How to Plan an Active Vacation in 6 Easy Steps

Even the best-laid plans sometimes fall through, and I didn’t get to swim at the end of the Road to Hana. I was only bummed for a minute, though, because we enjoyed our picnic lunch, took in the views, and got back to our vacation. Swim or no swim, it was still an awesome adventure.

Step 6: Get ready for an ah-mazing time

I was a little nervous leading up to our trip. For one thing, I planned to pretty much unplug (whee!), which meant getting a lot of work done ahead of time, so I was super busy. But I also found myself fighting worries that things wouldn’t be as amazing as we’d hoped, or that things would go wrong.

And that’s when it hit me: Worst case scenario, we miss something we’ve planned or a flight gets canceled, and we’re forced to spend some extra time on whatever gorgeous island we happen to be on at the time. Nothing like that happened — we just got hosed on some swimming and hiking due to weather, but nothing major — and it was nice to know that my worst case scenario was not so bad.

Have you ever planned an action-packed, multi-destination vacay like this? Got any tips to add? Any comments on the tips I’ve provided? —Kristen