The Lazy Genius Guide to Planning a Trip

is not about hacking the system to find more time or hacking your energy to get more

“done, hustling to beat the best or to make them most out of every opportunity is exhausting”

and unsustainable. So here we do things differently. On this show, we value contentment, compassion, and living in our season. We favor small steps, over big systems. Here, we are lazy geniuses, being a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't, and I am so glad you're here. Today is episode 462, The Lazy Genius Guide, to planning a trip. I have done a handful of travel related episodes on the podcast over the

years, episode 411, 10 things to do before taking a trip. Episode 165, The Lazy Genius Packs for a trip. Episode 269, How to Be a Tourist in Your Own Town. Episode 371, How to Lazy Genius a Day trip. And even a bonus episode about how I personally lazy genius air travel. But,

I realized I've never done an episode about planning an actual trip. Since we're coming up

“on the summer holidays, a time when folks sometimes take trips, it seems like a great time to”

lazy genius this thing. That's fun, but also can be a little stressful. After that, we'll have a little extra something where I share my three favorite travel items. Love a good list round up. Our lazy genius of the week has her own favorite travel item to share and will close with a mini pet talk for when you can't go anywhere. Let's get right into it today. I'm going to tell you a little story to set the stage for this episode. And why it's good to plan a trip. Last December,

our family went to London. As many of you know, I wrote about it and newsletters and mentioned it and all the things. It was a rather spontaneous trip, even though it was an international trip. It was not one that we were like planning for a long time to take. But when playing tickets, we're like so stinking cheap. We thought, well, I mean, why not? Let's go to London. So we plan to the trip. Figure it out whatever your one wanted to do. Put a lot of details in place. All was fine.

Now, my middle son's greatest hope for this trip was to go to the Harry Potter Studios. Which if you ever go to London is absolutely worth it. It was everyone's favorite thing,

like simply amazing. And not everyone in the family is even like a Harry Potter fan either.

It was just magical. Anyway, that was what Ben wanted to do. So of course, we were going to do it.

“Well, in October, you remember we went into December at the end of December. I was like, hey,”

you know, I should probably buy tickets for that Harry Potter thing. I mean, we got two months still, but I'm going to be like on top of that and get that lockdown. Went to the website to get tickets. There were no tickets available. Not for any of the days that we were going to be in London. It was completely sold out. I did not realize that in December, the Harry Potter Studios get decorated for Christmas and everything is covered in snow. It's like a whole thing. Everyone else

seemed to know that already and had snatched up all the tickets. I was freaking out. This was like the one thing Ben had asked to do and I didn't have tickets. I had the bread idea to go to one of those like trip experience websites to see if there were any Harry Potter packages available. And every link I clicked on was also sold out. I kept seeing that phrase sold out and like wanted to cry. Finally, I found a package that included a bus ride to the place and tickets and all the

things. And there were seven tickets available. And we had six people in our group. Y'all,

I have never freaked all the way out so much and clicked internet buttons so fast. Like I essentially

threw my credit card at the computer and I was like, "Take all my money, please, just let me get my kid to this thing." So we got the tickets. We went to the Harry Potter experience. It was memorable beyond to measure. And holy moly, planning trips is a whole thing. I share that story. Not to stress you out. But because while there are trips that can be spontaneous and easy and while every trip needs a level of flexibility, there are elements of planning that need to be

tended to early. Otherwise you're not going to get to enjoy the trip you're hoping for. Which again is fine. Resilience is good. But it would have been like kind of heartbreaking for us to go all the way to London in part for the Harry Potter experience. And then not get to go to the Harry Potter experience. You know? I dodged a bullet. We thought one, for sure. But I hope this episode gives you a path to planning a trip so that those kinds of things

are not fully eliminated, but they certainly happen less frequently. So let's learn to plan a trip like a lazy genius. I'm super excited about this. First we're going to take a quick ad break, which makes this episode free for you to listen to. So thank you to our sponsors. Also, if you

recap email. It's called latest lazy listens. It goes out every other Friday and it summarizes the

