How do you plan a trip with friends?

Everyone takes trips with friends. Sometimes, it is a weekend getaway. Sometimes, it is a week long trip in a new city or country. How do you plan a trip with friends?

What task do you perform first?

When planning a vacation with friends, what task do you perform first? For the sake of the question, let's assume you are going to another city or country. Do you decide on a location or date first? Do you decide on the group friends first? Do you decide on the budget first? A lot of my friends decide the group before they decide a location, budget, date, etc. They believe that energetic travel companions can make any location enjoyable, which sometimes is correct. I’ve missed out on some memorable trips because the location bored me. For example, I regret not attending trips to Montana and Cleveland. To clarify, these locations were not the groups top choice. When discussing the date, these were the top choices, which is why I never like deciding on travel companions first. I do not want to be limited by my friends ability to take vacation time.

Is choice good?

Even though my friends have created memorable trips visiting obscure places, whenever I start to plan a trip, I always begin with a location. I believe that friends are more eager to engage in planning and purchasing tickets when they are invested in the end result. Once you have a location, I believe that it is easier to search for activities. Based on the paradox of choice theory, if you have too many choices you will not make a choice, which is why I believe a narrow search is always more efficient and productive. With many options, we often look for the perfect one. This happens a lot of time with online dating. Having almost an infinite amount of options, we often find insignificant flaws with someone that prevents them from being our perfect match. The same consequences can occur when planning a trip. Small imperfections, such as driving distance, crowdedness, nightlife, or scenary, might affect our ability to make decisions. Even though planning a trip with friends is an extremely hard task, choosing a location that everyone is excited about makes the process more enjoyable.

Do you agree?

My theory that location trumps dates or activities when planning a trip with friends was recently proven correct. For a while, I’ve been trying to plan a trip to Phoenix with two groups of friends. One group was extremely excited, while the other group was less than thrilled about the location. With the eager beavers, we easily decided on what hikes to perform, what restaurants and bars we wanted to check out, where we wanted to stay, etc. The entire trip was easily planned and executed with very little hiccups. It has been one of my most memorable vacations. The other group was constantly providing different locations we could visit instead of Phoenix. People constantly found reasons to travel to new cities. Eventually, we decided to bail. No one could make a decision since we were constantly finding pros and cons for each location. One city had very few activities we all wanted to attend, but amazing restaurants. Another was to small of a town. One was to expensive. Even though everyone wanted to take a trip together, since no one could agree on a location, the trip was eventually aborted.

Planning a trip is an extremely hard task, especially when it is with some of your closest friends. Sometimes it runs smoothly, while other times it can be a disaster. You only know what is going to happen when you start planning, but I always believe on choosing a location first.