Tomorrow afternoon I head off on a little adventure to Vancouver, Canada. While I’m not a girl who likes to have every bit of her trips planned out before getting on the plane, even I am surprised by how very little planning I’ve done for this trip.

As a university student, I did a semester study abroad in Tokyo. During that time, we had about a week off from classes for spring break, so my friend and I decided to head off to Thailand for a little beach getaway. Aside from Tokyo, this was my first trip to a foreign country so I hadn’t yet developed my own travel style. Whether it was typical college student lack of planning or the desire to have a true adventure, I’m not quite sure, but when we got on the Egypt Air flight from Tokyo to Bangkok, my friend and I had virtually no plans. All we had was a Lonely Planet guide book, a round-trip plane ticket and a reservation for 1 night at a motel in Bangkok. Everything else was left up to chance. Not everything on that trip went perfectly, but I had a great time and at that point decided my preferred way of travel was to do so with little or no plans.

Many years and 40 countries later, I still prefer to travel without too many plans or expectations. But still I’ve learned that sometimes planning can be good. Like my first trip to Mardi Gras when we drove to New Orleans from Washington, DC without a hotel reservation. Not surprisingly we ended up sleeping in the car for two nights. You better believe that the next time we had a hotel reservation. Or perhaps if I’d made plans to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, I may not have missed doing that even though I lived in Paris for 4 months just blocks for the famous monument. Yes, that’s right…4 months and I never did make it up to the top. I figured there would be plenty of time, so I kept putting it off until next thing I know I was at Charles de Gaulle heading home.

But for this trip, I’m reverting back to my true travel ways. I have a round trip plane ticket, a Lonely Planet guide book and that’s it…not even one night hotel reservation this time. I also have no idea what I want to see or do while I’m there. At this point I may end up sleeping in a 4-Star hotel, on someone’s couch or if I’m really unlucky, a park bench. Tune in next week to see how I fared and what I ended up doing while I was there. Until then, what is your travel style? Well thought out or seat of your pants? Have you ever gotten burned either way?