“episode for you. So if it's episode like this, you don't have to take notes. We share the lazy”

genius of the week as well as other segments we have on the show. And it has a little extra note for me to help encourage you through the weekend. Again, for episodes like this one with more steps and like information, it's so helpful to just have it sent to you in email form. So if you would like to get that recap ahead to the lazy genius collective dot com slash listens. Hello, I'm Melissa Beth Day, the creator and host of How To Fail is the podcast that

celebrates the things in life that haven't gone right and what if anything we've learned from

those mistakes to help us succeed better. Each week, my guests share three failures,

sparking intimate thought-provoking and funny conversations. You're here from a diverse range of voices, sharing what they've learned through their failures. Join me Wednesdays for a new episode

“each week. This isn't a Elizabeth Day in Sony music entertainment original podcast. Listen there,”

wherever you get your podcasts. Alright, let's get into the lazy genius guide to planning a trip. I am so excited about this. Yes, planning a trip can feel daunting, especially a big one. But this does not have to be an overwhelming or complicated project. There is simplicity available to you, and I'm excited to share it today. Really, it's all about going to the right order. You know, I love going in the right order. Alright, I have roughly seven steps or, you know, kind of phases

to planning a trip like a lazy genius, and they will help you. Go in the right order, which is a lazy genius principle so that you don't get overwhelmed or behind. Plus, it makes planning the trip fun. Like, I promise this is going to be fun. So, whether you have a trip coming up this summer with your family or you have a trip you've been wanting to take for a while, these seven steps will help you get there no matter who you are, where you're going, or what your budget is. Alright,

here we go, step one. You're going to lock in what I'm calling the big four. Okay, the big four is who, when, where, and why, who, when, where, and why. In the early stages of trip planning, we might have two of those things. You know, we know where we're going with what person, in general, but we haven't picked a time yet. We haven't really decided what the vibe is, you know. So, sometimes most trips have two things at least, but without all four, it's really hard to plan

“anything. So, you have to start by locking in the big four. So, for example, you know that you”

want to get away to rest, like you as a person, but you don't know where you're going to go, or when you're going to go. Right? That's two things. You know your family is going to the beach this summer, but you don't know when you're going. You can't really plan anything that way. You know that you would like to go to Greece one day, because it's like a bucket list trip, but you don't know when you're going to go, or who would even go with you, right? If you don't have

all four, those things just sit there. You think, like, man, I need a restful trip for myself, but if you don't choose a place and a time, you're not, you're not going to do it. You can't even plan anything that way, right? Now, I know this is like an incredibly simple way to look at it, but in order for a trip to start, you need those four pieces. You need to know who's going, when you're going, where you're going, and why you're going. You don't have to know

what you're going to do, how you're going to get there, where you're going to eat, or even where you're going to stay. None of that stuff matters yet. In most cases, none of that stuff matters. So focus on the big four first, for example, that London trip I mentioned, it was not going to be our whole family originally. It was just going to be me and my mom. That was the who, me and my mom. The why was I wanted to take her to London, because I knew that she would love it, and eventually

she won't be able to make that kind of trip. I wanted to take her while she could still like really enjoy it. Well, when I went to look at playing tickets for the dates that I had chosen,

the flights were so cheap that we could afford to take the whole family. It was incredible.

But think about it. The planning of a trip to London, with just me and my mom, would be very different from the planning of a trip to London with my mom and my entire family, including my three children. Right? The why is different? Because we're giving everybody this experience, and the who is different. All the other details were the same, but because who is going is changed, and a little bit of the why is changing, so did the planning. Okay? The simplicity of planning a trip

begins with knowing those four things. Who, when, where, and why? You don't need details yet.

simplistic, but without starting with the simplest pieces of the trip. You will plan in the wrong order.

“You'll see all the details that you could focus on while missing the fact that you're missing”

a major foundational component like when you're going to go. So think about whatever trip you're planning or even hoping to plan, which of the big four do you still not know? You know you and your best friend want to take a trip to the nearest college town and just like pit all around, any fun food and sleep in and enjoy being together. Okay? That's three things. You know the who, the where and the why. All right then. Hunker down, compare calendars and pick when

you're going to go. Or maybe you want to take a trip with your best friend just to hang out. And you know that there's a week over the summer when you both could. Okay? So all that's left is where you're going to go. You know who's going to go? You know when you're going to go and you know why you want to go. You just want to like chill. Okay? So it's easier to choose that place that you're going to go because you know when you can choose based on the weather. How far you

want to travel? Like all that kind of stuff. The big four helps you create margin in your planning.

“It keeps you from any nitpicky decisions before you need to make them just start with the big four.”

