The Use of Decision Trees in Planning Your Vacation (This is Science!)

Last night I was pinning on my new Places You'll Go Travel's Pinterest page, that incidentally still only has 3 Followers.... (Could use a little help here people!!!!) when I began to think of all the places that I really need to go.  You know, just little places like Istanbul, St. Petersburg (the one in Russia, not Florida), Patagonia, Bali, Casablanca... Nothing big. It made me think about just how big the world is and how difficult it is to narrow down the places you really NEED to go.  It's a hard thing to do!

I think that we need some kind of trip prioritizer in this world and I feel like someone is going to have to take this bull by the horns and start the work on it. Now this won't be available to you for use by November 30th. Unlike some politicians, I know my limitations. In fact, if you are looking for a website, it may never be ready. But perhaps this will give you a head start on planning your next trip.

Now, I'm no rocket scientist or software engineer so I'm just going to go old school and free hand a little decision making template.  (This is how we used to rock it at the former employer who shall not be named.) The first thing I have to do is decide what sort of climate I'm looking for.... Mountains? Beach? Rain Forest?  Then I sort of have to look at Price and then the next consideration I might have could be accessibility.  After all, if you're looking to travel in a few weeks, it might be kind of difficult to put together travel visas and sherpas so close to your travel date.

Then you have to decide if you want to travel domestically or internationally.  If internationally, do you want an exotic location?  There are really a lot of things to consider!  This could be a very complicated decision to make.  Here's a look at what I have come up with so far.

I know, I know... You can't believe I used a spiral notebook, right?  Well, you work with what you've got. But I think you can see from this what a complicated process it is to decide where to go on a trip.  I mean, it takes a lot of thought to decide between Nepal and Bali.  The elephants as pack animals part of it almost had me sold on Bali. But then if you start thinking about having your very own sherpa to guide you up Everest and you know.... the fact that you are going up Everest....  Nepal almost becomes a no brainer.

But hey, let's not discount Galveston.  See Galveston in there just below Ft. Lauderdale and Miami and just above Bora Bora. Go ahead, just try to tell me one other instance in which Galveston will EVER come in above Bora Bora.  But if you are looking for a US beach on a budget, it's really the only winner in that category!  So where do you think I should go next summer, Nepal or Galveston?  Hmmmm...  I might need another decision tree.