I Failed Michigan Travel Planning 101

This post is the final installment in the series documenting our trip to the states of Minnesota and Michigan back in the summer of 2015.  Our daughter, Kyra, was 16 and out of school on summer vacation, so she joined us on our two week whirlwind tour of the M&M states.

Sometimes, when the title of a blog post catches your eye, you have to wait until the end of the post to reach the punchline.  Not so today, my friends.  I’ll clue you in to the moral of the story first, and then follow up with all of the sordid details later.

How did I fail Michigan Travel Planning 101?  It’s actually quite simple.  I just didn’t allow enough time in our itinerary to truly enjoy this magnificent state.  In fact, we weren’t even all the way home before I was envisioning a return trip to really do Michigan justice.  I did a lot of things right when planning our short stay in Michigan, but I made some rookie mistakes, too.  That’s tough to admit for someone with more than 40 years of travel planning experience.  Read on for the details of my successes and failures.

The M&M Trip - Minnesota and Michigan

This is the first post in a series documenting a two week trip to the states of Minnesota and Michigan back in the summer of 2015.  Alan had already escaped the workforce, but I was still working full time, so we had to be content with an expedition that would fit within my two weeks of vacation.  Our son Ryan was working full time and had aged out of traveling with us on a regular basis.  Our daughter, Kyra, was 16 and out of school on summer vacation, so she joined us on a whirlwind tour of these two states.

How do you pick a vacation destination?  Do you follow a tradition that has been in your family for generations and go to a beloved cabin in the mountains or cottage by the sea?  Do you have a prioritized list of future vacation spots and just go down the list in order?  Do you base vacations on the location of family members or friends you wish to visit across the country or around the globe?  Do you tape a map to the wall and throw a dart at it?