Who, when, where and why? You haven't booked anything yet. You haven't paid any money yet. You're just like pencil in it in. Right? You're locking it in. And side note, please don't skip the why here. Don't overlook that. Some wise are are obvious like a family wedding. Right? That's why we're going. Someone's getting married. But others not so much. But think about it. If you're going to the mountains to explore, that's a different trip than going to the mountains to rest.

It changes the kind of place that you're going to stay the way that you handle food, the activities you look for, who's going to go all of it. So no why you're going somewhere. That is such an easy one to gloss over. So I just don't gloss over it. Don't gloss over it. All right.

So that's step one. First, you're going to decide the big four. Okay? You haven't spent any money yet.

You're just like deciding. Next, you're going to explore, explore, not decide, but explore what I'm calling the next four. You start with the big four and then explore the next four. Here's what the next four is. Transportation, lodging, food, and how you're going to spend your time.

“Those are the four main categories of planning a trip. You need to get where you're going.”

You've got to have somewhere to stay once you get there. You have to eat because everybody eats. And you have to spend your time doing something, right? Those are pretty basic things, but obviously widely variable depending on the trip. That's why this step is all about exploring. You don't need to decide all of those things. I just want you to think about them before you think about anything else. And after you have chosen the big four.

So explore the possibilities and what matters about them. That way you have more clarity as you move through the rest of the steps. Okay? So let's look at each of the next four.

First, transportation. How are you going to get there? Sometimes the answer to this is super simple.

If you're going to the beach four hours away with your friend, you're going to drive. You know, there are planes or trains going there. So you'll obviously take one of your cars. You don't need to know which person is driving and what vehicle you're going to take at. You're just exploring what is likely. When we went to London, obviously we were going to fly on a plane. I mean, I suppose in theory we could have taken a boat, but that would have been quite a choice.

This is also where you might explore an alternative mode of transportation you had not thought up before. Maybe taking a train would be super fun, especially if you're doing some sort of like nature trip and sightseeing things and you can ride in one of those trains where like the roof is made of windows. You know, just decide what the likely choice is going to be. Explore choices kind of nailed down which one you think is probably likely. You don't have to book

plane tickets or whatever. You're just exploring how you're going to get where you want to go.

All right, the second piece of the next four is lodging. Where are you going to stay? Again,

this doesn't have to be about booking a place. It's just exploring. You already know where you're going. So explore where you would like to stay there. There's a hotel make more sense or an Airbnb. Are you staying with friends that you're visiting? Do you want to stay far away from the hub hub or right inside it? Like explore the options of where you want to stay. Don't worry about

Name what matters about where you stay and you'll use that information later. Okay? All right,

the third piece of the next four is food. Once again, just exploring. You do not need to make

restaurant reservations or a meal plan. This is more about like categories. Okay? So based on the big four on who, when, where and why, what could food look like? Will you cook for yourself a lot?

“Will you want to eat in? But you don't want to cook. So you need to get meals that are like already”

prepared. Are you going to eat out? Do you want to eat out fancy? Do you want to eat street food? Is food part of the experience of the trip in a really big way? If you're taking, for example, like a big family reunion type trip, you'll want to explore how everybody might want to share

the meal load. You can have ideas like okay. Entire family units feed everybody for a meal at a

time or every family unit takes one day of the week you're together or maybe it's just everybody is helping out all the time because you're like being together in a kitchen. I don't know. Name the importance of food and explore how you might want to generally approach it during your trip. Once again, just explore. We're only exploring the next four. We're not deciding anything. And then the final piece of the next four is what you want to do. How you're going to spend your time.

Look back at the big four at why you're taking the trip, especially. That will help

inform how you explore what you might want to do once you're there. So step one, lock in your big

four. Who went where and why? Step two, you're going to explore the next four. Transportation, lodging, food and how you'll spend your time. It's all just thinking so far. You likely have not actually spent any money or booked anything yet unless you just really wanted to. But these eight things will help you follow the details of the next five steps. So much more easily. All right.

“Step three is a little bit where the rubber meets the road. You need to decide what you're”

willing to pay for. Every trip has a budget and that budget can be incredibly fluid within its boundaries. Right. You're not going to pay top dollar or lowest dollar for everything. So decide what you're willing to pay for. If you're taking that trip with a friend for the purpose of adventure, you'll probably feel more inclined to pay for adventure, right? To pay for some kind of like, I don't know, parasailing experience or a food tour or something. Kindred does not parasail.

