If you’ve ever gone on a trip, you’ve probably experienced at least one of the following things:

1. Your vacation felt too short

2. You wanted to do everything in a small amount of time

Am I right? You’re not alone.

It can be hard to fit everything you want to do into a few days, a week, or even two, when you are traveling. I recently learned that Americans are notorious for not taking long enough vacations, and who would disagree? Doesn’t everyone want a full month off like the Europeans?

{silently raising my hand in solidarity while simultaneously working}

So how do you do it? How do you fit it ALL in? How do you come back from vacation less exhausted and burnt out than when you left? Ideally, we vacation to get away from it all, and somehow come back with an emotional (and maybe literal) hangover from trying to pack our days with activities.

Obviously, this doesn’t always apply. If you are sitting on a beach in Tahiti and reading this, you can stop now…your priorities consist of one thing: do nothing.

However, if you are going to a location that has sites to see, food to enjoy, and excursions to experience, keep reading to find out how to prioritize your time when creating your itinerary:

• Ask yourself “why” you are traveling. Really think about it. Are you traveling to relax? Are you traveling to see things that you have never seen? Are you traveling to eat incredibly local foods? If you are aren’t a foodie, then you won’t want to build your itinerary solely around the best restaurants. It just doesn’t coincide with want you want out of your trip. Find out your “why” to help build the foundation of your trip.

• Now create a list of the “must do’s.” I ask this of every client. What can’t you live without on your trip? For example, mine is always wine. So I would make sure that I am jotting down that I can’t live without a trip to the local vineyard, wine room, or unique tasting in the areas that I visit. You might find that this overlaps with your “why.” That means you are on the right track!

• Create a list of the “nice to haves.” There are always things that would be good to do/see, but you can live without. If you are into sports, think of this as your second string list. They may be necessary, and can change the game…but they aren’t your key players.

• Now set the pace. Do you want to be on the go everyday? Does walking all day long sync up with your “why?” If your trip is meant to be rejuvenating, I wouldn’t suggest trying to pack in lots of sites. However, if you want your trip to be as dense as possible, then who’s stopping you? I would suggest that if you are in a big city, you may want to plot out one to two sites a day from your “must do” list and then add in some fluff that would be “nice to have.”

If you go about your planning in a systematic way, and really ask yourself these questions, you are must more likely to feel fulfilled…and hopefully less exhausted! In addition, there are really rockstar websites that can help you build your itineraries now. I prefer using Travefy because they have an app, it syncs with my calendar, creates a PDF, and is just stinkin’ easy to use.

However, if you still need help after all that, well…that’s what we are here for!

Happy planning!