As everyone is out and about on Black Friday tracking down all those deals, I’m sitting back enjoying a little well deserved me time. After all, I did 16 hours in the kitchen yesterday! So, why am I not out there hoofing it from store to store? I gift experience! My gifts to my family focus on experience! I am a true fan of the gift card, the ticket, and the voucher. You may think that gifting like this is a bit impersonal and doesn’t hold the thrill of a traditionally wrapped box. I beg to differ. I am a fan of promoting the global citizen in all of us by experiencing the world around us. Here are five ways to infuse experience into your gift giving this season.
Add a friend!
If you are gifting a trip to the zoo (A great first start! Zoos are underrated!), add a stuffed zoo buddy with the tickets so there’s a little something to hug in the moment and something to look forward to a little later on. Consider other add ins like t-shirts, sunglasses, accessories, or other event specific gear to add in to the gift. It doesn’t have to be big, just a good match to the experience.
Plan ahead!
Gifting an experience like going to a national park or theme park? Add in a camera to save those memories. Cameras come in all shapes and sizes these days and there’s one that’s just perfect for the trip and your price point! Not a fan of another piece of equipment to lug around? Me too! How about a small lens to add to your iPhone camera? Those work too!
Make it fun!
One way to make a gift fun is to make it an experience in itself. How about a scavenger hunt? Perhaps a gingerbread house building contest? Maybe an ornament hunt is just your style.(Think Easter egg hunt in the winter.) No matter what the experience, have a few reindeer games to make it fun!
Match it up!
Tickets to a concert? Add the CD! Passes to a museum? Add a field guide! No matter the destination, a companion gift is a perfect pairing for your experience. Mouse ears are great if your headed for Disney and a pasta making kit could be just the thing if you are going to Rome. Perhaps this is your first travel experience and your young recipient needs a piece of luggage.
Read all about it!
No matter the experience, no matter the destination, there is a book to support your experience. Fiction and non fiction options are endless! Guide books, stories of destinations, historical accounts, and notable novels all work like a charm. If your interested in something more personal, a journal or a day planner may be just the right fit.
There are tons of great last minute ideas for great last minute gifts that focus on experience. Some are big and some are small. Here’s hoping you find all kinds of fun and creative gifts for the ones you love!
So, if you are like most people, you have one shot a year to book the vacation of a lifetime. I’m not talking about a quick trip down to Florida for a long weekend or a girl’s trip to Vegas. I’m talking about mega- it takes some trip planning– travel. I’m talking about those 14 precious days that make the most memories for you and yours. For me, I have peace of mind when I am well planned and well documented. So, it takes me literally a year to plan, travel, and wrap up my summer trip each year. You may think that is incredibly long and way too much but I beg to differ. I don’t do anything more than what’s expected but I do have a clear process. Let’s begin….
It’s Time To Start Trip Planning…
It’s the holidays, and I’m getting together with my family near and far. The food and drinks are plentiful. Everyone is full of festive cheer. That cheer inevitably leads down memory lane and talk of adventures and mishaps which ALWAYS seems to roll right into that wonderful question: where to next? The planning year has started.
The New Year brings the answer to all of that chit chat about where to go and who is going to join in. That’s my cue (surprisingly, I’m my family’s resident trip planner) to get going. For the sake of example, let’s say we’ve made the big decision to visit Belgium and France this summer. I say the summer because that’s when I can get away. If you can travel outside the summer’s high season in one of the shoulder seasons (Easter to Memorial Day or Labor Day to Columbus Day) by all means take advantage!
Trip Planning Research….
January is my time to sit back research, read and hunt down all of those excursions, activities and locations we want to go and see. In this case, we were in search of two uncles who passed away in WWI. They were brothers who both died on September 27th, 1918. We wanted to know what happened, pay our respects and learn a little more about the area. After all, the 100th anniversary was upon us. What better time? I take the time to check my family tree and investigate the proper documents. I look up lists of off the beaten path ideas. I purchase guide books from my favorite authors. I digitally draw on google maps to dream up various itineraries. I watch travel shows and videos. I learn as much as I can before I commit. Once I do, that’s it, there’s no turning back!
Communicating Trip Planning…
In the past as January came to an end and February began, I would start with the creation of a closed private group on Facebook that includes only the travelers on our trip and specific people that opt in but need to be aware of what we are up to- our emergency contacts and nearest and dearest. This was our communication hub and the place we will dump everything involved on our trip.
These days, I still create a group for fun but I store my travel plans on TripIt. The website/app combo is perfect for keeping everything in one place. It’s also super easy to share. Over on Facebook? The first post is always the same: The sentence “excuse may I have a glass of white wine please?” in whatever language we will need.
