For months, I've been in major planning mode.
Lucky for me, planning is one of my favorite pastimes. Give me a fully charged laptop, access to Canva Pro — I'm a visual person — and Google's suite of document management and time to browse Pinterest and Instagram and I am ready and willing to make a plan.
The things that I've been planning this summer include a wedding and a honeymoon. While I realize there are professionals who plan these things for a living, I never even considered hiring anyone. I like planning. I'm good at it. It's fun for me.
But one thing is far more fun to plan than the other.
After the big wedding decisions were made, I shifted my focus significantly to the travel arrangements. Planning a vacation of any kind has always felt like part of the trip itself. I start my journey digitally — learning all about the destination I soon will visit. The trip planning process is also the first time I get to really build my wanderlust, and I know I'm not alone.
We have four stops in our honeymoon itinerary, and one of the first things I knew I needed to do is figure out where we'll stay. This means using the internet to sleuth and see which neighborhood has the best location while still being quiet and uncrowded. Then: What are my hotel options there?
My process is, well, chaotic, and involves very specific ChatGPT prompts (always just an early research tool), scouring the TripAdvisor reviews, Google searches where I zoom into street views on Google Maps — you get the picture. I always had so many tabs open I was wary of my computer crashing.
After my FBI-level researching, feeling fully confident each hotel met all our priorities, location-specific needs and wasn't cost-prohibitive, I booked. And, even though that particular box had been checked, the rest of the itinerary setting and mapping always included the hotel, our homebase.
With so much digital access these days, hoteliers should be mindful of the type A wanderlusters like me who want all the details of their hotel experience in detail and easy to find — through social media, internet searching or AI-powered chats. There are probably dozens of other hotels I would have loved, but, due to lack of online information, miss out on.
If they aren't already, hotel managers should consider their guests' virtual experience as a part of their overall hotel experience. Make their hotels' websites easy to navigate with photos a plenty and a robust FAQ section — otherwise, the guest's journey might end before it ever begins.
Through my planning experience, I found four absolutely lovely hotels dotted across Portugal that I'm so excited to visit in real life. They might not know it yet, but, before they've even charged me or checked me in, my stay has begun. Up next: Saying "I do" and grabbing my passport.
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