Surprise! You’re going to…

Would you let someone else plan your vacation? What if you had no idea what they were planning? What if you weren’t going to find out until you boarded the plane?! OMG. Hell no!! I mean, sign me up??

My friend KDub recently sent me this article about surprise travel planning company, Pack Up + Go. I was immediately intrigued by the concept of letting someone else plan me a secret trip…and also slightly terrified! Which, I told her, probably means that I’ll have to give it a try.

There is something liberating about leaving the legwork to someone else. Plus, they ask lots of questions about your likes and dislikes before picking a destination. I mean, I don’t *think* they’d send me adventure camping in a mosquito-filled jungle. Would they?

The other upside, as I see it, it not agonizing over which item to check off my bucket list next. I struggle with this…a lot. If there is one thing in life that I’m completely #FOMO about, it’s travel. There were so many things we hoped to see but never made it to while living in Spain. So, of course, I’m still dreaming of those places. But, South America! I’m definitely itching to hit up another continent. Of course, I’m also ready to just relax on vacation and not run around making sure that we see ALL the sights. Perhaps handing these decisions over to someone else is the perfect solution.

Further research revealed more surprise travel companies. Pack Up + Go focuses solely on 3-day getaways, which I think is brilliant – particularly for surprise trip novices like me. Their short trips rank very low on the potential for complete disaster scale. You’d probably have a pretty good sense for where they might send you based on where you live. I doubt you’d end up in Cambodia for 3 days from Austin, Texas. Though, I guess you never know!

Magical Mystery Tours plans longer trips, like Solo Vacays, 40th Birthday Getaways and Surprise Honeymoons! Travel by Surprise works much the same way – interview client, book airfare/accommodations/activities, send secret itinerary to be opened just before the trip. Plus, they’ll even come and capture your reaction to the big reveal.

Bespoke travel is hardly a new concept. It’s hasn’t been so long since travel agencies were the norm. Companies like Abercrombie & Kent, Brown + Hudson, or agency style groups like AFAR Travel Advisory Council, still custom design luxury journeys for discerning travelers. Not that I wouldn’t consider an Around the World by Private Jet adventure! (From $129,000, FYI…) But these surprise getaways are more accessible to the average traveler. Pack Up + Go advertises trips in the hundreds of dollars, not hundreds of thousands.

Hmm…the more I think about it, the more I’m swayed to…Sign me up!!

 

Wanderlust Wednesday: Encore or Nevermore?

Growing up, I spent the first week after school let out in Florida with my grandparents. On the first day of summer vacation, my parents would drive me halfway to their house where we would all meet over lunch for the exchange. The next day, my grandfather would fill the cavernous trunk of “the old Buick” with suitcases and rafts and fishing tackle; my grandmother would pack snacks; and, off we’d go!

It would never fly these days, but I always rode shotgun. My grandmother typically fell asleep in the backseat before we crossed their town line, and my grandfather liked the company up front. We listened to mix tapes he’d prepared for just this occasion, usually Big Band music borrowed from his brother’s collection. We told each other stories, wrote silly poems, made up road games, and, as we neared our destination, finalized the grocery list for when we stopped on our way into town.

Every other year, starting when I was five, we stopped at Disney World first, but the final destination was always Indian Rocks Beach. My grandfather loved the warm, calm waters and wide white sand beaches on the Gulf Coast. I’m not sure how they settled on Indian Rocks for our trips together, other than I know they had made many visits slightly further south to Madeira Beach over the years and really liked the area.

My grandfather was what you might call a lifer, working at DuPont for practically his entire career as a chemist. Most men of his age in their area were the same. None of this job jumping that we have today. When you got tired of your job, you didn’t dream of the next one, you dreamt about your next vacation. Florida was my grandfather’s daydream. Beach, pool, fishing, reading, oysters, stuffed flounder, bourbon, ginger ale, and a good cigar. “Good” is such a relative term. Knowing his thriftiness, I’m certain it was no Montecristo or Cohiba. But, as the only cigar he might have in a year, it sure was good to him. And that week of goodness carried him through the year to the next week when we’d do it all again.

For a long time now, I’ve sworn off the rinse and repeat vacation. Where is the adventure in going to the same place over and over again when there are so many incredible destinations out there and so very little time? In retirement, my grandparents travelled further afield. They got around, but by then, my grandmother’s health was too poor for them to make it to all of the places they might have liked to have gone. I don’t want to be too sick or feeble, or otherwise infirmed, to enjoy traveling. Besides, the job jumping lifestyle of today doesn’t ensure that retirement will even be an option! We’ve got to go where we want to go now. There is no waiting. No taking a chance on the future.

Except…

I’m not sure if we’re getting older, or wiser, or lazier, or smarter, or tired, or finally coming to our senses…but recently RF and I have been dreaming about going to The Bahamas. Again. We’ve been there three times now. My grandfather would consider us rookies. But that’s a whole lot of rinse and repeat for us! Granted, we’ve been to different islands, and we’re contemplating another one still. There are lots of warm, sunny, sandy beaches around the world that we haven’t been to. Closer ones. Maybe even better ones! But we know these islands, and their crystal clear water, and the kind locals. And there is just something so incredibly appealing to us about the empty beaches on The Out Islands. That’s so rare. At least without an even longer journey.

