Globally, the tourism industry is estimated to generate $988 billion in 2025 and will grow to over a trillion in the next 4 – 5 years.  We are spending more than ever on travel.  But, are we getting value from those investments?

We get stuck wondering things like, does spending more give us more?  How can we make the best use of our time?  Or, how can we maximize our travel ROI?  

What is it we truly want from a vacation?

When you’re unsure what to do, it’s hard to move forward.  With household budgets pushed to the limits, vacation can seem like an unaffordable luxury.  So, where’s the balance?

The good news is, you can easily bring order to the chaos by using a proven mix to get the most from your vacation investment – financial, time, and energy investments!

In this post, I’ll define the ideal vacation and provide 5 crucial ingredients that make a trip unforgettable.  I hope that this will give you a roadmap so you can get started with planning your next trip and creating lifelong travel memories.

What is the perfect vacation?

The perfect vacation is one where you accomplish your goal and you enjoy yourself.

In other words, the perfect vacation is focused on a specific purpose.  And no matter what happens on your actual trip, where you go, or who you travel with, you can have a perfect vacation.

This doesn’t mean that your trip went perfectly.  

In my experience, it’s impossible for a trip to go perfectly to plan.  But even if you have flight delays, overbooked hotels, and strange restaurants to choose from, you can have a perfect vacation.

These hiccups, that people often equate with “ruined trips,” are mostly just a matter of mindset.  For example, I remember fondly the 4 hours my husband and I spent exploring the Dallas airport, unexpectedly.  I wouldn’t have chosen to spend my time that way, but we had a lot of fun and were able to try some new spots we hadn’t visited in the terminal before.

Perfect vacations are designed around a goal you hope to achieve – to relax, to connect, to have fun, to try a new activity, to see something amazing.  If you get the opportunity to do that thing and you actually enjoy doing it, I think you’ve had the perfect trip.

So, how can you create that for yourself?  Read on for the 5 things I think you need to have the perfect vacation.

#1 – Plan Strategically

If you’ve spent any time here at WanderWoven Travel, you’ll know that I believe a great plan makes a great trip. 

Perfect vacations come from savvy plans.

This is a crucial component because without at least some type of strategy or overall plan, you’ll end up wasting a lot of time on your trip, and you may not be able to accomplish your overall travel goal.

For instance, my husband often decides he’d like to go on a sport fishing trip, once we are already on site.  In all the years we’ve been traveling, we have never yet found an opening at such a late date.  So, he’s never been sport fishing. 

Know what you need tickets for in advance (concerts, fishing trips, etc.) and what tickets you can purchase day of (most museums – even the Louvre, various attractions, etc.).

Secure must-do activities in advance and then leave time open for exploration or doing something unexpected.

Many people who are new to vacation planning start out on the right track but then get stuck because they struggle to make decisions, aren’t sure how to tackle a large destination, or feel overwhelmed managing all the needs of their travel companions. 

And then they wind up either over-scheduling an impossible trip or fail to create a daily plan at all.

The key to strategic planning is to organize each day or half-day around something.  If that’s lying on the beach, great!  If that’s wandering down the town’s main square, awesome.  If that’s taking a scuba diving lesson, I applaud you.  But have some rough skeleton of at least one activity that will take a few hours to complete each day or half day.

To get started here, research a list of appealing activities at your destination.  Ask your travel partners to add to the list.  Then work on selecting at least one activity or idea per day as your focusing event for the day. 

#2 – Be open to the unexpected

Pretty much anywhere you travel you can find a curated list of dozens of things to do and see.  But on every trip I’ve taken, some of the most memorable activities came from what I didn’t know before I left.

Perfect trips include unexpected discoveries.

While a great plan will get you started, the unexpected will keep you going.  As a basic rule, while I might plan an activity for a given day, I never plan restaurants.  Instead, I let us discover these.

If you’ve spent hours researching and planning your trip, but when you’re in the moment something still feels off – like you’re not getting the magical travel experience you thought you should be having, this is likely the piece that’s missing.  You need some c’est la vie!

