Some Things Look Better On Paper :-)

When I plan trips, I always like leaving as early as possible on the departure day. This lets me get to my destination as early as possible, so I've got the full day to explore and enjoy it. I plan every trip the same way, and, like clockwork, I always second guess myself as the day approaches. I have those moments of thinking "What the heck was I thinking booking a flight out at 6:30am in the morning???"I usually have these thoughts the day before, specifically the night before when I'm trying to go to bed at an ungodly early hour. I love to travel, and can barely contain my excitement before a big trip. I have yet to try the whole "staying up all night" approach, but since I can't sleep on the plane (I've tried) I find myself trying to get even an hour or two of sleep before I leave.Let's take a look at this picture of the start of my itinerary; you can click on it to see a larger version: 

 I'm very granular when it comes to planning travel, because travel is supposed to be fun. I'd rather get as much planning done as possible in advance so I can just focus on enjoying it.  I use an app called TripIt for planning all of my travel, since it allows me to share my itineraries with family and friends. It's extremely useful.I'm due to drop off my car at 5:15am, which will give me enough time to get to the airport and through security. My flight doesn't leave until 6:30am, but I'd rather be early than rush through and risk being late, or even worse, missing my plane entirely. Anyone who's traveled through Austin-Bergstrom International Airport knows security lines can be hit or miss, regardless of the time of day.Dropping off the car at 5:15am means I have to leave my apartment by about 4:30am or so. I should probably get up around 4:00am to have time to get a shower and quick bite in before I leave. This means that, to get enough sleep (I'm good with about 6 hours on an average night) I need to go to bed by 10pm. I can already say that's not going to happen.Maybe I'll be in bed by 11:30pm, but probably be too excited to fall asleep. I may drift off to sleep by about 1, then be woken up by my alarm just 3 short hours later.On the one hand... What was I thinking?But on the other hand...and, I think, the bigger of the two proverbial "hands":  I can't wait, and I look forward to losing sleep at the expense of what looks to be a really fun upcoming trip.I'll be streaming live from Bermuda via Periscope, so be sure to download the app for iOS or Android and follow me on there (@iamjohnbamber).I'll be posting live blogs here as well, if you want to just see the current cruise postings you can do so at johnscruise.live or past cruise stuff at johnscruises.blog.