I have a knack for getting ideas that become trends. I wish I had this knack in high school and college--maybe then I would have been a trend setter. No, most likely it would be the "weird" thing I did until two years later Ms. Cool decided it made sense.
A few years ago, (more like five) I had this bright idea that I live in a very historical region and yet every summer I pack up and go on vacation AWAY from my area. A friend once said that the place you should live would be the place you'd visit. At the time I thought I'd write a newspaper column strictly about being what I deemed "The backyard Tourist" and then Bam! "Stay- cation" was deemed. Personally, I still like being called the "Backyard Tourist". *sigh*
I live in the four state area of South Central Pennsylvania. I am roughly a 90 mile drive to DC, Harrisburg, Lancaster and Baltimore. I am within an hour's drive of Gettysburg, Harper's Ferry and Shepherdstown. All of these could easily be "day trips". I mean people pay to stay in my area and spend weeks on end visiting the area. We have family in DC, Baltimore and Harrisburg so we've done a ton of visiting. However, we don't VISIT these places. We visit the people we love. A few years ago, we stayed with a relative and actually spent a week visiting the museums of DC. It was a relatively inexpensive vacation (the concept gave us a chance to "splurge" on festival food and a few good places to eat we'd not normally done). Plus, the children had a blast.
This summer since we are trying to get out of debt, I am going to do a ton more Backyard tourist places. However, I am going to try to find those "gems" that are free or relatively inexpensive that you can visit but wouldn't have thought to visit.
No comments:
Post a Comment