Damn It!

Damn it!

I just read this great piece in the Washington Post travel section. This young, intrepid reporter decided to show up to the airport twelve hours early for her flight, just to hang out in the airport for a day and write about the experience.

Swear to god I've thought of doing that and writing that (though I would not qualify as a young, intrepid reporter--more like a slightly doddering, indefatigably plucky wannabe travel blogger).

I know that my experience in an airport for twelve hours would be different from hers, but it still takes the novelty out of the execution. Which means now I am forced to come up with a new construct under which I can pretend I have a uniquely compelling need to blog something that requires me to travel to a location that I have always wanted to visit. Or have never thought to visit.

So my new travel blog idea is to pick a random city (in the US... for now) and just go there for two days. No research. No reservations. No contacts. Just a flat-out adventure with no preconceptions and no schedule.

To add to the fun (because this DOES sound fun to me!), I will impose a (loose) budget on myself so that it doesn't turn into Kim's Wild Spending Spree (which would be a fun tv show if I could get some network to agree to back it).

You might be thinking that this sounds a lot like that travel show that used to be on the Food Network-- "Rachel Ray: $40 a Day", where she went to a big city and spent an entire day, eating and being a tourist, for under $40, which was the whole goal of the show. My idea is not that. Yes, I'll have a budget (I mean, I'll really try to have a budget--no hard promises on my success keeping to it), but that would not be the focus of the travel. This would be more "Kim Explores". The  focal point would be figuring out what to do--talking to people, checking out suggestions, making decisions on the fly.

The thought of going somewhere completely unfamiliar and winging it sounds electrifyingly heady to me. Making decisions in the moment based completely on my own initiative, with no input from TripAdvisor or Hotels.com, with no pre-paid tickets to events or locations, with no agenda guiding my moves... uncharted territory for me, the consummate planner.  Which is what makes it a thrilling prospect.

I could start small. I could drive a few hours and I'm sure I'd end up somewhere interesting that I've never been. I could spend a day there--just the day--and give this unplanned madness a go and see what happens. Then it's an Amtrak. Then it's a Southwest flight. Then it's-- you can see where this is going... a trip to Italy (transparency is a virtue; I think it's in the Bible somewhere), to some tiny town too small to make the travel books.

But just the right size for me to explore :)