In My Mom Era

From a $250 cottage in Ireland to a spectacularly disastrous national parks road trip, here’s why I prefer a little flexibility with my adventures.

There are two types of travelers in this world.

The ones who spend six to eight months planning their vacations, booking excursions, hiring tour guides, scheduling activities, and knowing exactly where they’re supposed to be at 2:37 on a Tuesday afternoon.

And then there’s me.

I’m the person who sees something interesting on a map, turns to my husband, and says, “Hey, wanna go?”

Sometimes we have a destination in mind. Sometimes we know where we’re sleeping. Sometimes we’re already halfway somewhere before I discover something else that looks even more interesting.

And sometimes we end up at a national park with approximately seventeen minutes of daylight remaining, and I twist my ankle.

You win some, you lose some. 🤦‍♀️🤣

But after hearing about a recent European vacation that had been meticulously planned for months, I started thinking about the way different people approach traveling.

Does planning every minute of a vacation actually make it better? Or can you become so focused on the itinerary that you forget to enjoy the experience?

Because I’ve traveled both ways.

And let me tell you, the one time I actually tried to follow a schedule?

Well, we’ll get to that. 🤣

How a $250 Cottage Sent Us to Ireland

In 2019, I was sitting at work when I stumbled across a weeklong cottage rental in Ireland through our vacation club.

The price?

$250. FOR THE ENTIRE WEEK.

Now, I don’t know about you, but when I see a deal like that, my brain immediately starts working overtime.

I looked up flights.

Round-trip tickets for Tyler and me were approximately $700 total.

I called him.

“Hey, I found a cottage in Ireland for $250, and we can get there and back for about $700.”

His response?

“BOOK IT.”

And just like that, we were going to Ireland. 🇮🇪❤️

For less than $1,000, we’d secured our flights and accommodations for a week in another country.

Did we book tours?

Nope.

Did we create a detailed itinerary?

Absolutely not.

Did we even arrange a rental car before leaving?

HAHAHA. No.

We figured that out when we arrived.

We had flights. We had a cottage.

Everything else?

We’d figure it out along the way.

Seven Days, One Cottage, and an Entire Island to Explore

We arrived in Dublin on March 16, 2019, at some ungodly hour of the morning.

Our cottage was in Kiltanon, County Clare.

For those unfamiliar with Ireland, that’s clear across the country from Dublin.

So naturally, after flying across the Atlantic, we still had to make our way across Ireland just to get to the place where we’d be sleeping.

But did we go straight there?

OF COURSE NOT. 🤣

We spent some time exploring Dublin and visited Kilmainham Gaol before eventually heading west.

And that set the tone for the entire week.

Every morning, we woke up and decided what we wanted to do that day.

We celebrated St. Patrick’s Day in Galway.

We drove the breathtaking Dingle Peninsula.

We visited the Cliffs of Moher and the Rock of Cashel.

We ventured into Northern Ireland, spending an entire day at Titanic Belfast and a good portion of another exploring Giant’s Causeway.

And in between?

Little towns. Interesting shops. Coffee stops. Places we’d never heard of. Roads we hadn’t originally planned on traveling.

There were no tour guides hurrying us toward the next attraction.

No prepaid excursions dictating when we had to leave.

No schedule telling us that we could only spend forty-five minutes somewhere absolutely incredible.

If we wanted to stay longer, we stayed longer.

If something caught our attention, we stopped.

And if we woke up wanting to drive across the island?

Well, we drove across the island.

Was it the most meticulously organized international vacation in history?

Not remotely.

But it was one of the most incredible experiences of my life.

Even My Memory Needs an Itinerary

Now, I originally remembered that we hadn’t even gotten foreign currency before leaving for Ireland.

Until I started talking about this article with Tyler.

Apparently, we DID.

