Trip planning is one of my life’s little pleasures. Some people may look upon it as a pain in the behind. I look at as one of my life’s little blessings. I plan my trips. I spend a lot of hours doing it. Here’s why.

• I really enjoy it. It’s virtual travel. I get to see all kinds of places I never knew existed, places someone has discovered for me.
• I learn from it. The Internet is one huge book. It has a lot of information in it and it’s expanding faster than I can keep up. Today, if I want to know what there is to see in Nauru, a United Nations member state with a population of under 10,000 and a land mass of 8 square miles that has the same number of U.N. votes as the United States or China or Russia, I can.
• It fascinates me. Maybe I’m simple-minded or easily amused, but I can spend hours in fascination of the wonders of the world. I like them. They get me juiced. Even the ones not many people know about.
• It saves me money. How can I go out wandering the world for months at a time? I do research and find how to do things cheaply while still maintaining a high degree of personal and physical comfort .
• It makes me incredibly informed. I like to understand the cultures of the world. I like to know population densities, average incomes, how may people have running hot water and whether polygyny, polyandry or some alternative are legally allowed. I want to know where and how people live. I’m kinda like that. I enjoy certain types of trivia. I should have been a sociologist.
• It’s a challenge for me. I want to feel that I’m prepared to face the local transportation issues of Tokyo, Bucharest or Fez. They have different ones, believe me.
• It makes me efficient. If I’m taking a very structured trip or I’m taking one where the only thing I know are the dates and locations of my arrival and return cities, it means that I understand my options much better than of I have never planned at all.
• Everyone does it whether they want to admit it or not. If I’m taking a trip where the only thing I know for certain is the date and time of my trip back home, even if that date and time are months ahead, I have to make a decision about what I’m going to do every morning I wake up, even if that decision is to do absolutely nothing that day. Admit it, we all plan.
• It’s fun. At least for me.

I feel really fortunate that I can spend as much time as I do planning my trips.