Kindred does do food tours. But good luck to all of you parasailing. Also, if adventure is your primary purpose, the reason why where you stay might not matter so much, right? Because you're not even going to be in the hotel or the Airbnb or whatever much anyway, you're going to

“be out and about. So you're willing to pay more for experiences than you are for lodging.”

You could even take that into transportation, right? Adventure fits into like a long road trip, adventure is a southwest flight or a tight connection or sitting in the back row of the plane with your friend and trying not to make it to other laugh too much. You don't mind paying less for something that sort of maybe gives a distance of adventure. Because you don't mind the sense of adventure. That's sort of part of the fun. But let's look at it in a different way. Let's say you and your friend are

taking a trip for the purpose of arrest. You're almost definitely going to want to spend your money on where you stay, right? Because you're probably going to be there resting. If you're staying at the beach, it's restful to pay maybe for ocean front. If you're staying in a city, then you're trying to be restful. It's a restful to stay somewhere near a park or in a quiet neighborhood or somewhere with great views and a cozy couch, right? This is why going in this order helps you plan your trip

better. When you know why you are going and have already explored some of your next four options, you can more easily be able to identify like what you're willing to pay for and what you're not. You can certainly get cheap rates on everything. That's fine. That's awesome. But no, what you're willing to pay for now so that when the time comes to book places and planes and experiences or whatever, you know your threshold of where you're willing to skimp and where you are

not. It is so helpful. Now let's talk briefly about traveling with people who are willing to pay

to the beach or whatever with like multiple families and you're absolutely willing to pay for a

“bigger house so that you don't have to share a bathroom with your three adult brothers and their families”

a bigger house with more space and bathrooms is of super worth it to you or maybe you're willing to pay for that beach house to be oceanfront because of how many little kids you all have and just the ease of being able to just like walk out on the beach with your stuff and even run back into the house to get other stuff you forgot. That is so worth it, right? Then having to like walk several blocks or even have to drive to bring everyone to the beach. You're willing to pay for that. But

let's say your brother is not, right? Your brother and his family they would rather get the cheapest house possible and split the cost of the cheapest house possible that the cheapest house is far away from the beach and again has like two bathrooms or whatever, right? Okay but maybe he also wants to go out for like a big surf and turf dinner and you don't care as much about that or want to spend that kind of money on food or you'd rather make it yourself at home with everyone. You know you'd

rather do like surf and turf at home because it's cheaper or whatever. Those are hard conversations to have but they do likely need to happen. Those kinds of situations need to start with a conversation with a way to compromise. Now maybe after trying to understand each other you can come to an agreement that fits the desires and budgets of everyone or maybe you won't. Maybe that's not how you and

your brother work or whatever. So in that case here's what you could do. You could say to him

I would really like to spend money on a house that doesn't feel stressful and I'm willing to pay this much more money for it. I'll even cover more than my fair share if it means we can have it. That's how much it means to me. But when it's time to go out for surf and turf our cruise is going to stay back into steep leftovers. That does not have to be like passive aggressive you're just setting your boundaries. This is what I am doing and you are welcome to do whatever you would like to do.

“So like those are just a few words for when you have to decide what you're willing to spend money on”

when someone else might have a different answer than you. All right so as you decide what I'm willing to pay for and as you do this in your own like note taking. If you want a visual you could

always like put a star rating or like a ranking or something next to your next four you know

what are you willing to pay for? Transportation, lodging, food, experiences. Write it down so you know what you chose. All right so that's step three. Know what you want to pay for. Step four is to name every person's one thing. This is where you get specific and find out what every single person who's going most wants to do or eat or experience or feel on the trip. What is the most important one thing to every single person who is going? Now there one thing

could be in any category of the next four but I want you to get an answer from everyone. And please remember to do this in light of the previous steps too like make sure everyone's on board with the big four and has those details in you know make sure everyone has done some exploring of the next four that they hope to. Something in their exploration it might show them what their one thing is maybe. You don't have to but it's nice to you know let people into that.

The bigger the group, the more necessary the step is and thankfully the more it'll fill in your plans like when we went to London with six people we had six things to fit in less than six days. That will definitely help plan a trip right. So ask everyone what one thing they want the most

“and you need to answer that for yourself as well don't leave yourself off that list.”

