Hilton Head: The Journey (Or More Accurately A Long Tangent on the Narrator's Fear of Cars)

After the countless hours spent planning the trip, you eventually reach a point where you have nothing left to do but leave. The anticipation leading up to this moment becomes almost unbearable in the weeks proceeding the trip. One thing I've learned over the course of the last few vacations is that taking the day off prior to the start date is always a good idea. For me, there is no feeling worse than being stuck at work hours before you're set to leave.

Being on the road is one of the best parts of the trip. Being trapped in a car with a group of other people for an extended period of time is a great way to build up some camaraderie. It's also a great way to drive yourself completely fucking crazy. Honestly, I don't care how much you like the people you're with, being confined to close quarters for long stretches of time is not the way we're meant to live. Sure, you'll probably listen to some good tunes, tell some great stories, and see some amazing scenery. Even if you follow all of your rules for a successful road trip, after 12+ hours on the road, you'll be glad to get to your vacation home simply because it means you no longer have to be in the car.

Variations On A Theme: The Impromptu Vacation

Hey audience! Glad to see you've dwindled down to nothing after our brief stint of Facebook popularity! I know I promised that when we next met I would entertain you with more from our recent trip to Hilton Head, but my dear friend Matt has inspired me to write about something which is also dear to my heart, the impromptu vacation.

Matt did a great job covering what it is that makes pointing at a map and saying "Fuck it, let's go" such a memorable way to vacation and I just wanted to touch on a few of the memories I have with such trips.

Before I grew old, these kinds of trips were a lot easier. There were no full time jobs, the idea of marriage was about as non-existent as the idea of even talking to girls, and no one would even think about having kids for years to come. At the time, my best random travel experiences were with my good friends Jason and Justin. Like Matt, we too took a random trip to Toronto. I want to save that for a later entry, though, as I have since been back and have much more to say about the most wonderful city in North America.

Instead, I'd like to touch on a random day trip we made to Northern Michigan, specifically Traverse City and the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes. I don't really remember what the exact circumstances were behind the trip. Probably, we all had a day to kill an spent some time staring at a map and figuring out what we could possibly get up to in a day. As I mentioned earlier, my family had spent almost all of our summers in this area and no trip was complete without spending a day at Sleeping Bear. We loved the exhausting work which climbing the dunes entailed which would all culminate with a race back down.

This picture is actually from a later trip but I don't care because it's beautiful.

Let's Eat.

Aside from all the obvious benefits of vacation (not being at work) one of my favorite parts is the food. My plan is always to eat as much good food as I can by both eating out and cooking. There is a fine balance between cooking and eating out when on vacation. For example, I have a very low tolerance for 'road food' and pretty much cant wait to cook a nice meal once we reach our destination. Cooking is something I love to do but don't do as often as I should. Or at least as creatively as I should.

Hilton Head: Anticipating The Trip

Now that I've refrained from talking about our most recent trip in as many ways as I could, it's time for Hilton Head 2012!

Vacation 2013: The Early Stages

Now that we've laid out the process we go through to actually plan a vacation, it's time for you to witness said process first hand. Over the course of the next several months, we hope to show you everything that we go through while planning one of our trips.

As Matt mentioned earlier, we generally start to plan our next excursion as soon as the current one winds down. This year, the seeds of Vacation '13 were planted while we were still in Hilton Head. Right now, our tentative destination is Bethany Beach, Delaware. We came to this decision in a very scientific manner.