Vacation Planning – Your Itinerary

Summertime is Road Trip Time!

It’s time to start your vacation planning!  This is a preview of my ebook, “Vacation Planning, American Road Trips.”  I hope you enjoy!!

Get a sneak peek into the planner here: http://lovemybighappyfamily.com/a-sneak-peek-into-the-vacation-planner/ 

CLICK HERE to get your Vacation Planner today from the Love My Big Happy Family Store!

My husband grew up in Washington and Oregon. His parents live in a Albany, Oregon about an hour and forty minutes from the beach town of Lincoln City, Oregon. So naturally, one of our favorite vacation spots is the Oregon Coast.

When we were young and inexperienced we would just show up, drive around and look for things to do. Our stomping grounds have typically been from Lincoln City to Florence. The two cities are almost 75 miles apart. We would consider doing something in Lincoln City and then decide to drive down the coast to find something more preferable, get down to Florence and decide that we preferred the Lincoln City activity after all. The drive along the coastal highway is magnificent, and lost in the experience, we wouldn’t realize how much distance we’d covered. By the time we got back to where we started it had been nearly four hours and we were running out of daylight in which to take part in any activity!

We once spent a relatively large sum of money to spend just 30 minutes at the Oregon Coast Aquarium because we hadn’t realized what time it closed. It was either spend the money and have just 30 minutes there or miss going altogether, because there wasn’t another time it would fit into the little bit of a plan we did have.

Now we are older and wiser (winky face) and we put some time and thought into planning our itinerary. It makes for a much more enjoyable vacation.

Here is what we learned about planning an itinerary:

1. Make a list of the places you want to visit. If you don’t already know what you’d like to do you can search the Internet for “places to visit in (your city of destination).” The Chamber of Commerce in the city you are planning to visit is another good source to find suggestions of fun things to do.
2. Next, lookup the hours of operation and cost for each activity you plan to do.
3. Estimate how much time you will spend doing each activity.
4. Make note of the distance between one attraction and the next.
5. Make a plan of which day you will do each of the activities you’ve chosen. Use the Weekly Planner page and note each activity on its corresponding day.
6. Finally, use the Daily Planner page to plan what time you will do each activity. Make sure you consider the opening and closing time for each attraction as well as the time required to travel from one place to the next.

Here is a list of our 15 favorite things to do along the Oregon Coast.

• Whale Watching Rides in Depot Bay
• Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport
• Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport
• Dune Buggies on the Sand Dunes in Florence
• Shopping in Depot Bay
• Wax Museum, Ripley’s Believe It or Not, and Undersea Gardens in Newport
• Kite Flying in Lincoln City
• Mo’s Restaurant in Lincoln City
• Crabbing in Lincoln City
• Antique Shopping all along the coast
• Beach Combing for Shells, etc
• Building Sand Castles
• Visiting Lighthouses along the Coast
• Sea Lion Caves in Florence
• Drive Along Highway 101 – Breathtaking!