As long as everyone has their one thing to the best of the groups and budget abilities the trip is going to be a good experience for everyone. So write down all of those one things and they will be the building blocks of your planning. All right we're on the step five step five is to choose where to start. You have a lot of super helpful information now right you know where you're going you know who's going you know when you're going and why you are going.

You have explored lodging, transportation, food and experience options. You have named which of those you're willing to spend money on and you have gathered up everyone's one thing

start? Start with whatever feels the most important and it'll almost certainly be part of the next four. It'll be plain tickets. It'll be getting that beach house that's big enough to fit for families. It'll be Harry Potter Studios tickets so that you know how much they're going to cost and what day you're going to go and how to plan the rest of the trip around that thing. It might be a restaurant reservation at the Michelin Star Restaurant which is the literal reason for the trip in the first place,

right? Walk in whatever is the most important thing first so that everything else can breathe easier.

In fact, you could implement one of our favorite to do list approaches now soon later and never mind. Never mind is less likely to show up and trip planning but I mean it could. It could show up but

“regardless, look at the next four and everyone's one thing. Those are your priorities, right?”

Latching, transportation, food, what you're going to do and then all the things, all the one things that everybody wants to do. Now you just need to to rank them or categorize them and you can categorize them using now soon later and maybe even never mind. Okay, so let's let's break this down. For example, if you're going to New York with your family and another family like we just did

last Thanksgiving when my kid got to march in the bases they gave you diaper right and someone's

one thing is to eat from a whole all cart in New York City which was a real thing on our list. You can put that in the later column. That does not need much planning. You just need to like stop at a whole all cart, right? Or on the same trip if someone wants to see central park, that doesn't really need an urgent plan yet either. You're going to eventually figure out on what day you're going to go to the park where in the park you want to walk since it's enormous,

but that's a later decision. But if someone wants to see a Broadway musical and seats and

“tickets are limited, you should bump that up to now, right? Thankfully, the details of your trip,”

while seemingly many are actually not as plentiful as you think. There aren't as many things

that decide as you think. You need to get there, you need to stay somewhere, you need to eat food, and you're going to do stuff. Most of which has already been named by everyone's one thing. That list of priorities, it really will start out like maybe a dozen things at most. I do know that 12 decisions is a lot of decisions, but if you can group those 12 decisions into like three groups of three or four of now soon and later and then start with the things under now,

that's so much easier to manage, right? You're just doing two or three things. You're just like finding a place to stay. You already know where and how much you're willing to pay for. If you're you know, like you know a lot of the details already, you've got great parameters on how to make that decision, but you're going to jump on it because that feels the most urgent because you need some more to stay. So step five is to choose where to start and maybe even create a loose order of

what's going to come next after you start somewhere, okay? All right. Now step six, choose your tools.

“You're going to choose your tools. I think this is super important. I think you should really keep”

all your details in one place so that you don't forget we've already decided what priorities you already may, like all that stuff. You can use a notebook, a spreadsheet. You can try our travel playbook. We have a collection of playbooks if you haven't heard me talk about them if this is like a newer episode to you. We have this collection of what we call playbooks. They help you plan your life like a lazy genius. We have ones that are seasonal just for like your regular time. And then we have

some that are categorical and specific for different kinds of planning like travel, right? We have a travel playbook. There are several like mostly blank pages, room enough for several trips in one playbook, but each trip has like several pages. And there is some gentle guidance on helping you plan your trip in this like amazingly cute compact notebook that keeps everything in one place. These steps from this episode are not explicitly listed in the travel playbook, but there is space to write down

these details, even the way that the trip phases are sort of laid out in the travel playbook aligned with these very specific steps. We like to keep the playbooks pretty versatile and the least prescriptive as possible because people have really different lives and need different things, right? But these are such a fantastic place to compile all of these steps in one spot, in one spot.

list in the front with checkboxes for like dreaming about this trip planning this trip and then you can check off if you went on the trip. They really are so fine. They're so fine. So that is one tool that you could use to keep all of your details in one place. You can also decide if you're going to use something like a travel agent to help you plan. If all the details feel like too much, get a travel agent. So many travel agents do not charge you the traveler. Like they are paid by

commission and stuff from hotels and you know, whoever. We used to travel agent when we went to Disney World. This is a few years ago. I was so overwhelmed by all the lodging options at

“the park and like which parks to go to and like I just didn't know what I didn't know, right?”

