SIT traveler’s research is foundational because it uncovers those sites & activities, those Travel Buds, that you most want to experience. 

Planning is the organization of those Travel Bud’s sites & activities into YOUR well organized Personal itinerary or, IOWs, your personalized “How To Trip Manual.” which can make your SIT (solo independent travel) experience efficient, easy to navigate and fully rewarding. 

A. Kinds of Travel Planners:  [pplk:  ???] [pplk: Resource> Itinearieies]

To be frank, there are 2 extremes of ‘travel planners’: 1. obsessed planners & 2. minimal planners and, of course, those in-betweens. 

    1. Obsessed planners 😃
I do more more planning than anyone I have ever met. My corporate advertising, sales/law/teaching background & advanced age drives me to be as paranoid, time efficient & thorough as reasonably possible. [pplk: About …]

Too be honest, I am an obsessive, paranoid planner 😃because 
     a) I hate ‘nasty’ surprises if I could have avoided them, 

    b) I don’t want to waste any overseas travel time researching and planning — on the go — when I could've done it all at home much more easily. 

    c) I am NOT  paranoid just because I am frightened or prudent, but because I don’t want to miss anything.     In my 60s & 70s I will visit a country only once; ….too many countries, too little time.

    2. Minimal planners:  
Those who plan very little, content with travel’s serendipitous adventure.

"different strokes for different folks"

        Anecdote: ‘Minimal’ Lauren: I have a well traveled friend who decides where to go, grabs a guidebook, books a flight, reads the guidebook en route & wings-it once there. She’s been to same area of one country 3-4 times as well as many other countries.  I lack that cavalier courage & I have different goals.

I won’t dwell on those who travel to escape parental, uni, or corporate oversight OR to wallow in an unrestrained drunken bacchanal.

B. MY SIT Travel Planning PROCESS:  [pplk:  ???] [pplk: Resource> Itinearieies]

I research & plan at least 1 month @ 6-8 hrs/day for at each month I actually travel. I am looking for every interesting Travel Bud that my host country might offer me. I would rather research 100 sites & reject 80, than miss 1 of the remaining 20 I liked.

I want to know what sites & experiences my host country has and then organize them into my Personal Itinerary so I can visit ALL in a logically flowing, time efficient manner that maximizes my travel time value even as I anticipate unexpected opportunities requiring my flexible free time. [pplk: free time]. …………

flexible ‘free’ time for the unexpected

I thoroughly read every guidebook page for each section that interests me & then literally remove the rest with a razor sharp knife so it doesn’t distract. Ironically, long after my trips, and sometimes while still traveling, I am discover Travel Buds that I never found before.

I research & plan pretty much simultaneously. If I am researching Tokyo guidebook’s site s & activities, I am usually plugging each desired Travel Bud directly into my itinerary’s outline — as I go.  I can always remove it.

C. Walkabouts:
Walkabouts are my primary daily scheme of travel.

    Definition: my “walkabouts” come in 2 forms:

    1) A mix of --- 
        a) a well organized, sequential self designed walking tour of sites & activities, sometimes including local transport, from site to site as defined by my itinerary for that day, AND 

        b) a completely UNstructured, spontaneous, serendipitous, UNplanned roaming in between above  ”(a)’s” sites. I purposely generously OVER-estimate on-site visit time to insure there is lots of ‘free time’ for “roaming.”      [ pplk: Free time]

    2) A time set aside purposely for a totally unstructured, unplanned, aimlessly wandering about a city or rural village in search of its essence:, unexpected.  Not a hearty-pumping race, but a casual stroll of discovery.

         ANECDOTE:  Cairo afternoon: I wandering aimlessly thru a bustling open market chatting with locals, then, down through a narrow shopping alley with expensive home furnishings, then hooked a left onto a large dusty main street selling livestock.      Whudda thunk?                                                          [LINK. my ITIN ]