Overplanning for Overseas

This is what over-planning looks like.

LONDON

PARIS

BARCELONA

And they aren't even finished yet. But I'd rather plan too much before we leave and have a lot of options than waste a moment of this trip looking at Yelp reviews.

So, I'm letting y'all in on not only my madness, but also on my method. 

Google Maps Engine is my favorite trip planning tool. I color-code every place we're thinking about so I know at a glance what's there. So in London, there's an icon for cocktails and another for sherry bars. Blue dots are for cheap eats. And purple is for the spendy ones. I can see where our hotel is, which lunch spot is next to which museum and plan my days based on what groups nicely. 

Writer concession: Visuals make everything easier to process. 

And Google even lets you tag each spot with descriptions so you can search for cheap Indian food when you have a hankering for Vindaloo. 

Chris thinks I'm a little nuts. And he's probably right. But it really works. 

(And some people even think planning a vacation can make you even happier than going on vacation.)