Then a friend at my pool was like, I'm a travel agent and I loved Disney. So I was like, oh, hi, could you play our trip? And it was amazing. Darren was amazing. He helped me again. Like no things.

I never even knew I needed to know. If you feel that level of overwhelm with a trip you're planning,

higher travel agent, it makes things so much easier. Another tool you might want to consider, especially for like a sight seeing type of trip, especially if there's like a like a lot of walking involved is my maps from Google. I've talked about my maps on the show before, but it allows you to drop pins anywhere on a map. You can categorize and color code those pins if you want and then what's so great is you can see how close things are together. So you can easily play in your day.

“We used my maps for both of our trips to New York and to London last year. It helped us be efficient”

and where in the city we were going to be, right? So we would get to see all the things that we're close by to each other because we didn't know. We didn't know. And it helped us prioritize everyone's one thing since we could better understand how to fit everything in as far as like walking distance and stuff because we could see it on the map. It was also a really great tool to use for restaurants. We would pin with so many food pins for both trips, but we would pin everything and if we were

hungry and say like, wanted a bakery, I could just look at the map and be like, oh wow, there's one right around the corner. Let's go there. So my maps is a great tool if you're going to be somewhere to like see the sites or you're going to walk a lot. I would also, a final tool idea. I would also encourage you to maybe use a friend who loves planning trips. Like you can even pay that friend so many and they might be like, yes, please give me this project. This is so

fun. I cannot wait. I mentioned this before how much my husband loves to like, he loves to help anyone in the market for a guitar, find a guitar for them. Like he'll scour websites for hours on your behalf based on what you want in a guitar or he will find food for you to eat somewhere that you are going. Like some people just love internet digging. So if you know someone who does ask them to find you the best tacos wherever you're going because someone in your family really

wants to eat incredible tacos as their one thing, right? Eager friends are great tools.

But ultimately, here's the biggest thing in choosing your tools. I really really want you to choose one place to put all the details. Again, it can be our travel playbook. It can be just a little notebook. It can be a Google Doc that's shared with all the people. Whatever it works for you. And then the final step step number seven is to set deadlines. I know this is not a super fun way to end our list, but bear with me. Even when you go in the right order, like this episode

has taught you to do, planning can still get away from you. Like even things in that later category they still need attention. So set yourself some deadlines based on the priorities you have already

“listed. Pay attention to what unmade decisions this is key are going to cause some sort of backlog.”

For example, if you know that all 30 of your family members on this big beach trip are going to share the cooking load in a giant beach house, but you do not yet have a plan of how that's going to work. It'll be really hard to decide what groceries to buy, what meals to plan,

who might want to make some things ahead of time, right? That meal plan decision, it is the first

domino. And until it falls, the rest of the things can't really move. So look for those kinds of decisions. What needs to be decided before anything else can be done, put early deadlines on those

what you're doing here is you're just looking at your list of priorities that you already made

“and step five, right? You will notice that they are ranked already or grouped somehow in terms of”

timing or importance. And so I just want you to put some loose deadlines on those tasks. So like you might want to have to say you're flying somewhere. You might want to have plain tickets purchased like at least two months in advance because prices might start climbing on them as you get closer to the date, right? So you might want to just put that deadline on things or you might want to book the most exciting restaurants so you actually get to go and you want to do that

now or put a deadline to be like, I need to do that by the end of the week and I have to call but they're only open to certain set of hours so I need to put that on my calendar, like just think through that kind of detail one at a time or maybe the restaurant that you want to go to,

“they only take reservations a month in advance before that they don't and you're going in two”

months or whatever. So put that date on your calendar so that you can call on the first available

day and get to go. Those kinds of things make a giant trip feel much more doable to plan because you have broken it into smaller pieces with deadlines that you can fulfill since all of those deadlines are not all at once. So you can use calendar items, task alerts, you could buy one of those wall calendars just for trip planning with the deadlines on it so that you can see what tasks are coming. I do whatever works but do what works. Do what works. I know it might be fun to use

digital tools because they're the easiest that if you're an analog person and you just know that you will not plan this trip well on the computer please don't use the computer. Use a notebook or the other way around. Don't try and make yourself into some kind of planer that you're not. Use whatever works even if it's unconventional or inefficient. It's better to be inefficient and enjoy the planning process of your trip than to be efficient but burn out because efficiency is not

life-giving and however it's set up. I just want you to do whatever works for you so you will take the trip and enjoy it. So actually do what works so you'll do it. Okay so let's recap all of this.