Without this, you can have a beautiful itinerary and still not achieve your overall travel goal.​​ 

What can you do?

A really useful technique to help you plan an unplanned vacation, is to get yourself to an area where things are happening and then stop researching.

For us, the unexpected is usually the people that we meet and talk with while on a trip.  The locals, the fellow travelers, the guides and hosts.  Those generous enough to share their stories and experiences with us get to come back home with us too 🙂

#3 – Connecting with others

Even if you are traveling alone, connection with those around you (and yourself!)  is a powerful piece of any trip.  Even I, introverted as I am, find myself seeking natural opportunities to talk with others while traveling.

Connection is a critical ingredient for a perfect trip.

Here’s where you’ll really start to better understand the place where you are, better understand yourself, and more clearly see your travel partners.

Sure, we may travel to see amazing heritage sites or experience a city’s thrum.  But I have found those experiences oh so much more meaningful when I can connect with another human over those experiences.

Of course, this isn’t always easy to create.  Travel can induce conflict and tension.  People may be unwilling to chat with you about their life or background.  You might not feel very much like engaging with others yourself.

As a generally introverted person who adores private time with my husband, I’m not usually seeking outside connections – although my husband loves it.  He brings me into these interactions and while I may be resistant at the outset, I am so, so glad in hindsight. 

Consider ways of being open to connection, even if it isn’t first in your mind.

#4 – Get lost in the moment

Mindfulness isn’t just for yoga class.  It is a present-focused way of engaging in any activity that centers you in the time and place of right now.

Being in the moment makes any vacation a cherished memory.

You can only remember what you pay attention to.  This is why it often blows my mind to see people cruising through a museum, phone recording video, as they march swiftly past display after display.  I want to ask them, what will you actually remember about this moment you’ve spent so much time and money to have?

Is it enough to see Marie Antoinette’s dress briefly, snap a picture, and move on?  Or is it more meaningful to ponder a moment what it was like to wear that dress, to walk these halls, and engage in her everyday life?

Should we jostle and wait in lines to snap a selfie in front of the Statue of Liberty?  Or take quiet moments to contemplate what it was like to give up everything you ever owned in search of a new life?

Presence is the difference maker for your vacation.  Take time to breathe and be in the moment.  Let it affect you and change you.

#5 – Translate your trip

One of the best parts of returning from an amazing vacation is the opportunity to share your trip with those you love back home.  What did you get to see and do?  How are you different?  What was great?  What wasn’t so great?

Translating your travel experiences solidifies the goal you achieved.

Years from now, how will you remember what you did on your weekend getaway?  Your cruise?  Your spring break, amidst a lifetime of spring breaks?

Spending some time before and during your trip planning for this translation – from the moment of traveling back into your everyday life – can help you hang on to those feelings and present moments you experienced while traveling.

Here, I encourage you to experiment.  Most people will snap at least a few photos while on vacation.  Some also like to journal, collect keepsakes, or buy special souvenirs.  

The WanderWoven way here is to strike a balance.  You want to be able to transport yourselves and those you share your trip with back into special moments.  But you don’t want to clutter your life up with stuff you’ll never look at again, or even remember where it came from.

The approach you can use to find this balance is to:

• Capture what you saw, did, felt as best you can in the moment
• Then connect these captured experiences with more permanent recording – dates, locations, journaled notes
• Then, store and organize these records of your trip in an efficient and easily accessible way.  Dusty old photo albums you never open won’t help bring you back to the moment you loved while away.

Once you’re done,  you’ll be well on your way to the trip of your dreams.

Putting it All Together for Your Perfect Vacation

There you have it! The 5 components of your perfect travel experience.

It may sound like a lot, but like most things practice makes perfect. Just focus on creating a great plan and being present in the moment and you’ll start to see your vacation experiences transform.  And, as you do, I think you’ll be excited to plan the next trip once the upcoming one is finished!

What’s next? Download my travel planning brainstorming guide

If you need help getting started, my Travel Brainstorming Guide will help you jumpstart a solid plan for your next vacation!

Click here to download the WanderWoven Travel Planning Guide now!