I Love Day Trips and Here’s Why You Should Too!

I love day trips, I love day trips, yes I do! For some people playing poker or day drinking is all their rage when the weekend comes up. Hell some even get off to putting needles in their arm. I prefer to pretend I’m John Smith and explore my city. It doesn’t matter how you go about doing it whether by bike, camel or unicorn. I’m here to convince you that I love day trips and why you should too!

It Doesn’t Require Much Planning

Come on, just pick a place! Start with that Timbuktu-like village outside of your city or that cosy town square two cities over. Just decide already god damnit! Alright… so maybe there are a few things you’ll want to consider before you start playing darts with your map.

• How active do you want to be? Do you want to commute by means of exercise or transportation?
• How much spending money do you have for entertainment? How much money towards food, random chachkis and ice cream are you willing to spend?
• How often do you want to escape? Once per week, every other Saturday, every day!?

With that said here’s four types of day trips to give you an idea. By the way, I love day trips…

Bikescapades

A bikescapade is a bike day trip to a neighborhood on the other side of town or a full fledged journey to the ocean and back. What I love about Bikescapades: If you have a bike then you can go as far as your wobbly legs will peddle you way faster than walking and without spending any money on fuel (unless you count doughnuts & cookies you’ll eat as fuel). And since you’re on a bike it’s a lot easier to stop at every ice cream shop along the way wherever you’re cycling since you can lock your bike up anywhere and there’s always a parking spot. This form of day trip is more strenuous then some of the others. You can either go for a jolly slow ride down the boardwalk and stop at every fat shirtless man to take a selfie with him or bike 50 miles through the death traps of Mordor, then ride back.

In terms of cost, bikescapades can be fairly cheap if you plan it right. If you’re taking selfies with ever shirtless fat man on the pier, you’re going to most likely spend lots of money buying happy hour deals to continue fueling this bad decision, but if you’re smart then you can pack your backpack with the essentials so you don’t have to buy much on your bikescapade.

Aside from whatever food and vices you decide to pack, here are some things you should really consider:

Day Crawls

While living and working in Barranquilla, Colombia I did a day hike to the tip where where the river and the ocean meet (brown river water on the left and ocean on the right)

It’s when you’re crawling on the ground you’re so drunk. Just kidding, it’s where you hit up a lot of cool places in close proximity to each other and get a teaser of each one. I love day crawls because: you get to taste anything you want on that loud street with lots of ice cream shops, beer gardens and fusion mexican/asian restaurants. Unlike bikescapades, day crawls are a lot more social since you’re not yelling at your friends who can’t hear you down wind. Day crawls are one of my favorite activities for dates. For example we’d pick out an unknown neighborhood of New York, perhaps check out India town in Queens. We’d get there and find out that there’s just as much Mexican pop up shops and people shimmying on the streets. Then we’d get something from each place and share it.

Day crawls require you to be physically active, but only so much as walking next door to the boutique donut shop. So with that said, if you’re lazy and willing to drop money instead of working for it then set that wallet on fire!

Price wise day crawls can be surprisingly affordable if you go with 2 – 4 people and you don’t get a lot of each place but instead go to many places and get something small that you can share between all of you. It’s not a marathon to get full on food, it’s a marathon to… umm I don’t know how to finish this…

Surprise City

Me and a friend did a spur of the moment trip to the Fire Islands in New York and had this watch dog save our life.…

This one’s similar to the Day Crawl except that you are – wait for it – going to a new city! Pick an unknown city within a couple hours of where you live and don’t get too drunk on the train ride before you get there. Why I love surprise city day trips: It’s like moving to a new city and getting acquainted with it’s historic buildings and wannabe hippster dive bars and then sleeping on the train or car ride back reminiscing about that crab flavored fondue you had. Plus there’s the build up of excitement you feel as you reach a new city that always leaves me asking myself “Why me no do this more?”

Surprise city trips are like upgraded versions of day crawls both price-wise and activity wise. Chances are if you’re visiting to a new city you’ll want to see more than just a single busy street. You’ll want to wander around aimlessly until your legs give out and a cold beer is the only thing that will save them. Obviously it’s going to be more expensive unless you find the golden $1 megabus ticket (if you know of a cheap way to travel in the states please share, this country is depressing me).

I’ve found that cities that are college towns or have lots and lots of pictures with flowers and candy shops are safe picks as they give you something to see other than fences and pavement. If you want more than that, then too bad!

Daytivities

Chances are you won’t always have a full day you can flush down this toilet called life. That’s where daytivities come in. Think of them as bite sized fragments that only take up a quarter of your day. A daytivity in my books is visiting a one-off place that offers a unique experience like skating at a skate hall, playing laser tag or sneaking into Willy Wonka’s factory and pressing all the buttons you see. The biggest difference between these kinds of activities is that you spend a lot more time in a single place vs hopping from one to the next. Here’s a short list of some of my favorite (or ones I wanna try) daytivities besides the ones mentioned:

• Kayaking
• Bouldering
• Ski/Surf
• Bring food and play board games with friends at a beer hall
• Escape Rooms
• Fencing
• Visiting the Budweiser factory

The highlight of my life was definitely visiting this place

I Told you I Love Day Trips!

And I mean it. Every place you visit will have it’s different perks and activities but I hope this at least gives you a nugget of ideas for ways to explore your neighborhood, county or city. I love day trips and I hope I can get you addicted to them too!