Next Time I'll Do It Differently - Hawaii Trip

image by kalanicut

It seems the past couple of weeks I have been on a "next time I'm gonna do this differently" bender. Every year on our annual family vacation I make a mental list of things I'm going to do differently next year. Unfortunately I seem to forget them by the time I get home and then the next year I remember half of that list and add more to it. Saturday we went to our annual Trunk-or-Treat Halloween Party and again I made a mental list of things I must do differently next year. I'll share my Hawaii Trip list here today and Wednesday I'll share my list for Trunk-or-Treat.

Here are a few of the things on my list for the Hawaii Trips:

1) Come early and have a couple of days of peace and quiet before the big family meet-up. This would also give me the quiet time I crave at the pool and beach that I never seem to get close to enough of and give me some genuine rest before all the go-go-go starts..

2) Buy the boogie board the dayyou arrive or you may not ever get into the ocean. I did spend a lot of time in the beachside pool, but no ocean time, except for a quick wade & some beach walks is a little lame really.

3) Go for more than seven days. It is too short of a trip. Ten days is much better, two weeks may be ideal. It takes two to three days just to get settled in, especially if you are in a condo/timeshare. You'll often spend part of the first day or two at Costco, WalMart and the grocery store. Factor in more lost time for anyone having flight delays or whose luggage doesn't arrive.

4) Only bring one set of workout clothes. There's a washer and dryer in the villa and in last seven years I've hit the gym one time.I can still use the workout clothes for other activities, but I definitely don't need multiple sets when I can quickly wash things.

5) Always check ALL the drawers before you check out. I never use the dresser because we usually have two or three people in a big room together. This year I had my own room and put my stuff in the drawers. So when I packed up my stuff  and we checked out, guess who forgot to check the drawers and left a bunch of her clothes at the hotel and is now paying to have them shipped to her. I checked every other inch of the room, but totally blew it on the dresser. I knew something didn't seem right but in a rush to wrap things up messed up big time..

So those are the things I'm trying to remember for next year while I wait for my belongings from this year to arrive in the mail. How do keep track of things you want to do differently next time?