The second move is always about air travel. It’s time to book and that’s my February task, getting everyone on a plane together. For us, we all travel to one airport from wherever we are to meet up and then continue together. That takes a lot of coordination and decisions about money. Do you plan to all book together or is someone going to book and everyone reimburse the purchaser? Perhaps you all contribute to an account ahead of time. Your choice, your comfort level. In this case, we booked our tickets together and decided to meet in Atlanta. I like to book my tickets well ahead of my trip. I can have those completely paid for well before I take off and not overwhelm my budget all at once.
Trip Planning Nuts and Bolts… March marches in and there a few things for me to do. I need to ensure that I have a well planned travel route pinned down and a place to lay everyone’s head. All that research in January is about to be put to the test. Our facebook group has spent time voting on favorites and developing the overall itinerary. In our case, I need to reserve a car big enough for our group and hotel rooms in each of the towns we have chosen.
I’m just reserving so I’m not spending anything yet unless I choose to airbandb it. I am very comfortable tracking down reservations at a variety of places- traditional hotels, b and b’s and airbandbs. They all work for us and exploring airbandb options for a bigger group (read over 4 travelers) can be well worth the money. For our example trip, which is a road trip, we have decided on the following.
All Planned Out…
Fly into Brussels and rent a car, spend the night (small weekender hotel) in a small suburb to meet up with our cousin for dinner.
Day 1- drive over the French border toward Reims and stop at our first cemetery (Somme) our hotel is in the city center it’s a well known name with many hotels all over the world. Day 2- off to Muese Argonne to the second cemetery and then north to Rouen for two nights at a city center hotel. Day 3- Rouen Day 4- Mont Saint Michel at a traditional B and B on the Mont Day 5- Bayeux at an airbandb Day 6- Bayeux Day 7- Honfluer at a city center boutique hotel Day 8- Giverny at a traditional B and B Day 9- Lille day trip to drop off our rental and catch the train to Bruges. Day 10-Bruges at a city center hotel Day 11- back to Brussels by train where our cousin meets us for dinner again and drops us at our airport hotel for an early morning flight home.
Whew! We will be traveling about 1,000 miles all together but it’s well timed and takes everyone’s favorites into consideration and it will take all of March to finish reserving and organizing, but we have everything we need to travel and sleep. Planes, trains, and automobiles have been checked off the list.
The Finishing Trip Planning Touches…
April and May find us ensuring we have prebooked and reserved any necessary tours. We have made arrangements for a WWII tour along the Normandy coast, reserved tickets for the express line at Monet’s garden, and booked a private guide for Mont Saint Michel. We’ve decided we don’t need much else ahead of time and opt for the flexibility. So we Facebook each other with our collective suggestions and keep a running list. We ensure we have chosen how we are getting to the meet up airport, (I’m driving in) and we’ve made decisions on who’s bringing what. I’m in charge of hairspray and an umbrella, my mom is bringing a curling iron, my sister has an iPad so the kids can watch Netflix on down time, etc. Three weeks to go.
Trip Planning Packing…
June is here and it’s go time! I am packed, the house is clean the arrangements for being gone are taken care of including the dog who will spend some time with good friends. I mention all of this is because all of these details are part of the travel process too. It’s not just the tickets and hotel confirmation numbers. There’s a lot to think about.
We meet up and head out! While some of us are headed home right after this trip, others are headed to other destinations, for me, I finally get back in the States by the end of July. Now, I know that sounds like a long time, but I’m staying with family and enjoying my Summer before I head back to the classroom. I’ve also planned a completely different adventure in tandem with this trip to Normandy. In this case, I was headed off to Krakow for a few weeks to relax.
Time To Reflect On All That Trip Planning…
August is my regrouping month and September is dedicated to getting back to work so it isn’t until October that I finally get around to the last stage of my trip. One of the most important parts of traveling is enjoying the memories of it! So, for me, it means it’s time to grab all those photos that our group dumped onto that private Facebook page and use Shutterfly to put together the narrative of how our trip went.
I include lots of things including our itinerary, the top 5 songs we listened to over and over in the car, pictures of our new friends and stories that are too good to forget! I also collect all of those scraps of maps, tickets, tourist pamphlets, and receipts and piece them together in a big poster frame. Now, you may not be a digital scrapbooker or someone who likes to plaster their walls with huge frames, but this is what I do to collect my memories. Find what makes you happy and do it. Somehow, someway, ensure you have your travel memories.
November has my book and Christmas cards on order- I use pics from my trip or trips. I’m almost there. I’m almost ready to wrap this up, literally. I order a book as my Christmas gift for everyone who went on our trip- whether it’s just two of us or six of us- if it’s Christmas, you get a book! Which brings me right back to where I started. The wine is poured, we page through memories and pictures and, inevitably, we wind up wondering “where to next?” My year is complete.
What is the best way to plan for a big family trip?
Where do I start to plan my vacation?
How do I plan my Summer trip?
Alexandra is a podcaster, educator, and travel junkie. While not in the classroom, you can find her exploring some corner of the world. After living in Japan and enjoying Asia, she now spends most of her time crossing the Atlantic finding the most attainable, authentic, and diverse experiences to share with this travel community.
