My daughter and I had our annual Girls Getaway Adventure planned for the end of April. This year we were heading to Arizona. Neither of us had ever been there and so we were quite excited about going. The plan was to spend the first few days visiting with some good friends in Scottsdale. Then we would head over to see the Grand Canyon and do some hiking in Sedona. All the arrangements were made before the Corona Virus came along and we had to cancel our trip.
While I was doing my initial planning back in late January, I ordered some travel brochures. Amidst all the chaos that went on when the virus hit, I didn’t even give a thought to the fact they never came. Yesterday (May 19) when I grabbed our mail, look what arrived. I had to shake my head and chuckle a bit. I am sure that the shipping got held up when the world shut down.
I know, I know, you are wondering why I still use printed guidebooks and brochures. Frankly, I like them. When they come, I pour over them and it gets me so excited for the trip. I usually find some helpful tips or nuggets inside that will make my trip better.
In this instance, they also tucked inside about a dozen insert cards for local tours and attractions. But my favorite thing was the additional double sided hiking map that came with it. Do you know what is great about having a separate paper map or one in a brochure? If you are out of cell service, say in the mountains around Sedona, you can still find your way.
I like to take the guides along on the trip to review during our travel there just to refresh things and give my enthusiasm level yet another bump. We utilized the heck out of our Oregon Scenic Byways brochure last year during our Girls Getaway in Portland. Some of the areas we traveled through had very limited access to wifi connections for using Waze or Google Maps. So we used several of the different maps inside when taking our day trips to the coast, waterfalls and wine country. It just feels so much more like an adventure when you are navigating by a paper map anyway, instead of having a digital voice telling you where to go.
You are probably shaking your head thinking we live in a digital world and I should get with the times, stop killing trees and use the internet. I do use the internet and digital tools as well. But I will forever love my dogeared travel planning brochures and guidebooks.
Getting the brochure yesterday made me smile and made me think about traveling again. I haven’t been doing that very much lately. So although we didn’t get to go to Arizona in April, it is one of the first trips we will be rescheduling when it is safe to travel once again. In the meantime, I can enjoy flipping through the shiny print pages of my new brochure and reading all the articles to get prepared.
Still Dreaming, Planning and Saving for our next Adventure!
The World According to Dev 