He remembers these things better than I do. Which is unfortunate, because I was doing a spectacular job proving my point until he started correcting me. 🤦‍♀️🤣

However, we did discover that the money we’d gotten for Ireland wasn’t quite enough for the entirety of our adventure.

The Republic of Ireland uses euros, but Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom and uses pounds sterling.

A small detail we hadn’t accounted for when preparing for our trip.

So we got the additional currency we needed and continued exploring.

Problem discovered. Problem solved.

Vacation continued.

And that’s really the kind of flexibility I’m talking about.

Not refusing to prepare for a trip.

Just being willing to figure things out when they don’t go exactly as expected.

Apparently, Ireland Closes at 8 PM

And what about all the wonderful Irish food we enjoyed during our adventure?

Honestly?

I couldn’t tell you. 🤣

I remember the scenery. The castles. The little towns. The history. The countryside.

The food?

Not so much.

I do, however, remember that we ended up eating McDonald’s at least once.

Because we’d spent the day exploring, it was getting late, and apparently everything we wanted to eat had already closed.

Coming from Missouri, where we’re accustomed to finding at least some late-night food options, this was a bit of a surprise.

So McDonald’s it was.

Did eating fast food in Ireland ruin the experience?

Not even a little.

I hadn’t flown across the Atlantic for a hamburger.

I’d flown across the Atlantic to see Ireland.

And if that meant grabbing McDonald’s after an incredible day of exploring?

Well, hand me the fries. 🤣

When Planning Becomes the Vacation

Recently, some relatives returned from a European adventure that included Italy, Greece, Croatia, Slovenia, and several other destinations.

They had spent approximately six to eight months preparing.

Tours were booked. Guides were hired. Excursions were scheduled. There were sometimes two or three planned activities in a single day.

They knew where they were going, what they wanted to see, and how they intended to experience it.

Which, to be fair, makes sense.

If you’re traveling halfway around the world, it’s perfectly reasonable to want to make sure you experience as much as possible.

But here’s where things got interesting.

Before the trip even began, approximately $400 worth of foreign currency went missing.

FOUR. HUNDRED. DOLLARS.

Before they even left home. 🤦‍♀️

And unfortunately, things didn’t exactly go according to plan once they arrived, either.

Some of the attractions weren’t as accessible as anticipated. Certain excursions couldn’t be completed as expected. There were issues involving some of Rome’s most famous historic sites.

At St. Peter’s Basilica, they had arranged a three-hour guided experience. But when the planned visit couldn’t proceed as intended, they spent much of that time walking around the surrounding area instead.

Eventually, their scheduled time with the guide ended.

And that was that.

Other excursions had to be skipped, and on some days, not everyone could participate in the activities they’d paid to experience.

And here’s the part that absolutely floored me.

They came home from Italy saying they hadn’t had any good Italian food!

ITALY.

The land of pasta, pizza, gelato, and approximately seventeen million things I would happily eat.

Okay, I don’t actually know how many things I’d eat there, but you get my point. 🤣

They explained that by the time their excursions were finished, they were often exhausted and left choosing from whatever happened to be open on the way back to their hotel.

Now, they said they had fun, and I certainly hope they did. I’m sure there were wonderful experiences mixed in with the disappointments.

But hearing about the trip made me wonder something.

At what point does trying to experience everything become the very thing that prevents you from enjoying it?

Because there’s an important difference between having a plan and having a schedule that leaves absolutely no room for life to happen.

And life, as I’ve learned repeatedly, has absolutely no respect for your vacation itinerary.

That One Time I Actually Made an Itinerary…

Before anyone thinks I’m completely opposed to planning, I should mention that I DID once create an itinerary for a two-week camping trip through the national parks.

Nothing outrageous.

I simply planned which parks we’d visit and approximately which days we’d arrive at each one.

Sounds reasonable, right?

HAHAHAHA. 🤦‍♀️🤣

We started in Missouri, heading toward Badlands National Park, Mount Rushmore, Devil’s Tower, Yellowstone, Glacier, and eventually the Pacific Northwest.

