No matter what our daily lives consist of, no matter what amount of work surrounds us, we all need to get away from it all sometime. Maybe we just need to escape for a weekend excursion, or maybe we'd like to go on a week-long vacation? In either case, there are certain degrees of planning and preparation that goes into these kind of activities.

Without accusing anyone, who waits until the last moment to pack? By last minute, I mean packing that suitcase just hours before departure time? It's a hectic period of time, is it not? Slipping in that task at the last minute can certainly cause some stress, which could have been avoided if the task is done the day before. That's an example of how vacations can be a stressful experience instead of a pleasurable one.

Let's take a look at a nightmare version of a holiday:

Your work agenda has commanded most of your attention because you're getting ready to leave your work responsibilities for a week vacation. You did manage to purchase airline tickets, but didn't remember to do it with enough advance time to get a good price.

It's now two days before you leave, and time is running out to find someone to take care of the pets while you're away. So, you resort to boarding them. You're frantically rushing around to take care of last minute business, and you have this nagging feeling that you're forgetting something.

The day comes to leave and you pack in a flurry, moving around the house like a whirlwind of confusion with that continued gnawing thought, "I'm forgetting something." You get to the airport just in time to board, and finally sit back in the seat to relax (you're pleased you didn't have to do a massive search for the tickets like last time).

When the plane arrives at your destination, you get off, hop in a taxi, and tell the driver what hotel to drop you off at (you're even more pleased that you remembered to take the hotel address and phone number with you). You get into your hotel room, drop your suitcase on the rack,, then take a look out the window at the view of the pool. That's when you remembered you forgot to pack your bathing suit and sun screen. Not big disaster though--you'll just buy new ones.

On day two of your vacation, you pull out your laptop to do a bit of writing on the sun deck near the pool. A couple hours later the battery runs out. That's when you realise you didn't pack the battery for it. For that matter, it dawns on you that you didn't pack your cell phone battery either!

Now you wonder, "how are people going to reach me", because you neglected to let the office or anyone know what hotel you were staying in, and the phone number there. You'll have to call everyone (you're pleased that you know some of the phone numbers because you left your address book behind). "Maybe someone can FedX the batteries?" you think. That's when you realise that you didn’t' leave anyone a spare key to the house.

Day three your office calls (you have just enough juice left in your cell phone battery to take the call). Some checks needed your signature, and would now have to be sent out to you for overnight delivery. That's when you wished you had taken care of that before leaving, because now you have to: a) wait for the FedX shipment, then b) return the signed checks back overnight. This ruined your sight-seeing excursion plans that day. It was the one plan you had, since you hadn't done previous research on what you were going to do while there.

The day comes when vacation is over and you arrive home. You gather up the mail stuffed in your mailbox and the soggy newspapers piled at your doorstep. You'll have to buy some new plants because they're dried out (having forgotten to get someone to water them while you were away). But, you're somewhat happy that at least you remembered to take your house key with you to get in the house.

Besides the fact that this experience left you mentally drained, you tally up the additional expenses it cost you: Higher priced airline tickets, pet boarding fees, new bathing suit, FedX costs, hotel phone charges, and some new plants. Well, it could have been worse.

So, the way to avoid travel pitfalls is to do travel preparedness. Here's an simple briefing on "planning" a trip:

When going away, make a checklist of things that need to be done. Mark your calendar to do certain things by a certain time. Create a separate packing checklist (and be sure to include items such as mobile gear batteries). Make sure that arrangements are made with kids and/or pets, house plants, mail, newspapers well in advance. Get all your transportation, mapping, and itinerary plans done at least a week before you leave. And, most importantly, give yourself time of leisure and relaxation before departing.

You can make it a pleasurable experience when going somewhere. Circumstances don't usually just happen to us. We make them happen to us. The idea is to make pleasurable things happen!