The Classic Woman's SECRET WEAPON： Itineraries! ｜｜ Life-changing way to do everything you WANT to do
Episode Stats
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Summary
In this episode, I talk about why itineraries are so important and why you should incorporate them into your trip planning and in your hostess experience. I also give some tips on how to actually create a useful itinerary.
Transcript
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Hello Classic Crew and welcome to today's video where we're going to be talking about one of the
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secret weapons of the classic woman, itineraries. So I was actually talking to my husband trying to
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figure out what kind of video I wanted to do today and he suggested that I talk about my
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love of itineraries and I thought that was adorable number one because I love my husband
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and it's super cute that he appreciates how much effort I put into the itineraries that I make for
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us and for our friends. But number two I actually thought about it I thought that is a great idea
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because itineraries are something that people can look at and think that they are not useful number
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one and number two can like cramp your style or make you feel like you're not going to have enough
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flexibility for whatever you're doing but it's actually entirely the opposite. Itineraries are
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super useful, super wonderful to have and they're great to have not only for if you are going on a
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trip and you're traveling but if you're hosting people having an itinerary for them that's available
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for them is going to make your whole trip run more smoothly. So I am so excited to talk about this topic
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I absolutely love making itineraries and actually making this video has inspired me to make my
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itineraries more feminine looking because at this point they're very utilitarian they're just kind of
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made on a word document and they're just grayscale but I think it'd be nice to inject them with a
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little bit more femininity. Why not? So when I'm showing an example on the screen by the time that I
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create that example it will hopefully have some more feminine touches. If you are new to my channel
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I am the first conservative influencer and here we talk about commentary, lifestyle, beauty, fashion,
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and opera all from a conservative and classic perspective. If that's something that you'd be interested in
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please feel free to subscribe and hit that notification bell to get notified of all my new videos.
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But now let's get into itineraries and why they are the classic woman's secret weapon.
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So I'm going to actually separate this video into two sections. The first is why itineraries are so
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important and why they're not something you should be afraid of or think that they're useless. Why they're
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definitely something you should incorporate into your trip planning or into your hostessing. And the
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second part of this video is going to be how to actually create a useful itinerary. So let's get
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into part one. So the first reason why itineraries are great is because they actually make sure that
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the things that you want to happen do happen. I have been on so many trips and I have visited so
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many people where you don't have an itinerary. You don't have an idea of how you want to divide up the
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day. And even if you want to do something fun it just ends up falling by the wayside because people
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aren't organized. People don't know where to be at what time. And everything that you may have been
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looking forward to doing other people may not know that that was even on the docket. And so when you
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end up getting there and you're all in the same place yeah you're all going to hang out and have
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fun but you're not going to end up doing all of the things that you want it to. Having an itinerary
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really prevents that from happening because people know in advance okay this is something that we're
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going to be trying to do. This is where you need to be at this time. This is how long it's going to take for
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you to get ready or for you to drive there. And it just makes the things that you actually are
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interested in accomplishing and experiencing with each other possible. Now I know this from my own
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experience because my husband I have made him itineraries for trips that he's been on without
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me. I have made him itineraries so that the trips that he's gone on he actually gets to do what he
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wants to do. When he doesn't have an itinerary then people just kind of waste time and while away the
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hours and by the end of the trip nobody got to do what they wanted to experience. So I think that
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having an itinerary in your back pocket is just the best thing. And I think that the first time I
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actually made an itinerary was for our honeymoon and it was because we were going to a city I'd
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never visited. We were going to Quebec City which by the way highly recommend when we can actually
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travel again. But I didn't know anything about it and so it ended up forcing me to do a lot of
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research about the city we were going to so I could know what we wanted to hit. And when we traveled
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there with that itinerary in hand we ended up doing everything we wanted to do. And it was so special.
