Very popular tool for holiday planning on the Slow Europe travel forum. I’m guessing it’s most useful for maintaining a clear schedule with linked details of address, tel#, etc.
On breakfasts, we almost always rent apartments (from long before airbnb was a thing), and especially appreciate that breakfast is on our timetable, rather than the hotel’s, and there’s no stress about dressing up for breakfast. Mostly it’s coffee in the moka, plus food foraged from specialist food shops (that doubles as an ever changing home buffet/picnic, with different stuff bought every day to change the mix). Occasionally we’ll go a bit more traditional and have a pastry and coffee in a local bar.
In terms of meals out, it’s probably once per day, which might be lunch or dinner, with that moveable buffet/picnic filling in for the other meal, and occasionally as a supper. It’s proved a very flexible approach for us.
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One of the first things we do while traveling when arriving is hit a grocery store to buy protein shakes for our trip.
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I understand the purpose. It’s not consistent with my approach to travel.
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I have never seen nor heard of this level of precision for a vacation until I saw this thread.
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No virtue signaling! It would never occur to me to claim that yogurt and fruit is more virtuous or ‘healthier’ than other meals. (With some exceptions, like Fruit Loops in chocolate milk…) I know plenty of people fear all the fat in 16oz of yogurt, or the cholesterol, but those have not been a problem for me.
My point was that since we’re accustomed to eating fruit and yogurt, it is extremely poor value to eat a restaurant/hotel breakfast, and very unsatisfying as well. But that calculation is different for people who eat cooked breakfasts, baked goods, etc. And it is definitely interesting how flexible (or not) we can all be when traveling.
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Correct. I have done that and, even more broadly speaking than restos, realized I don’t get more pleasure out of that than essentially leaving things to chance. It is actually more enjoyable, to me, to allow everything to unfold naturally without the pressure of maintaining a schedule and feeling as if I missed out on something because I couldn’t fit it in, or what not. I think my main agenda is avoiding things that annoy me even if those same things could also bring some joy.
eg, tourists, while acknowledging I am one, drive me batty, so I avoid a lot of museums in Paris even though I have been to many at least once. I probably didn’t visit Père Lachaise until maybe my 15th or 20th time in Paris and when I eventually stumbled in since I was in the area, it was a marvelously unforced, contemplative, and relaxing experience.
Maybe one of these days I will see the Eiffel Tower from up close.
edit to add that one of my most memorable and excellent meals was in Lyon some 35 years ago. I just chanced upon it at lunch and it blew me away at every course. I don’t know or remember the name. I couldn’t speak French at the time and remember the people next to me basically saying “it’s like apple pie” in their rough English as I couldn’t understand what the waiter was saying with the tarte Tartin 
I can still see the inside of the place in my mind.
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To add something that I know many will find crazy (not the first or the last 
) is that I really don’t use a map/phone. I learned Paris and Buenos Aires this way. Basically look at a map online to familiarize myself with some of the bigger boulevards and know that I will eventually run into one of them if I just keep walking. Little by little my circle is expanded. I never really even carried my phone in BA. A couple minutes being turned around and lost here and there but nothing major.
Rebecca Solnit has a nice book called A Field Guide toGetting Lost. I got a little bored of it towards the end but overall pretty nice writing.
I actually share a lot of this feeling. I like looking at map ahead of time, and then navigating my way there by street signs and directions I kind of memorized. Tokyo taught me differently - the buildings are not numbered in order as you go along, but usually by the order in which they were built. So #122 could be no where near #124. I certainly did it before Google maps, but it is much less stressful now! That’s when I’m looking for a specific place. But when I am just exploring a neighborhood, I don’t use the phone. I figure I’m never more than a stone’s throw from a subway or a taxi, so I’ll ultimately be fine.
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So interesting to hear differnet approaches and priorities! I love my spreadsheets. There’s plenty of unoccupied time on them, to be sure, but it makes me feel confident and prepared to have tihngs laid out clearly, especially on a longer trip, with movement between multiple locations. Just a more detailed calendar, really. So when Jonathan says “where will we be on the afternoon of 11/4?” I can answer at a glance.
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I understand the value. But a schedule turns opportunities into obligations. We’ll typically make a few reservations, and certainly do lots of research so we are not stuck in a “I don’t know; what do you want to do” loop, but the idea of a spreadsheet filled with commitments sounds way too much like work. It’s more likely we’ll consult our list of options for something in the neighborhood. If they are booked we’ll move on
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I get that, too. We leave plenty of time for that kind of exploring with some rough ideas. Since we go back to the same places with regularity, deeply looking forward to seeing friends we’ve made in our favorite restaurants, we will always book those. And I’ve never felt any sense of obligation out of booking places I’m really looking forward to, only excitement and anticipation. There’s no question we’ve found some serendipitous gems. But also, the very worst meals we’ve had on trips have been when we were just wandering and trying places. While that can be funny and make for a good story every now and then, I’d be pretty upset if we had a bad run for a few days in a row.
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Unless I have a special meal planned, no real planning. I’ll walk around my hotel one morning and figure out what I’d like to eat.
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I’m somewhere in between. We (ok, I) always do research before leaving so we have options in the spots we are likely to be. And I am big on asking people at place A where they’d go; you get some terrific recommendations that way and can triangulate our own list. If there is someplace in particular we don’t want to miss, we will try to get reservations. It is rare that we will duck into someplace unknown to us for a full meal.
But I can honestly say that the restaurants that have provided us with the worst experiences have almost exclusively been highly rated or “hot” spots that think way, way more of themselves than we do. I don’t need that attitude, so when I get it, that is what spoils the occasion much more than the pasta being over done or the fish a little too salty
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I don’t feel that is practical in Japan. The friend I’m traveling with is fluent in Chinese. A small minority of the kanji characters have the same meaning in English. Even then, it’s been barely helpful. Also, most of the alleys don’t have street signs and not all restaurants are on street level.
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Late breakfast eater, no?
Just watch your step in Venice.
I really eat only two meals a day. When traveling, dinners are planned, if the hotel breakfast is nice, I have breakfast.
At home, it’s usually depends on what’s available. In the summer, fruit and yogurt, as the fruit is spectacular. lunch otherwise, salad and protein.
I’m here in Japan now, was just in Korea , breakfasts are usually awesome . Dinners are awesome but planning can be a little stressful due to the very tough cancellation policies. I over plan, and sometimes have to many large meals in a row, which I can’t really handle.
You refer to an eating forced death march, at my age, my stomach revolts and I physically can’t eat if I do that. So try to plan for light dinners , eat in the hotel lounge or skip a dinner every 3rd day.
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Me? No. I wake up ravenous. I’ve usually eaten breakfast by 7:30 at the latest.
“Culinary death march” is mostly a joke in our house. We sometimes think others would find it that way, but we are usually fine. We plan some meals off, often skip dinner after a nice boozy lunch.
One shouldn’t cancel reservations in Japan unless absolutely necessary. Not only do the restaurants tend to be small and prep for every diner is carefully accounted for, but culturally it’s frowned upon. The word for “promise” is also a word for “appointment,” which should tell you something.
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