We’re last minute people, maybe a week in advance without air travel, a month with. A family friend just invited us to join them on a vacation NOVEMBER 2025. That seems bonkers to me!
How far in advance do you plan a small trip like a road trip or visiting family, and how far in advance for a big trip like international travel, a cruise, or Disney?
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…vacations? In this ecconomy???
If it’s a camping trip, six months because that’s when campsite reservations open and they book up fast.
Anything else, 2-4 months, usually closer to 4. International trip more like 4-6 months.
You must camp nicer places than I do!
Washington, so probably. Beautiful place. They implemented the six-month opening a couple of years back because all the campsites would get booked out years in advance for the best times of year.
Dispersed camping. We plan the day before we decide to go. A lot fewer people, dogs can be off leash, etc.
We avoid that because anywhere nearby, attractive, and easy to bring your gear to tends to fill up. Better to have a reservation and know you will get a spot.
12 to 24 hours.
My new bestie right here.
My wife and I usually plan big vacations about a year in advance so that we can follow flight prices and whatnot to get a good deal. We also book a few days at a cabin for our anniversary every year, so we just book the next year’s reservation while we’re there, since reservations can fill up even several months in advance.
Only planning a week in advance seems stressful to me - we planned a last-minute (for us) road trip vacation earlier this month for the long 4th of July weekend, and it was tough to find cheap places to stay that weren’t super grungy.
We usually know what city/countries we want to visit this year, but actually looking for hotels or airfare is like a month out. We’re pretty chill vacationers, and we have our style worked out so it’s not usually stressful for us. YMMV!
Road trip? Usually week or night of.
Airline travel within 4 hours, domestic or international is usually 2 days before hand.
Airline travel across the world is usually planned as a time block a month or two ahead of time. The actual destination and activities being planned as the dates get closer.
Exceptions are scheduled events. If I have an event to attend in a location, I’ll make a hotel reservation and book tickets for the thing. Then checkup options for travel there. Sometimes it’s part of a multileg journey.
Often I don’t know where in the world I will even be the week leading up to the thing. So I tend to either not purchase travel tickets, or buy a few different ones from hubs globally that are cheap and easy to get to.
You sound like us. We have a few weeks blocked off but no plans yet.
I planned my end of July weekend vacation around February. We have a senior dog who needs special attention, so it’s often hard to find someone to watch her.
Dog sitting is challenging, that’s true. We’ve had trouble with that before.
It depends on what I’m doing
If I’m going somewhere out of easy driving distance and hoping maybe some friends will come along, I’ll start floating the idea about a year out, start making more solid plans about 6 months out. Give people time to get passports, save up for plane tickets, etc.
If it’s an overnight to a long weekend with just me and my wife, maybe a couple weeks, we could probably do day-of sometimes but we gotta make sure someone can watch our dog.
The dog is a problem for sure.
Who the hell can afford a vacation?
Loads of people apparently. What is even the point of your question?
My wife and I plan 6-12 month out, and sometimes more. At least for the dates of our vacations. My wife runs a small dog boarding service out of our home, and limits the number of dogs she boards. As a result she has clients that will schedule boarding up to a year in advance. So we need to block out our vacation time early enough to prevent clients from making reservations at those times.
At some point after we block out the time we’ll figure out where we want to go.
Last few years we have been booking vacations when we have big race events, to put 1 and 1 together and save money. So 1 year in advance (that’s when ironmans registrations opens up).
Back when we where only traveling, usually from Feb/march for august. Go get best deals and low tickets.
For group things I don’t think it’s bonkers. Mostly because that gives everyone time to make sure that specific time to work. Honestly to me that says they really want you to come, I’d be flattered.
For just my SO and me it’s different though. Usually rough idea forms about a year out, with us formalizing and time off about 6 months out, and booking about 3 months out
That’s a good point, I choose to be flattered.
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I’m required to put in my time off requests by the first of Nov. for all of the following year. So I may not have all the details planned out, but I know what will happen when.
Why.
Damned if I know.
That’s nuts
That sucks, but it’s an interesting way to plan!
We usually go to a small holiday home my dad owns for a week or two in summer - we need to book that early in the year.
Then we do maybe one or two long shorter train trips to other European cities. More often than not that’s to see a musical theatre production, so we book those when they are announced, maybe half a year in advance. Otherwise it could be just days or weeks out!
Months before. By the time it comes around, the only thing we’re doing is calling the cab to the posh airport hotel (because fuck yeah) and bugging out.
