Last month I made a trip to NYC to visit some dear friends and their baby girl Matilda. The thing about this trip was that I barely planned it in advance. It was one of those times where the thought came into my head that I should go and instead of making excuses for why that couldn’t be the case (and trust me, I had a long list), I just booked the ticket and made it work. Maybe that doesn’t sound like that big of a deal to you fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pantsers out there, but for me it was kind of revolutionary and I want to make it happen more often. So I thought back as to why this one happened and came up with three steps:

1. Enlist a travel buddy. I knew Ryan wouldn’t be able to come with me and I didn’t want to make the trip alone so I went out on a limb and asked my friend Kirsten and to my surprise she didn’t hesitate to say yes. Knowing she was on board was the push I needed to actually book the tickets.

2. Find ways to make it affordable. We traveled a couple weeks before the busy season and on weekdays. Instead of staying at a hotel, we found a well priced apartment rental via Enrout. We ate well but stuck with places like Shake Shack that didn’t break the bank. We went to attractions that didn’t cost money.

3. Choose not to complain (or make excuses!), last minute planning means mishaps will occur. This trip came with obstacles (two little obstacles to be exact) that could have made it disastrous but we went in with the attitude that we would laugh the whole way through and that we did.

Vacation success. Now where should I drag Beck to next?

Psst, I’m on Instagram now.