If you’ve ever watched The Out of Towners, Vacation, Planes, Trains and Automobiles or any other vacation movie, you’ve noticed one common theme that creates the hilarity; unprepared for chaos.  You probably have had a vacation similar to one of these and could make your own movie to rival any of these.  With the approaching holidays & threat of travel, it’s time to make your travel experience a much better one so that no matter what happens, you’ll feel you’re in “The Blue Lagoon” of vacations.

To create the perfect vacation–no matter what life throws your way–you’ll need to integrate just 3 new habits.  I know, I know, HABITS!!  Ugh!  They are so hard to start, implement, keep (until they are learned), change.  Well, you can’t say it’s a four letter word because it’s five so it’s time to tackle these three.

1.  Pre-vacation Day
Seeing as how you’re all excited to get away, this one should be fairly easy even if you are going to your in-laws.  Because no matter where you are going or who you will see, you are away from your daily responsibilities of home & work.  This is the time you can catch up on that iPhone game you never get to play or that book you can’t seem to read.  The secret to a Blue Lagoon holiday is to prepare on a Pre-vacation Day.
A.  Run your errands, gather travel documents, do laundry, stop the paper, stop the mail, notify your neighbors, schedule the pet care, take car into shop for needed repairs, pick up hostess gifts, refill RX, balance your checkbook, clean your home, etc.  Basically anything you might need to handle before you will leave town needs to happen this day.  If you’re married & can divide & conquer, bravo!

2.  Pack Properly
This doesn’t mean you throw everything you own into your suitcase!  Layout on your bed your favorite bottoms; pants/skirts/shorts. Then match up your favorite tops to your bottoms.  Now you have outfits.  Take out outfits that don’t fit into a color them i.e. the one brown outfit in a sea of black.  Accessorize. Pack.  Be sure to have at least one item you can dress up.  And take an extra pair of underwear…you just never know.

3.  Post-Vacation Day
This is just the reverse of Pre-Vacation Day.  Go to the bank to deposit cash not used & reconcile bank account, do laundry, unpack, process held mail, catch up on emails, nap, process all of those fabulous photos you took, grocery shop, pick-up & drop off dry cleaning, pick-up repaired car, pick-up pets, etc.

Note: If you leave your home clean, your finances caught up & errands complete before you left, you will come home to a mini vacation.

Getting to the actual vacation requires a little preparation & resolution to ensure that you experience The Blue Lagoon & not The Out of Towners.  But if you’ve had an Out of Towners experience, share it here .  A little reminder of what can go wrong is a great motivator to develop a new habit.