able to follow adventure wherever it takes you, you’d take a different approach.
One thing I’ve noticed from travelling “without a net”: It rarely ever gets that bad. Usually your fears of what might go wrong are worse than any reality. And the benefits of being able to do whatever you want, whenever you want make those bad moments worth it.
Chris (from L.C.)
on 19 Mar 10Tim Ferriss has a great “packing light” article on his blog:
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/07/11/how-to-travel-the-world-with-10-pounds-or-less-plus-how-to-negotiate-convertibles-and-luxury-treehouses/
It’s basically an Amazon Wish List of everything you ACTUALLY need when traveling.
Miguel Marcos
on 20 Mar 10Hmm. Stay frugal and pick up a nicer shirt when you’re over there?
Jorge Bernal
on 20 Mar 10My usual motto when I travel is that as long as I have my passport and credit card with me, I can survive :)
Kyle Crum
on 20 Mar 10From 2+ years of experience as a backpack style traveler, I disagree almost completely with Justin.
1) You can’t haggle prices booking ahead. There are many times where you can get a lower rate if you show up and the place has a lot of extra room.
2) How can you avoid bad places by booking ahead? You never know if it is bad or not until you get there. Isn’t it better to go and see the place where you are staying before locking yourself into a commitment? If you do end up booking a “bad” place, you are then stuck with it or you end up paying some sort of reservation cancellation fee.
3) There has never been a time where we couldn’t find a place to stay. Unless you are flying into Rio on Carnival, there’s always some place.
The real reason to do plan less is that just like any agile method, you don’t know what you are going to get until you are actually there. Everything may look extraordinary on paper or in a picture, but the real test is when your feet are on the ground and you are experiencing a place. Agility allows you to say “What I’m doing now is not that great. Let’s do something better.” This is true for software or traveling.
Chris Czel
on 20 Mar 10Time honored military strategy: “Travel light, freeze at night.” Being a bit cold has killed very few. If you life, the stories last a lifetime.
Jake
on 20 Mar 10Recently I went on a trip to Europe with no hotel, no tickets, and no plan. By and large it was awesome, EXCEPT:
When we were in popular tourist destinations like Paris and Venice, we found finding hotels when we arrived stressful, time-consuming, and expensive. We ended up wandering around looking for a place to stay when we should have been enjoying ourselves. In some places Internet was hard to come by, so we were really flying blind.
As usual, everything depends on context and there’s no “right” or “wrong” way. We found that the planning light was great most of the time, but I really remember those tense hours as we searched for a place to stay in the waning hours of daylight.
Garlin Gilchrist II
on 20 Mar 10I really want to get into this, but it’s tough because of my height (I’m 6’8”). Buying clothes when I get to places is literally not possible.
I can’t get with every part of this philosophy except that.
Andrew Hovey
on 20 Mar 10Like all things, I think you need an appropriate approach. Not planning is great in cheap places and routes with lots of accommodation (such as Bangkok to Hanoi). However turning up in Venice in summer with nothing booked is a pain in the arse – you just waste so much time wandering from place to place.
I’m a huge fan of lightweight hiking / travel. A merino t-shirt, couple of pairs of socks, and a willingness to wander is a guaranteed good time. This is my favourite related site: www.backpackinglight.com and incidentally the only content I pay for.
To ML, it’s true it rarely ever gets that bad. I recently punctured my lung in a bus crash in Egypt, pretty bad, but it’s was survivable, and certainly nothing I planned or packed would have changed anything!
Lastly it’s a humorous delight to see my two favourite things – lightweight hiking / travelling mixed with interface design on one blog. Who’d have thought I would see the day!
Glen
on 20 Mar 10I love traveling without planning. My brother and I did an unplanned trip to Spain and everything worked itself out. We had fun discovering new places and things to do. We even got cheaper deals on hotels by asking the locals! Good job on rework, it was a very good read.
Paul
on 21 Mar 10+1 We have 4 kids and manage to make most trips with a baby seat, small pushchair, one carry on and a suitcase with everyone’s clothes in it.
We’ve learnt that we need less than half of what we used to pack and so long as we can do one or two loads of laundry during our trip, we’re fine.
Stan
on 22 Mar 10This is a great approach when you have the confidence to just get up and go. I’ve definitely found that too much planning can cause me to back out of trips and opportunities, which I always end up regretting.
Roger Dupuy
on 22 Mar 10What is the general tendency? We overpack. What do I do every time I pack? Try to cut the fat. Only carryons. You need to adjust to the specific context, but we can all do with less. I am packing now.
Julie
on 22 Mar 10When l need a hotel l use www.thezouk.com. lnstead of searching the internet for hours.
G.Irish
on 22 Mar 10I’d say this advice only works in a couple of situations. If you’re taking an ambling vacation where you have plenty of time to wander and don’t have a lot of specific things you want to do, then yeah maybe it works. If you’re going to a destination that has plenty of occupancy, that’s fine too.
Otherwise I don’t see why you wouldn’t do some basics ahead of time. Running around trying to find a place to stay when you’re abroad is a waste of time. In some places that means you’ve got to travel all over a city to find accomodations, in other places you’ll have to deal with hotels trying to price gouge you. For what? There’s little to be gained by taking that approach.
Check out hotel reviews, do a little research, and book your hotel in advance so you can spend time doing enjoying your trip rather than working out logistics on the fly.
Leaving open time in your itinerary is a generally a good idea because that allows you to take advantage of things you discover on the way. But do some research ahead of time because sometimes there is high-demand fun stuff that you can’t just show up and do. I missed out on a cool day trip to a Smithsonian research island because I would’ve needed to make a reservation a few weeks in advance.
Packing light is the most effective advice here. You can get by with relatively little and if push comes to shove usually you can buy some extra clothes when you get there.
Tim
on 23 Mar 10Travelling without a small amount of contingency planning is poor in my mind.
Insurance, some idea of routes, some idea of backups, and then go.
Having said that, I snowboard and cycling (in France) and come all the way from Australia, so I like to have contingency in place for resorts to hit if the weather is pooh at the one we’re at (I’m looking at you, Big White!). Same for if it’s raining in ze French Alps, we can head to Provence for delightful warm Ventou smashing (i.e: read here http://shredquest.com/category/travel/france09).
Especially in foreign language countries, I like to have some level of backup.
This particularly is true if I am doing a semi leisure/business trip, where I need to do some coffee reviews or travel stuff to make the trip tax friendly and build my sites up. Planning needed to a certain degree.
When I head up to Byron Bay to surf, or most other places in Oz, we do it light (that’s my gf and I), and we play it by ear.
So, this doesn’t abrogate any points made forthwith, especially apropos packing light (although I would rather be looking at it, than for it; I have about 40 tshirts at home, so don’t need more), but it also means some planning makes sense.
Timbo
This discussion is closed.