Planning vs going with the flow - what's the balance for a 2 month first SE Asia trip?
Help please! After a difficult few years for various reasons, I've been able to take a few months off a fairly intense job to recharge. My plan is to head to SE Asia in the next fortnight (mid Oct) which will give me 9 weeks before I return to the UK just before the winter solstice. I've got flights lined up to start in Borneo (Sabah) and leave from either Bangkok or Phuket and an outline itinerary (2-3 days here, train to there, X days there, plane to yonder, etc) that loops through Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.
I'm lucky enough to have a very flexible budget so I can mix and match flights and slower transport where it's more enjoyable, and I don't need to worry too much about pre-booking to get the best prices or planning the most economical route. My only real must-dos are Borneo, KL, Singapore, and Angkor Wat, then I've sketched out a route that joins those along with a few other places that sound interesting and give a flavour of the region and ideas for return trips in the future (acknowledging that 2 months really isn't that long given the size of SEA and common itinerary feedback here is "but you can spend X months in Y country alone"...)
I wasn't planning to pre-book beyond the first week and the last week (given that December is high season and I'll need to be in a set location for the flight home) so I can flex plans depending on how it all goes - but to be honest that level of flexibility is stressing me out!
I have travelled solo before, but only for a few weeks at most and in recent years it's been small-group tours bookended with a few exploration days on my own. Time is usually my biggest constraint on a holiday, so I'm used to packed itineraries to make the most of every second in a city/country. I know that common feedback in this forum is "keep it flexible" but I'm finding it unnerving not to have a detailed plan.
I'd be really interested to hear how much planning people here would usually do before a 2 month trip - do you have a full itinerary worked out and the main flexibility is how long you spend in a particular place?So probably only booking travel/accommodation a few days in advance as timings shift, but you already mostly know where you'll be staying and how you'll get there? Or do you leave it much more open?
(I was being strict with myself about not over-planning as I would for a shorter trip, but now I'm lying awake at 2am as my stupid brain turns something I should be excited about into something I'm dreading, because uncertainty=bad.)