Traveling last minute/unscheduled... and doing touristy things?

[Kaitlyn]

Just wondering - I've either gone on trips planned by others or all inclusive type of things.

If I were to basically just take a flight somewhere with almost nothing planned - including hotel... how realistic is it to get things going once there?

Finding a hotel I'd think is the easiest, but what about day 2? How realistic is it to be able to schedule tours a day in advance? I guess the alternative, depending on what/where, is renting a car...

I'm normally SUCH a planner. The idea of doing things spontaneously is actually kind of exciting, but I don't want to ruin an experience due to not being able to do things on such a short notice...

[n3o321]

nothing comes good without a plan haha.
Normally I would only do unscheduled travelling if;

1. I had money to blow.
2. lots of vacation days to use.
3. both

if it's a 3-5 day vacation, i would rather find it wasteful, but to each their own.
A timid person who is afraid to ask around usually don't get much things done.

I assume unscheduled travelling where you would like to have some fun would land you in a busy city like Tokyo, New York, Bangkok, and/or Vegas.

I didnt take beachy places into consideration as anyone can do nothing but stay at the beach if that's how you want to spend your vacation.

Bangkok would be my choice of those i listed above, only because everything was cheap and convenient. Cabs are dirt cheap, and you'll learn how to bargain if you don't know already lol. food is cheap. shopping is cheap. there are nice restaurants you can go to also. Bangkok had everything for me in one place. If you wanted to visit a beach, Phuket is the place to go or Pataya. imo, you can;t go wrong when you're here.

[RAINMAN0]

With a short amount of time its probably better to schedule something or at least have the first day or 2 an idea of what you want to do then whatever comes up for the rest. If you have a lot of time just go and see what happens. Thats the best way but you need a decent amount of time because the first day or 2 ends up getting wasted figuring out things.

[amz155]

Not sure where you are thinking of going but it would still probably be a good idea to do a bit of reading about where you're headed. Surf on Trip Advisor for a few hours or pick up a travel guide for the destination. I don't plan my trips down to every meal and every activity but I at least like to know what my options are, what I'd be interested in making time for, and how to get from place to place.

Then again, there are places that you could land in with zero plan and do perfectly fine.

[TrevorK]

My wife and I went through our whole 5 week honeymoon with everything planned each night before. The only issue we ran into was that flights and such were more expensive (as we visited quite a few cities throughout the 5 weeks), but tours and that were fine. We booked them the night before and it all worked out great. The internet is a wonderful place to find things, I know when I make a post in the Travel forum is seems like I have at least a couple replies within an hour or two with suggestions.

We usually plan everything but all of our plans got turned upside down when I couldn't make the 10,000KM driving trip. It worked out great and with little in terms of plans you are easily able to adapt your schedule to things you see when you are there or hear from people in the city that you never knew before. Using priceline's "name your own" price took a lot of the work out of it, we just picked a location and bid for a 4 star for almost every city.

[craftsman]

Depends on whether you want to go there to see everything since you won't be back or you just want to go there...

Take NYC for example. You can go and plan everything out from Subway rides to bus transfers to get you to see all of the sites including a brisk walk through Central Park and a variety of the neighbourhoods... Or you can drop off at Times Square, look around a bit, wander up to Central Park and make a day or two of it. I've done both.

The keys to the second method are know a starting point (got to start somewhere), have a map (and a transit map if the location is right), know how to get back to the hotel from the starting point, and be willing to enjoy what is in front of you.

Locations that require a car to get from A to B is a bit more of the "need to plan things out" type of deal as highways and roads would typically require knowledge of where the next hotel is...

[wirebound]

We usually travel without everything set in stone; sometimes it backfires and you end up in a crappy room for a night, but usually it affords you the flexibility to listen to people's advice, stay in one place for a bit longer or switch it up entirely. If you have some wiggle room in terms of time so you can stay longer in a place, leave earlier or spend your time looking for somewhere to stay; or if you have some wiggle room in terms of budget so that if you have to, you can spend more for a hotel then I'd say you're good to go. I usually look at price points and get an idea of activities before I leave and then book everything once we get down there unless its something that I know would be insanely busy.