Let's recap how to plan a trip like a lazy genius. First, you're gonna lock in your big four.

It's super hard to plan a trip without knowing who's going, where you're going, when you're going and why. Sometimes that's really clear like going with a broadway loving friend to catch the astronaut of a show in New York City that you both have wanted to see. Basically you just buy tickets that are available and you use the rest of our lazy genius steps to figure out the rest of your trip. Right? That one's a pretty easy big four. The for the most part you'll need to do a little bit of thinking

to lock in all four of the big four before you can move forward. Okay? So that's step one. Step two is you're gonna explore the next four. Explore. Don't decide. Explore the next four.

“Lodging, transportation, food and what you're gonna do. Broad guesses are fantastic. Okay?”

You don't have to lock in every single meal. You're just exploring the general vibe, the general options and what sounds like it fits your trip the best. Step three you're gonna decide what you're willing to pay for. You know what the trip is for and you have an idea of all the ways that you might spend money by after exploring the next four. Right? So choose where you're willing to spend and where you are not. It would be great for everything to be you know budget basement prices,

but assuming that can't happen and knowing your priorities. What are you willing to pay for? Everyone will have different answers and no answer is better than another. If you have a different answer than someone you're going on the trip with, have conversations set boundaries and know what you personally are willing to pay for. All right? All right. That's step three. Step four is to name every person's one thing. Find out what single activity, meal or even feeling

is critical to each person saying at the end. Man, that was a great trip. Right? So now that you

have all of that, step five is to choose where to start and categorize it so you know what to do after that. Right? You're gonna use now soon and later to prioritize the next four and all those one things. You could even put them in an actual order if you want. Step six is to choose your tools.

works for you. Consider if you want to use a travel agent, a friend who likes to dig on the internet or practical internet tools like my maps. I think it's nice to choose your tools after you have a better understanding of what your trip actually is so that you're using them to actually help you do

what it is you want to do. And finally set some deadlines, space things out, choose a whole day

“to make decisions if you want whatever you need to keep the planning from sneaking up on you. It”

helps the urgent things get attention without making everything urgent and needed to happen right now. And with all of this, have fun traveling is fun and planning your travel. It can be fun too. When you go on the right order and when you focus on things like a lazy genius planning a trip, it can actually be a really good time. And that is the lazy genius guide to planning a trip. All right, now it's time for a little extra something where I share my favorite travel items.

We will list these in the next latest lazy elicens email that goes out every other Friday. I have a lot of things I love when it comes to travel that these three are like non-negotiable. The first is not just for trip travel, but for all of the time. And it is the quince Italian leather sling bag. Quince is a longtime podcast sponsor. I've talked about this bag on an ad before. This right now is not an ad. This is just me. And I am so in love with this bag. It is the

“perfect size for essential travel. It has like little pockets for a license and a credit card.”

You can figure phone, your chapstick, your gum and like a tied stick. All travel essentials in their own way. And it looks so polished and classic. Now there is nothing wrong with a canvas, sling bag or a tote or a crossbody or whatever you want to do. But I love having a bag close to my body and one that could work even in more like elevated places. Then I'm going right. I have my bag in black. A friend has the same bag in cognac and it's like it's just a pretty big. This is

a buzz bag. I will never take a trip again without it like ever. So that's number one.

Another favorite from when the firm and the family travels. Not just not me because I choose my phone for this. But if you're traveling with multiple people and especially with children, the dream egg portable white noise machine, only goodness. This thing is a small as an egg. But it says loud. I don't know. Our chickens loud. It is loud as the loudest sound machine. It is so fantastic. It charges quickly. It has different sounds and timers even. If you want them,

it's just so good. Again, I don't travel with one when I'm traveling solo because I just use my white noise app on my phone. But when you don't want to use your phone or if you have kids, this thing is a central so good. And then the final thing that I love is to take many lufas. Not many as in a lot. But many as in tiny lufas. And then I just toss them before I come home. Like we're a lufa family. But we're not going to take our daily giant lufas to travel with us.

Plus taking a lufa home. It's like a whole thing. It's probably like still wet. Let's

“super girls. You have to put in a bag. I don't know. Gross. So I bought a box of mini lufas. They're”

smaller than the palm of your head. They're so tiny. But everyone gets one in their toiletry bag for a trip. And then when it's time to go home, you just throw away. You just leave it there in the trash can. It's like one of my favorite things that has made trips easier. So my quince, sling bag, the dream egg, tiny noise machine, and mini lufas. It's like tiny things. It's all tiny things. I love tiny things. All right. That is today's a little extra something. All right.