And from practically the moment we started camping, things went spectacularly wrong.

We were constantly behind schedule.

The weather was miserable at several stops.

Camping was rapidly becoming an Olympic endurance event.

And then, somewhere in Northern California…

THE ENGINE BLEW IN OUR CAR.

Not a flat tire.

Not a dead battery.

The entire ENGINE.

We ended up stranded in Redding over Memorial Day weekend, had to leave our vehicle behind, rent another one, and completely abandon the remainder of our carefully planned route.

Oh, and somehow, we eventually ended up in the wrong STATE for a friend’s wedding.

Yes. Really.

That’s an entirely separate article, because I promise you, I couldn’t make this stuff up. 🤣

But here’s the point.

The moment everything started going wrong, our itinerary became completely useless.

We still saw incredible places. We still made memories. And more than a decade later, we’re still laughing about the absolute disaster that was that vacation.

But from the perspective of our original plan?

TOTAL. DISASTER.

And perhaps that’s why I prefer knowing where I’d like to go rather than deciding exactly when I have to get there.

Why I Don’t Want to Book Every Single Night

Even now, when I think about planning another national parks adventure, I hesitate to reserve every campsite in advance.

Because what happens if we arrive somewhere absolutely breathtaking and decide we want to spend another day there?

What if the kids discover something they love?

What if we find a little town with an interesting museum, a beautiful hiking trail, or some completely ridiculous roadside attraction that I simply HAVE to investigate?

Am I supposed to say, “Sorry, we’re having entirely too much fun here, but Mommy already paid for a campsite four hours away”?

NO THANK YOU. 🤣

Now, obviously, traveling with five children requires a certain amount of preparation. I’m not suggesting we should drive into the wilderness without food, supplies, or somewhere safe to sleep.

Popular national parks can also require reservations, so flexibility sometimes means researching alternatives rather than simply showing up and hoping for the best.

But I don’t want every day of our vacation determined months before we actually experience it.

I want to know our options.

I want to have a general direction.

And then?

I want the freedom to change my mind.

I want an itinerary written in pencil, not carved into stone.

You Don’t Have to See Everything to Have Seen Something Wonderful

Did Tyler and I see everything we wanted to see in Ireland?

GOOD GOD, NO. 🤣

Not even close.

There are still countless places I want to visit, little towns I want to wander through, historic sites I want to explore, and roads I haven’t traveled.

But for our first visit?

It was absolutely incredible.

And maybe that’s another difference in how people approach vacations.

Some travelers want to maximize every minute because they don’t know whether they’ll ever have the opportunity to return.

And I understand that.

Other people enjoy the comfort of knowing exactly what’s coming next.

There’s nothing wrong with that, either.

But personally?

I’d rather genuinely experience the places I do visit than spend an entire vacation worrying about the next reservation.

If I miss something, I miss something.

It gives me another reason to go back.

And the truth is, some of my favorite travel memories have come from the things I never planned in the first place.

A strange roadside attraction. An unexpected view. A little town with a fascinating history. A detour that becomes the best part of the entire trip.

Not every unexpected experience is wonderful, of course.

Sometimes you blow an engine.

Sometimes you end up eating McDonald’s in Ireland.

And sometimes you accidentally drive to Kansas when you’re supposed to be attending a wedding in Missouri.

But those experiences become stories, too.

And quite frankly?

I’d rather come home with stories than a perfectly completed itinerary.

I don’t travel to finish a checklist. I travel to experience the world.

And I’m nowhere near finished. ❤️

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What kind of traveler are you? Do you plan every detail months in advance, create a loose itinerary, or throw some bags in the car and see where the road takes you?

And more importantly, what’s the most spectacularly WRONG thing that’s ever happened on one of your vacations?

Because after the national parks disaster, I’m pretty sure we could compete. 🤣

Kelly IM’ME

In My Mom Era