Planning is essentially the art of minimizing future foolishness. Did you write down the dinner menu for the week? Congratulations, you just saved yourself a mid-Wednesday existential crisis at the grocery store. Did you allocate funds for that looming tax bill? Excellent, you get to skip the dramatic “surprise debt” scene that most people star in annually.
By anticipating problems—whether it’s a car repair or a five-year career shift—you simply turn potential emergencies into scheduled tasks. It means that when everyone else is running around screaming because they forgot their passport, you’re calmly sipping tea, secure in the knowledge that your future self is not currently mad at your past self.
In fact,this foresight is never more rewarding than in vacation planning. While the spontaneous travelers are standing in a two-hour line for tickets or sleeping in an airport chair because they didn’t book that connecting flight, you are breezing through with laminated itineraries. Planning your vacation ahead means you already snagged the non-stop flights, reserved the ocean-view table, and researched that one local bakery everyone raves about. It allows you to transform two weeks of precious PTO from a logistics nightmare into a source of pure, unadulterated relaxation. I am personally lucky to have multiple excellent vacation planners in the family. They know if left to me, it would not be a relaxing trip!
For those of you who have not yet planned next summers’ getaway, according to Vacasa, a vacation rental company, the top 10 most booked destinations are:
1. Gulf Shores, AL
2. Myrtle Beach, SC
3. Panama City, F:A
4. Hilton Head, S.C.
5. Hatteras, N.C.
6. Santa Rosa, FLA
7. Kauai, HI
8. Charleston, S.C.
9. Virginia Beach, VA
10. Maui, HI
No go forth and start planning while others are figuring out Thanksgiving and Christmas, you can snag the great flight deals for crossing America that are on right now!