This week's Lazy Genius of the Week is Amy from Belevista, Arkansas. Amy writes. Traveling with three teens and tweens means lots of devices. And therefore lots of cords that need to be plugged in. My Lazy Genius moment was when I randomly dropped a three plug power strip and six plug outlet cover into my suitcase. Now there are enough plugs to charge everything with no fighting. I won't travel

without extra plugs again. Dude, I would never have thought of this. Maybe I'm not yet at the

stage where everyone has all their own devices. My boys just have watches still that this is so smart. Seems like it would make things easier in hotel rooms as well. I just like wherever a family might be staying. This is such a simple, super helpful tip for traveling. So good job, Amy. Thank you

a mini pep talk for when you can't go anywhere. When you're in a season, when traveling is like

really hard to come by. Hearing other people talk about trips, it can be really hard. We have had seasons personally where travel was more challenging because of tiny kids or having no money, even having no time. Or you have desires to maybe travel internationally or farther away than maybe like the next town or even state, but your health prevents you from doing that or your budget makes it really difficult to do that. Or maybe you don't have anyone to travel with and going

somewhere by yourself doesn't seem like a great time. I don't know. There's so many things. Meanwhile, other people are having all these fun experiences and you feel sad because of the

limitations of your current situation. So the first thing I want to say is that it's okay to feel

sad. They're all kinds of grief and loss. They're all kinds of things that cause those feelings.

“And I think we're selling ourselves short by discounting the sadness that we might feel”

over things like missing out on experiences or trips or friendships or memories and the like. I think it's easy to dismiss that sadness as frivolous, you know. But I don't think it is. I think when you have a longing that cannot be met, it hurts really bad and that hurt should be honored. We can't help how we feel about things and sometimes how we feel, especially over something as seemingly insignificant or so we tell ourselves as travel. It's sneak up on us, you know.

That sadness can take you by surprise. So if you cannot travel anywhere right now and you're sad

about it, it's okay to be sad. Let yourself be sad and be kind about the fact that you're sad. Also, as with anything that makes us feel disappointed or discontent, I would encourage you to see the good that is here right now. Balance out that sadness with what you love about where you are or you can approach it differently by taking something you love about traveling and making it smaller and bringing it into your life today. You know, maybe you love

trying new foods and new places? Well, there are probably a lot of new foods where you are, right? Or maybe you like the spontaneity of travel and like not sticking to a regular schedule? Could you do that one day in your regular life? Like pick a Saturday coming up and just treat where you live, like it's a new place where you just like wander and explore and sleep in and like

“have a good time without a really firm timetable that that's what you enjoy about traveling.”

I don't know these aren't new ideas and this isn't really the point of the pep talk anyway. What I really want you to take from this is permission to be sad and then also a little sparkle alongside to find the joys of travel where you are or simply just the joys of where you are. When discontentment creeps in, contentment is the best antidote that sometimes we have to hunt hard to find it but good is here right now and that is a mini pep talk for when you can't go anywhere.

If this episode is helpful to you or if you've been looking for a way to support the show, please share this episode with someone you know or you can leave a kind review on Apple podcasts. Every mention and share it makes a difference in turning more people into lazy geniuses which we want. We want a world full of lazy geniuses don't we? So thank you so much for being supportive.

“This podcast is part of the Odyssey family and the office lady's network. This episode is hosted”

by me, Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jennifer Sure and Angela Kinsey. Special thanks to Leah Jarvis for weekly production. If you'd like a podcast recap every other week, be sure to sign up for latest lazy lessons. That's our email that goes out every other Friday. Head to the lazyginesscollective.com/listenes to get it. And if you would like to try the travel playbook, you can find more information about that at the lazyginesscollective.com/laybooks.

Thanks y'all for listening and until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. I'm Kendra and I'll see you next week. , but what I want to do is not to be a genius. I'm a master of the laptop, soft-handed, the internet. So master, I'm really sorry. You can say that you can do it. You're a master of the computer, right? But you don't do it. You're a master of the computer.

Make the whole thing like this. And when you work, you're a genius. That's right. Save. Like this. Hold your money. Now you're going to try it.