How far out do you plan vacations?

Furthest out I've ever booked was 2+ years, but that's cuz I had to (we reserved a full liveaboard boat in Galapagos in prime whale shark season, these sell out years in advance)

4-6 weeks usually. 

I also have to plan it out 9 months ahead. We have a time share and you have to call 9 months to the day when you want your week.

Plan or book? I have next summer and the following summer planned. Nothing booked.

3 years is the max anyway... it all ends in 2012, right?

Next summer booked in part. Just got a room in Lake Placid for July 25 2010. I'll be volunteering. 5 miles out of town, $75  a night, no minimum. Not 5 stars, but that's not important to me.

Edited by mrbbrad 2009-08-18 1:39 PM

nah, not too early.  I spend nearly every waking moment dreaming of when, where and how I can go on a trip.  I'd say I've planned a year out but don't get the nuts and bolts till sooner. 

I tend to book really early (8 months out, sometimes) for a few reasons:
Our trips often correspond with races, so, when I register for the race, often well in advance, I also book the flight, hotels, etc.
Our trips have to correspond to school vacations, which is when everyone else in the US who has kids wants to plan vacations, so we try to book early to get the flights, hotels, etc. that we want.
We take one regular trip every year which I book as soon as we get home, so that one’s a year in advance.
I also work in an office with three other people and no more than one of us can be out at a time, so I need to book early for that reason as well.

As early as humanly possible if I'm trying to save a buck. Booking early = cheap tickets!

But I've planned out a vacation less than 1hr ahead of leaving too...decided I wanted to go to Scotland when I lived in Belfast, threw some stuff in a backpack, called my mates in Scotland while walking to the train station, ran from the train to the ferry, hitched a lift with a nice old guy from the ferry to the train station in Scotland, and bam...was in Glasgow and spent 4 days noodling about the Scottish countryside. It was awesome.

A year out - necessitated by school schedules and time-share bookings.  Will be in Hawaii July, 2010 - assuming we survive CdA 2010!

I have to figure in about a year.  Because we/my work has only so many slot s availble, so we go through a senority pick first....Summer months go first.


But I always slot myself two weeks for October for Kona.....although I've only applied once.  It's a problem though in my work.

Depends on the trip. Ski trips and trips that generally require hotels and whatnot get booked earlier than most, especially if it's a group thing (preferably not) but then sometimes when we do road trips we're booking hotels and motels the night before we aim to arrive. Short trips are rarely booked in advance (unless 'this weekend we're planning on doing this' is what you mean by booked).

We bought our plane tickets as soon as we were able to for our honeymoon, which is only about a year in advance (can't buy flight tickets earlier), but other than that we're not booking rooms for the entire trip, maybe with the exception of the post-flight hotel room when we'll be groggy from jetlag and in a completely foreign city.

I have a trip 'penciled in' to Italy fall of 2010, but no details known and probably won't book till a few months prior.

Overall, most of the types of trips we take do not require super advanced booking, and we are not picky about where we stay if we are doing the hotel thing. If it's a driving trip, we can always sleep in the car or drive into the next town if the hotel is booked up.