I LOVE to travel. I mean LOOOOOVE it. In my book last minute travel is better than no travel at all.

And the great thing about my husband being self-employed is that he can take vacation anytime.

On the flip side, the bad thing about my husband being self-employed is that he never knows when business will be absolutely booming, so making plans in advance is difficult for him.

With that being said, you can bet that we take a lot of last minute trips. Our travel plans tend to come together about 24-36 hours before we leave.

And the free spirit in me rejoices at that opportunity to go and see and do new things at a moment’s notice!

And the planner in me freaks out and has a panic attack. Sometimes the best planning I can do happens on the back end of a trip- aka, learning from our experiences and executing travel plans differently (hopefully) on the next trip.

Here are 5 of my best tips for making last minute travel more enjoyable:

1} Carry on

Check the weather forecast for your destination, pack light and carry on. You can read more about how to carry on like a pro here.

If you are traveling with your kiddos, I also recommend packing snacks in backpacks to avoid spending extra money in the airport. You can read more about traveling with your kids here.

2} Don’t book hotels the day of

Especially during peak tourist seasons.

However, if you don’t have another choice, try to be flexible on your room requests. For instance, search all available bed options, as opposed to just your preferred bed option.

I have had the best reservation experiences by searching hotels in the area where I want to stay with an app like Priceline or Booking.com and then calling the hotel and speaking with a hotel representative myself. They tend to have better options, prices, and service as opposed to going through an app.

Lesson learned: searching for a hotel at 1am in a virtually booked city is no fun, and makes for a long day.

3} When you arrive at your destination, don’t try to cram all the things into your trip

When we booked our most recent trip to Oregon, we ended up staying a day less than I wanted to. My initial response was to figure out how to cram three days worth of adventures into two full days.

After I got over myself, I was able to cut things out of our itinerary that just didn’t make sense with the overall time frame and goals of our trip. We still had a lovely time, by the way!

Lesson Learned: We have to go back to Oregon. Darn.

4} Try not to stress

When your travel plans are totally last minute, do yourself a favor and relax. Accept the fact that you won’t get to do all the things and focus on making the most of the time you do have to spend with your favorite people.

Go ahead and plan out your itinerary, but hold it loosely. If something doesn’t work out, let it go and move on with your trip.

Having this attitude will make your whole trip more enjoyable and you won’t feel cheated on time.

5} Don’t make promises you can’t keep

This fits well with #4, because when you don’t have much time to solidify your travel plans it’s hard to know which of your plans will actually come to fruition.

For instance, on our last trip we promised our kids some really fun waterfall hikes. What I didn’t know (because I didn’t have time to research) was that the Columbia River Gorge area we were visiting had experienced a fire some time before our trip and most of the easy hiking trails were closed. Bummer.

Of course we found other things to do and we did eventually get to take a little hike in the Tillamook State Forest, but that was a major part of our travel plans that had to change on the spot.

Last minute travel doesn’t have to be a stress fest. Remembering these 5 tips can eliminate a lot of last minute travel stress and allow you more energy for making memories!

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What last minute trips are you glad you took? What are some of your last minute travel planning tips and tricks? Tell me in the comments!

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