The mind boggling range of activities, wines, scenery, and foods that make this such a diverse part of the world also ensure that even seeing and doing the wine country will mean different things to different people.

The key to visiting the region is therefore planning. It's hard not to have fun in the hedonistic wine country whatever you do but it can be made all the more enjoyable if you come up with a plan, any plan, however rudimentary, otherwise it's easy to feel overwhelmed.

It needn't be a detailed plan. Often it's more fun to let tasting room staff, hotel concierges, or fellow traveler help flesh it out with local knowledge and experiences. By the same measure it shouldn’t be a rigid schedule. A crucial part of wine country lifestyle is relaxation and indulgence, neither of which should be worked at too hard.

If you try to visit too many wineries and the day will seem like a blur with few lasting memories except for the frustration caused when heavy traffic wrecks an over-optimistic schedule. Take note of how long tours last or how many wines there are to taste at wineries, for example, and allow plenty of time to linger and chat with the winemaker or tasting room staff. When you finally open that expensive bottle of Napa Cabernet you'll have some far more interesting dinner table anecdotes to tell.

Mix big wineries and small wineries to experience the full spectrum of the wine making world, or focus on a particular style of wine. And pepper any visit with healthy doses of non-wine activities, whether hiking or cooking classes, to keep in touch all of the many aspects of the wine country that makes its lifestyle so unique.