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I knew where we wanted to visit. We were able to go. I knew where I wanted to go shopping or for us to
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eat dinner. I knew what we wanted to do and by making an itinerary and knowing that there were certain
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places we had to be at certain times we were really actually able to do all of the things that we
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wanted to do and we had an amazing amazing time. So itineraries actually make it more possible for
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you to do all of the things that you actually want to do. The second reason why itineraries are so
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important is that when you're hostessing people you want to make sure that you're not just slipping
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into your normal daily routine. You're making sure that they're going to have extra special and unique
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time with you when your guests visit. So I love having an itinerary when guests come to visit
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because it really forces me to make sure that when they're visiting they know that they're going to
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have a great time and that it's not just going to be them sort of feeling like they're invading my
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personal space. Of course I would never want anyone to feel that way when they're visiting. That is
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obviously not why they're coming. But if they just sort of feel like they're being fit into what you would
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do normally then it could feel like they are in the way as opposed to very much the reason for that
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special time that you're spending together and for that weekend. By spending time to make an itinerary
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it will force you as the hostess not to slip into the daily routine because I think that's very easy
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to do. If you don't know what you're going to do if you don't have a plan in advance then you're just
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going to do what you normally do. But if you take the time to say okay we're going to do this we're going
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to go here we're going to take some time and rest here then it will really make sure that there is
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a break in routine and you guys are doing something different with each other and people will feel
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like this weekend was carved out specifically for them. So I think that's a really important aspect
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of making an itinerary because when you're visiting or when someone is visiting you you want it to feel
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special. Number three is that making an itinerary gives you structure but it also gives you flexibility.
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When Jacob and I went on our honeymoon and I had made that itinerary it really allowed us to take
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a look at some of the things that I had put on because I knew that maybe we weren't going to hit
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every single thing on the list but it allowed us to decide whether or not we wanted to do something
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rather than just a complete ignorance of what was available to us. We could look at the list and say
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okay well this is not something I'm actually that interested in. So we were making an informed choice
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as opposed to just not knowing and that actually gave us more flexibility. If there was a day we
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decided we wanted to just go around town and maybe hit up a cafe as opposed to going to a specific
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museum we knew we were making that decision and it also allowed us because I made the itinerary
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in advance. I knew where to put in times for us just to spend time together doing maybe whatever
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exploring, discovering the city, hanging out at our hotel, or even going to some place that wasn't
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on the list. But building in flexibility for an itinerary while also giving you the knowledge of
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what's available to you so that you can make an informed decision if you decide not to do something
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gives you more flexibility not less. Not knowing what to do when you go somewhere and trying to
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figure out all of that stuff on the fly can be really overwhelming. So actually knowing a plan in
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advance can also allow you to change the plan but at least you'll have something to start with.
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The last reason why I love making itinerary so much is that they give your guests a heads up about
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what you'll be doing and what they should bring. When you send your friends or family
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an itinerary in advance of their visit, they'll have an idea of what you guys are going to be
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up to and they'll have an idea of what they need to pack. And not knowing anything at all will lead
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to the very annoying scenario of you constantly texting them saying, do you want to do this? Do you
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want to do that? Do you want to do this? Or them texting you, what should I bring? Should I bring this?
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Should I bring that? Because they don't know necessarily what's going to happen, there's going to end up
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being a lot more frivolous questions and answers as opposed to, here's the info, now you have it.
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And of course if someone has a question when you send an itinerary, that's totally different. You've
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given them the information, maybe they have some questions about the specific places you're visiting
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and that's okay, that's great. But it's not just unmitigated random questions because they feel
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unprepared. So giving people an itinerary before they come to visit is a really nice way to prepare them
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and give them a great weekend and a way for them to kind of start to envision what's in store as
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opposed to kind of guessing about what's going to happen. And maybe in that scenario they will either
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get their hopes up and not have as great a time or they'll just envision something entirely different
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than what you have planned. Having a plan in advance allows people to, everyone will be on the same page,
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okay, this is what we're going to be doing, this is how we're going to be spending our time.
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And it also allows people to pack correctly because getting to a location and then finding
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out that you're going to be hiking and not having brought hiking boots, like that's just
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a pain in the patoot. So that is why itineraries are so important in my book. That is why I call
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them the secret weapon of the classic woman because they allow you to be classic. They allow you to be
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prepared. They allow people to feel welcomed into your home and they allow you when you travel to have a
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wonderful plan of things that you really want and get to do. So now let's talk about part two,
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which is how to make an itinerary. So the way that I create an itinerary is very simply on word. I just
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divide it by day. So let's say somebody's visiting for a weekend. I do Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then
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under each day's heading I will put a little chart with three columns. The first column is going to be
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the time. The second column is going to be the activity. And the third column is additional info.