Maybe we’ve just finally grown up. Perhaps everyone has their one true heaven in this world and we’ve found ours. We knew each other was “the one”. Maybe The Bahamas are our vacation soulmate and we need to stop agonizing about it and commit. Maybe it’s ok to have an encore *and* a nevermore. We don’t usually take just one vacation each year. Perhaps there’s room for something old and something new.

If my grandfather were still here, he would probably tell me that I’m overthinking it. (I usually am.) I suspect that the better part of why they went to Florida every year was because he didn’t want to have to choose another place to go instead. Always a practical man, he knew that Florida suited him just fine. Florida got him through the year. Alas, if The Bahamas suits us enough to be the subject of our many daydreams…well then…I think it just might be time for an Encore!

 

The Journey Begins…

Boy has it been a loooong 72 hours.  One of my primary requirements when we first began discussing the digital nomad lifestyle was renting our house to offset some of our expenses.  It was absolutely the right thing to do, but prepping our house for guests while also readying ourselves for the trip felt like pure insanity…especially since it worked out to be on such a short timeline.

Because of visa problems of their own, our renters didn’t confirm until 2 weeks prior to our departure date.  We started the health certificate process for Silas & Oscar prior to that, just in case, but didn’t make any headway on the house until there was a solid plan.  Bad idea.  I spent almost every ounce of free time since they confirmed on purging, organizing and cleaning.  You know from my posts that we live small, but things really pile up over time, even in less than a thousand square feet!

I don’t know how many trips RF made down to the cellar and out to the garage toting heavy storage bins in the hours before we left.  I made two trips to Goodwill last week, and braved almost every Marshall’s, TJ Maxx, and Home Goods on Seattle’s north end in search of great deals on fresh sheets and towels, and various other items.  All of this on top of trying to be a stellar employee convincing my boss that, “No, this is not a vacation; I will be working!”

Going somewhere??

We were up packing until 3:30 am the night before our flight, and had to be up at 6:30 am to finish up all of the last-minute odds and ends. I actually felt pretty good about everything, but our cats weighed heavily on my mind.  They had no idea what was coming, and I had no idea how they would handle it.  It was clear to them that something was up, but like the band on the Titanic, they continued to play around our swirl.

I couldn’t rest easy until we were at the gate at SeaTac.  The woman who checked us in made us move one pound from our larger bag into our smaller bag (one pound!) and went over the veterinary paperwork with a fine-tooth comb even though our understanding was that it wouldn’t be required until we arrived.  Fine.  If it passed muster with her, it would with anyone.

We requested a private screening for the cats and were nicely escorted into a small room where we could hold them safely while their bags were checked. Then, we were officially off! Relieved, I could not wait to sleep.

Peeking.

We tucked the cat carriers under the seats and settled in with headphones and neck pillows for the shut eye we had sacrificed to get to this point. Alas, our flight left at 1:30 pm and the two toddler boys across the aisle were just gearing up.  Their squeals and shrieks rotated from thrilled to furious and back again, over and over for nine hours straight.  Nine! Needless to say, rest was still not on the agenda. I managed a few winks here and there, waking in time to see the sun break over France on Sunday morning. Le sigh.

Daybreak over France

Directions for navigating Charles de Gaulle were scarce. Did we need to get our bags, proceed to customs, then check them back in? I’ve had to do this; I was prepared. No, just go through security again…with no private pet screening, cats clinging to us as other passengers zipped by? Um, ok. “Thank you, yes, they are cute…no, they do not really want to be petted right now.” Oh, now we wait for border patrol?  But wait, which line?  Is this the EU passport line only?  Is there really only one All Passports agent right now? “Thank you so much for letting us back in this line – that was EU only.” Passports stamped; moving right along.  Ah, lunch.

As we boarded flight number two, we expected to hand over more cat documentation, but it wasn’t requested. Once again, we squeezed carriers under the seats and continued on, getting just a little bit more sleep along the way. We braced ourselves for the meticulous documentation review in Barcelona, then nothing. Paris was it. No customs coming from another EU nation. “But wait, I ran all over our state for this information!  Doesn’t anyone want to review it?”  RF pulled me out the door…

En route to our first apartment, our taxi driver tried to explain to us that we were passing a shopping mall created in a former bull fighting ring. English is not Spanish is not Catalan. We had no idea what he was saying, other than something about bulls.  “Bulls?  Today?”  “Si!”, he nodded with a big grin. No. No, there were not.

Our apartment was a pleasant surprise.  With two large suitcases and cat carriers in tow, the miniscule elevator required two trips.  I worried that our flat would be equally lilliputian; you really never can tell from the photos.  Luckily, it turned out exactly as expected.  Small, but completely functional. Plenty of light, a good table for working, a balcony overlooking a large courtyard.

Checking out the neighborhood.

The cats were not nearly as impressed. Silas followed us everywhere, calling for response after response. Oscar fled directly into the smallest corner he could find, between the couch and the wall. We were curious about our neighborhood but felt far too horrible to leave them after such a day. It was just as good since we were both a bit delirious from lack of sleep.  We crashed and crashed hard.

Around 10 pm, RF ventured out to the 24-hour market for a few staples. We cobbled together a dinner of deli meat and potato chips. Very glamorous. Very glamorous, indeed!

Barcelona’s finest cuisine – that’s Coke, not wine.

We streamed the Seahawks game and let S&O climb all over us to make sure we were alright. After a few hours, more sleep was the only option. Tomorrow would be our first “real” day.