Daily Trip Planner: How to make the most out of each day without burning out

During work life, you may have noticed that each day is or was somewhat repetitive. You probably awakened at about the same time each day, completed a set of morning routines, like checking email, showering, dressing, and drinking coffee. 

Going to work may have meant commuting to an office or shifting to your in-home office. You got through the work day doing many of the same tasks each day and then commuted back home. 

Evening commitments may have varied but, for the most part, followed a routine...maybe dinner, gym, TV, reading, sleep. 

During retirement, do you find yourself creating a similar daily routine, albeit one that has more freedom and “fun”? We’re creatures of habit, right? So when we travel, we may not feel comfortable just letting every day unfold willy nilly. We’ve found that we really enjoy our travels more when we have a framework for each day. The framework allows us as a couple to have shared expectations about the types of things that we’ll do and when we’ll do them. 

Initially, our daily framework looked a lot like work. Each day had to have “accomplishments,” and we needed to be timely about packing in as much as we could, seeing lots of museums, historical sites, village markets, spectacular vistas, fabulous wineries. Each stop on our trip had so much to see and do. We had to make the most of it, right? That approach quickly exhausted us. We had definitely turned travel into work. 

Over time, our daily routine has evolved. We’ve found that there are a number of small daily activities that we find enjoyable when we are traveling and then we limit the number of “things” that we do each day. During the research and planning phase of the trip, we now make sure that we will be able to incorporate routines that make us feel comfortable. Here are some things that we like to do everyday and how we plan for them: 

• Upon awakening, we enjoy American-style coffee with lots of cream and sweetener while sitting in bed reading the news on our iPhones. During our travel planning, we ensure that our room or apartment has a refrigerator, a kettle for boiling hot water, and a nearby grocery store to purchase creamer. We bring our travel coffee mugs, a spoon, sweetener, and instant coffee. We bring two power adaptors so that both of our iPhones are charged while we’re sleeping, ready for our morning news fix. We make sure that we have high speed internet access in each of our accommodations.

• Exercise is really important to both of us, but we like to do different things. Jon has a morning yoga routine and then likes to go for a bike ride. Olivia has a series of strength training exercises and then likes to go for a 2 to 3 mile walk. When we’re booking accommodations, we look for easy access to walking and biking trails in nature (e.g. park, beach, mountain trail), nearby bicycle rental shops, and enough space in the accommodation to complete yoga and strength exercises.

• Being able to use public transportation is essential for us. Neither one of us likes to drive in Europe. Also, traffic patterns and parking can be very stressful in small European towns and larger cities if you’re intent on spending time in the historic sections. During planning, we check the distance of the potential accommodation from the train and/or bus station. We prefer to travel between villages or cities using the train. Over time, we’ve decided that buying a continuous-use global Eurail pass offers us the most flexibility and eliminates travel hassles. Owning a pass also compels us to travel outside of our local area each day. All we have to do is hop on the train and go. Eurail has an easy to use iPhone application that helps us plan our time for departure and return. 

• Limiting the number of different things that we do in a day helps us agree on what we want to do. Usually, we exercise in the morning, catch the train to somewhere, see a site, eat our main meal of the day around lunch time at a traditional local eatery, see another site, and then take the train back to our temporary home. Each evening, we typically buy greens and salad vegetables from the local market for dinner. We often take a walk after dinner and then watch Netflix or Amazon Prime on our computer. When we are choosing our lodging, we make sure that there are plates and utensils in the accommodation. 

Realizing that having a general framework helps us feel good about setting aside time for things that may have seemed “unproductive” during our working years, but that provide a grounding when we’re frequently moving from place to place.