How to Successfully Not Plan a Vacation

When I think about our recent trip to Sanya, China, I can't help but laugh a bit. I am a planner. I like to know what is going on when and have all the details figured out. However, I have noticed that when I get overseas, some of that desire to plan disappears. Partially because I find myself slipping into a bit more of a laid back local way, but also because there is a lot more to figure out.

Not too long after we arrived in China, the question of where we would be traveling for vacation started to arise. As we were new to life here, PM and I focused on that- living in China and making this home. However, with MLK weekend looming closer and closer, we realized that we better get ourselves in gear if we were going to go anywhere. I started researching airfare and discovered there were a lot of cool places we could go that were close and cheap. While this sounds great in theory, in reality, this left us with just too many choices of where to go and what to do.

About a week before MLK weekend, we finally had it narrowed down to three places: Manila, Kuala Lumpur (ultimately decided our families might be happier if we weren't flying AirAsia to Malaysia right now), or Sanya. They all sounded fantastic, but on Wednesday, just two days before we were to leave, we finally made our choice and bought plane tickets for Sanya.

For those of you who have never heard of Sanya, don't worry, we hadn't either. Sanya is located on Hainan Island in the South China Sea. It's main attraction is the beach. There are many beaches in the area (being an island and all), but the main ones were categorized online as being the "western beach", the "upper middle-class Chinese beach", the "budget beach", and the "Russian beach".

Our next big not planning was where to stay. For hours I poured over online sites weighing the factors of location, price, and amenities and finally on Thursday night, PM got so frustrated with my internal struggle that we just picked a place and booked it figuring no 4-star hotel can be as terrible as some of the places we have stayed. We awoke Friday morning (the day we leave), to an email from Expedia saying they cancelled our reservation for a reason unclear to us. Well, there goes that "planning". Thankfully, there are about 8 million hotels in Sanya, so I was easily able to book a new, and much better one, Friday morning.

Friday evening, we flew to Sanya with the plan of getting a taxi to our hotel (thankfully we had the name of the hotel in Chinese characters to show the taxi driver), getting a good nights sleep, and figuring out the rest of the trip in the morning. Our arrival at the hotel was quite pleasant, despite our plane being delayed. We were welcomed with coconut juice and the news that the room we had booked came not only with breakfast, but also complementary high tea and cocktail hour.

The following morning we awoke to a beautiful view, warm weather, and the desire to spend the rest of our time eating, reading, and relaxing on the beach and that is exactly what we did.

Our mornings started with no alarm clock, followed by getting ready for the day and going downstairs for the most amazing buffet breakfast I have ever seen. There was a delightful mix of Chinese and western foods, tied together with fresh exotic fruits.

Plate one: fruit, banana bread, spinach steam buns, stir fried noodles, almond croissant, bacon, and sweet potato hash browns.

After a leisurely breakfast, we would mosey down to the beach, find a chair, and spend several hours with this view.

Occasionally taking a break for a little refreshment. "You put the lime in the coconut and drink 'em both up." In our case, this wasn't quite true. Our coconuts were unadulterated. We found ourselves wishing for a splash of rum though to liven them up.

Sometimes we were distracted from our books by the sights and sounds of the South China Sea.

There were children and crabs playing in the sand and Mickey Mouse wandering the beach scaring children.

After a few hours of reading, we ventured back to the resort for some refreshments, including our visit to the rooftop bar for high tea and cocktail hour.

For dinner we ventured out to the Breeze Bar by the pool where they hosted a nightly BBQ buffet. There was chicken, fish, lamb, a seafood raw bar, a salad bar, and so much more. We enjoyed it so much the first night that we did it again the second night! They also had quite the dessert selection.

I didn't think I was a big fan of "sitting around on the beach" type vacations, however, this one really was a delight. I sense a few more "no plan" vacations in our future.