Travel & Technology

This weekend gone we spent the afternoon and evening with my husband’s parents on the eve of their latest European adventure.

In their planning for this trip, which will take them all over Italy, then for a cruise along to Greece and Turkey, they wanted to be up to date with all the latest mod cons and technology. With our encouragement, being that we are Apple users ourselves, we talked them into upgrading to a couple of iDevices. An iPhone for my mother in law and an iPad for my father in law.

Then comes the challenge of teaching them new technology. Their youngest son still lives at home, but gets frustrated with teaching them, and middle son used to work for Telstra, and tends to rush through the instructions. So I became their tech guru (scary!).

Father in  law (FIL) wanted to copy a whole lot of text documents and PDF files onto the iPad for the trip.

There were many options for this but we went with DropBox, transferring the files from laptop to iPad. There were a couple of Gigabytes worth of documents so it was going to take 30+ hours to complete based on the size and their internet connection. FIL was getting a bit stressed it wasn’t a magical instant transfer.

As we were getting ready to leave, with him checking for the 287th time in the couple of hours we spent there, he informed us it would be okay as if they did not all transfer across before they left, as he could finish once in Rome. Great!

He then said, “And if that fails, at least I will still have everything on the laptop“. WHAT?!? Yes, he was taking both the iPad and his laptop with him for a 5 week holiday to Europe.

WHY? No clue! Overkill? YES!

But it reminded me of a previous family holiday to Europe in Christmas 08 when he planned our trip almost down to the exact minute. I remember his frustration clearly when we got lost in the cemetery in Paris searching for Jim Morrison’s headstone and thus wasting too much time and having to miss visiting Versailles Palace.

So thinking back to that trip, I’m not really surprised he was taking both. He spent months researching this holiday ensuring he misses nothing.

Personally, I like to plan a bit, and it does all fall to me to do the research, planning and booking for our holidays as my husband is not a planner (unlike his dad). However, I like a bit of room to move too – Flexibility to be spontaneous and discover something unexpected. I also know sometimes you need a break from constant sight seeing and travel.

I hope they have a wonderful trip and manage to see all they want to… and relax a little bit also. Can’t wait to see the photos when they return.

What is your holiday planning style – Do you like to organise down to the last detail? Do you plan nothing and wing it completely? Or are you somewhere in the middle like me?