Planner here! Thankfully, both of us are that way. We’ll do one-day tours (Chernobyl, a local guide for the geneology in DH’s ancestral shtetl in Western Ukraine, an overnight ferry, 2.5 day minibus tourthriugh the Scottish Highlands), but strongly prefer 10-15 person bus tours vs the 40 people thing or big cruises. Also are big fans of the free walking tours to get an overview of the city.
We book all flights, hotels and transportation in advance and come up with a list of restaurants (though we often go off-grid for food once we arrive). That tends to be DH’s contribution. My job is to find things to visit. I come up with a list of more things than we could possibly cover, get all the details, and create a day-to-day document.
I have a spreadsheet for travel logistics and reservations, and a 10-15 page Word doc of things to do.
We won’t get through the entire list, but that’s intentional. Weather, energy, interest on a given day, or advice from locals can affect what we decide to do. I am VERY guilty of “we traveled all the way here, we’ve GOT to see everything!” DH in recent years likes to take an afternoon off to nap from time to time. I use that time to see the things I want to do that I know he doesn’t care to visit (a couple of Jewish Riga sites, Machane Yehuda market on Friday afternoon in Jerusalem, Mauritshuis in The Hague, ancestral towns in Co. Tipperary, etc.).
We got a guide for four days in the hinterlands of Western Ukraine (separate from the shtetl guide), and while he was a great guy and he made things much easier, I hated not being able to pull over the car and take pictures at will. (Photos are why I travel.)
I’m sitting in a restaurant in Monterey right now and have 2.5 days solo before DH gets here. Am driving down Hwy 1 tomorrow to Pismo Beach, spending Yom Kippur sitting on a beach contemplating my life, and then will head back to Mountain View, where I’ll see a CC friend, pick up DH at the airport, and then spend four days with S1. This is relatively spontaneous for me – I have places marked on Google Maps and hotels reserved. Am winging the rest. It is KILLING me not to reserve Hearst Castle! I checked last week and there were many tours available, so I will restrain myself from having to be at X by Y time, other than being off the cliff roads before dark.
My “spontaneity” got me a parking ticket yesterday (stopped to take pics), but the officer was nice and gave me recs for excellent (cheap) seafood and a less touristy beach. Went to the restaurant last night. Not quite cheap, but more reasonable than in Monterey, but the cioppino was incredible! Off to the beach now – fog is lifting!