It used to be the case that I would prepare an itinerary every single time I went for a trip. Thanks to Excel, I would diligently put in the dates, places and the things that I would be doing by the hour. It was quite handy (not to mention overkill), especially for my travel buddies who would always ask to see an itinerary prior to our departure.
When I started blogging, it soon dawned on me how important itineraries were to most people. I have received countless emails asking me to send itineraries for this place and that. There were even times I received requests for itineraries on places I’ve never written about in I Wander! I’ve been happy to oblige whenever I could. But because of the sheer amount of requests, and thinking that it would make my articles more user friendly, I started including itineraries in my entries.
traveling is a bit like watching movies – the more advance peeks you have, the less exciting the movie becomes when you actually get to see it
Photo by Raymond Shobe in Flickr | CC 2.0
Frankly speaking, I don’t use itineraries anymore whenever I travel and I haven’t been doing so for probably the last 3 years. When my friends go for a trip to the same places I’ve been to recently and ask me for one, I usually have nothing to show them.
I’ve not enjoyed my trips as much as when I started ditching my itineraries. While these sheets of paper may make the trip more organized (especially if the objective is to tick a checklist of sights), basing one’s schedule on an itinerary can sometimes feel, for the lack of a better term, robotic. There are certain merits to leaving itineraries behind the next time you travel. These are just some of them:
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