Your Summer Trip

By Lev Novak

With a ton of free time it’s important to have a trip in the summer.

No, not a whole summer backpacking. No, not an epic road-trip where you’ll have zany hi-jinks. Just a trip. But where? How? Why?

Find out below.

1. Someplace With Purpose

Don’t go to “the beach” or “New Orleans” or any other easy, simple answer of a location that you’ve heard of before. They’re stuffed with insufferable tourists, and if your only appeal is the location, you’re going to be disappointed that drinking alone in a new city isn’t that much cooler than drinking alone anywhere else.

So what do you do? Go somewhere specific. Toronto isn’t hyped as a major city, but if you have cousins there and a friend or two from college, Toronto is going to be kickin’. Do you have a quest to have barbecue? Go through the South and feel free to meander about.

Tourist traps are traps first. Anyplace popular is going to be thick and routine. Get strange with your adventure; if you’re guided by purpose, your trip is going to end up awesome.

2. Somewhere With People

If you have a friend who wants to go somewhere, you want to go with them.

It doesn’t matter where they’re going. If you like the reason (visiting a friend, a party, an adventure, or anything along those lines- basically, not a funeral) then you should go with them. Pitch in for the gas and borrow the adventure.

The people you’re with can make even the most normal experiences the best memories. I still remember my Spring Break in Montreal- we didn’t do anything cool. We didn’t kiss any pretty French Canadians. But we did adventure, did eat well, did get drunk and laugh and mess around, because it was us, doing old things in a new way. It was exciting and cool and it was all we needed.

With good people, even an uneventful trip is fine. You’ll make the events yourself.

3. Just Do It

The most important thing about this trip is that it happens.

No postponing, or waiting for the perfect place or idea or people- it simply has to happen. If you find an opportunity, take it. If there’s no opportunity to take, go ahead and make it instead.

In the end, there’s no real answer or even reason to do these trips. Forget about stock photos and social media perfectionism and accept the trips never go according to plan. That might sound negative, but that’s overwhelmingly positive. That means you’ll figure it out as you go. That means, outside of having the people and general place and purpose set up (friends, hanging/drinking/eating/adventures, Toronto/Austin/Wherever)

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