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So I don't necessarily break up the entire day by half an hour increments because who needs to do
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that? It's too much. What I just do is I divide it by the times that we're doing things. So I do break
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up the day, the entire day, but it's not hour by hour. If we're doing something for three hours I'll just
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say 12 to 3 for example. And then in the activity column I'll say what we're actually doing during that
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time. And then for the additional info column I'll include confirmation numbers, phone numbers for
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places that we're going in case there's a miscommunication, clothing to bring, shoes to
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wear in case we're doing something a little bit off the beaten track, so that people have an idea of
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what to pack. And you can really design this in whichever way you want. Like I said earlier in the
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video I have made them very utilitarian in the past, but you can make them look really pretty and
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feminine. And you can make them look entirely the way that you want them to look. The second thing
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to do when you're making an itinerary is build in times for rest. That is very important. The first
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few itineraries that I made I did not put in any times for rest, and I could kind of see the eyes of
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our guests bug out when they realized that we were going to be going from 9 a.m. till 9 p.m. It was
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just too much and I didn't even realize it because to me I was nervous that they were going to get
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bored or feel like there wasn't enough to do. And then I realized no people want a few hours in the
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middle of the day just to take by themselves or to relax or just to get ready for another outing.
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So building in those times of rest during the day, maybe a couple hours in the middle of the day,
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a couple hours before dinner, that is so important for having a successful weekend because people
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can't really be around each other 24-7. It's just a lot for a lot of people to handle. So building in
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those little breaks, super useful, and just shows that you respect everyone's time. Number three is
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I like to include a wake-up time and a bedtime. Now the bedtime is very flexible. I just put that down
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there as an idea of, okay, we'll probably be playing games until this time at night or watching a movie
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from this time to this time. But the wake-up times I think are more important because you want an idea
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of we want people to be ready to go around this time. And if people don't have a wake-up time then
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they don't necessarily know when they should get up and that first item on the docket may end up
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falling by the wayside because people just aren't ready to go. So I think it's really important to
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include at least some sort of time. I usually give like a half hour window. I'll usually say 9 to 9 30
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good morning. And people can take that as they will, but then the next thing I list is 10 30 a.m
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brunch. And if people want to wake up earlier than 9 they can. If they think they can get ready in 20
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minutes then they can get ready then they can wake up later. But it just gives people an idea of okay
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this is how much time you should allot to be ready to go by this time. Number four for an itinerary
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is make reservations in advance. You don't want to get to a restaurant that you've been talking
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up to your friends and they're full. Making reservations in advance is a way to prevent
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any hiccups from happening when you are having friends visiting or when you're traveling. It just
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makes sure that you are ready to be at a certain place at a certain time and they're ready to take
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you. Because obviously if you don't make a reservation at a popular restaurant it's unlikely you'll be able to
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get in for a meal. And having that confirmation number also shows to your guests hey she went
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out of her way to actually book it. Or it shows to your spouse if you guys are traveling hey Abby
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actually is taking seriously that we're going to go to dinner that night so she made a reservation.
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So having a confirmation number on your itinerary is a great way to show that you guys are going to
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be doing something and you want to be there at a certain time. Number five is have it on your phone
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or print it out so you can reference it throughout the weekend or throughout your trip. Having a
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specific itinerary available to you when you want to reference it is important. Maybe the itinerary is
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not just for fun. You want it there actually to be useful to you. So having it accessible is going to
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make a difference. So make sure you either print it out or you have it on your phone so that you can
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take a look at it when you need to. And if it has all of that additional info that you need you can
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easily access it. When we host people here I generally will say okay we're not going to go
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out for every single meal because that's just a lot and overwhelming. But we will have breakfast here
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or brunch here. I'll make something. It'll be delicious. We'll all hang out and enjoy a slow morning.
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Maybe we'll have a late lunch and then have a dinner at home. Usually I choose one meal a day that
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we'll have out and about. And then I usually choose one to two activities depending on how long each
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activity will be. I also when we're traveling kind of tend to feel the same way. I don't want to go
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out for three meals a day. So we'll usually have a light breakfast at the hotel if we're staying at
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a hotel. And then we'll maybe eat a light lunch and then have a bigger dinner. Whatever it is that's
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what we'll usually do. And then we'll choose a couple of activities while we're traveling. And of course
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those built-in rests actually apply even if no one is around. So I build into our itineraries while
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we're traveling. I make sure that Jacob and I have times just to rest at the hotel in the middle of
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the day if we've been doing a lot. And I have found that that makes our trips so much more fun and
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relaxing and not just like exhausting where by the end we're so so ready to get home and just fall into
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bed. So that is all of my advice about how to make itineraries. Why itineraries are the secret weapon
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of the classic woman. I love making itineraries and I think it will just be something I do forever and
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ever and ever. So let me know in the comments what you guys think. Have you ever made an itinerary?
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Do you like the idea or the sound of them now that you've heard me talk about it? I'd love to hear
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your thoughts. Please subscribe to my channel if you haven't already. Hit that notification bell to
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abbey absolutely everywhere. Thank you guys so much for watching and I'll see you guys in my next video.