What makes a good day trip? People, plans and pace.
Far too often, we’re given just a single day to make the magic happen. And by “magic,” we’re referring to as much fun as possible before the real world meets up with us again on the other side. It’s the reason that DayZipping exists, and for those with just a single day to enjoy (or those enjoying a vacation one day at a time), there are a couple of golden rules to follow in order to maximum your thrills. These rules apply whether you’re after great day trips near Atlanta or Whitefish.
1) Have a plan, but be flexible. Anyone who has flown in the past century knows that even scheduled events don’t always take off as planned. Make a plan for your day, but leave some wiggle room throughout in case you end up staying somewhere longer, or if you run into an old friend along the way. If you leave no room for error, your succinctly-planned trip could end in tears. Or worse.
2) Figure out food beforehand. It’s been said that compatible couples only ever fight about one thing: food. In order to avoid the inevitable “I don’t care! Where do you want to eat?” back-and-forth, lay out a food consumption plan ahead of time. It saves time, headaches, and possibly money.
3) Travel with like-minded / similarly skilled friends. If you know that you can’t remain on speaking terms with someone for a day, don’t expect a day trip to change it. Meshing with fellow travelers is vital for everyone’s enjoyment along the way. Furthermore, make sure that everyone’s skills are similar before taking off; a professional skier and a novice should think twice about taking to the same hill on the same day. One will feel like he / she is underachieving by hanging back, or the other will feel as if their ineptitude is causing the pro to not find enjoyment. In fact, both will probably be true.
4) Don’t do everything in a single day. We recommend not planning more than eight hours of activity in a day. If you exhaust yourself, you’ll be dragging for days afterwards trying to recoup, and frankly, it’ll leave an awful aftertaste that could very well spoil the memories that you made. If your trek is going to take over eight hours, it’s probably best to split the travel (if you’re driving, let someone ride shotgun for awhile) or tack on another day. Remember — you’re not trying to break any records here, you’re trying to make the most of a day. “Making the most” and “doing everything” aren’t necessarily congruent.
5) Pace yourself. This goes along with what we’ve already said, but it bears repeating. If you’re enjoying the first part of your trek more than you ever imagined, stay! If you keep things flexible, you can change your trip on the fly without any remorse, and there’s always another day down the line where you can finish up what you had originally planned to accomplish.
Reasons you should be day tripping
We here at DayZipping won’t pretend that having a full fortnight to rest, relax and recharge isn’t a great thing. Extended vacations, when executed to perfection, can end up being precisely what the doctor ordered. But in far too many cases, lengthy vacations can get stressful, and quick. There’s the month of planning before you leave, the mail stoppage that you have to consider, and the boatload of cash that you’ll have to burn in order to keep active while away. Hardcore travel professionals have a few tricks that make extended stays a bit easier, but even if you’re heading out for a long period of time, we prefer to take things one day at a time.
We’ve been traveling the globe for years now, and naturally, we’ve become drawn to quicker day trips. Even if we’re planted in the same place for a week or two, it’s generally more fun to break things down day-by-day. Why? We thought you’d never ask! For one, there’s the flexibility that comes with trekking in chunks. If you find yourself wiped out after a day trip to the mountains, you can simply take the next day to rejuvenate. You’re also far less likely to get burnt out by taking a handful of day trips; when each day brings a new and unexpected adventure, well… what’s not to love about that scenario?
It’s also easier on your wallet to take day trips. Extended outings can cost a small fortune, whereas day trips typically enable you to lodge at home or with friends, eat at least one meal at home and skimp on novelties that you may be inclined to splurge on if lost in a week-long fantasyland.
Finally, day trips enable you to cover more ground. It’s easy to get bogged-down when looking at the same region every single day, but when you’re able to venture out to something new and fresh each day, you get a more varied view of whatever place you’re visiting. Case in point: spending a week on the sand in a beach town may be the path of least resistance, but why not toss on your Explorer Cap and see what the inland holds a few days? Chances are you’ll leave with a much greater appreciation of the area, not to mention seeing things that the masses simply won’t bother to uncover.
Like we said, we aren’t trying to stop you from taking a month off. In fact, we’d strongly encourage it. But make sure you leave a little wiggle room in there for day trips — you wouldn’t want the trip of a lifetime to become one big blur stuck in one familiar place, now would you?
DayZipping gets group finances in check with WePay
The DayZipping team has embarked on quite a few epic adventures, including two cross-country road trips. Evenly splitting expenses has always been a source of pain for these trips — the longer you’re on the road, the blurrier the lines become, and it becomes nigh impossible to remember who owes who. And c’mon, the last thing you want to worry about is whether Derek repaid you for his half of the groceries while you’re rappelling down Mount Vesuvius. Or was it you that owed Derek?
Our initial stab at putting this problem to rest involved the creation of a group money pool. Not only did this prove to be a monumental hassle to manage, it nearly led to a knock-down-drag-out after the pool manager was accused of embezzlement. We kid, we kid — but seriously, emotions were running dangerously high. Next, we tried keeping a hand-written expense log, which worked beautifully until papers got shuffled, pens vanished and teammates conveniently forgot to stay on top of the journaling process. For a while, it appeared that sharing the financial burden of an extended trip was translating into the unwritten script of Mission: Impossible IV. Then a little birdie told us about WePay.
Simply put, WePay is a online service that helps groups collect and manage money. What’s unique to WePay is that you can have a single bank account attached to a herd of people as opposed to an individual or business entity. Once we deposited money, we were able to transfer the balance to a prepaid check card. For us, the service worked like a charm. Rather than risking a friendship, we ducked behind WePay’s payment request / reminder emails — we’d rather let a faceless machine pester him (er, “her,” since we’re protecting identities here) than create any personal friction. On the road, we easily paid for all group expenses through this single account. Combine these spoils with bank-level security and FDIC insurance, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a more painless method for managing group expenses. Yes, even you Derek.
Welcome to the new DayZipping blog
We hope you’ve found plenty of trips to fill your days with, but we understand that everyone needs a little help in taking that all-important first step. This blog exists to provide tips, advice and humorous anecdotes for getting out and exploring. After all, we’re adventure travelers at our core, and we’re here to help you focus on the best spots and show you how to do them right.
We’re kicking things off in style. 1980s style, but style nonetheless. The fanny pack is a quintessential part of any well-planned day trip, and we’d recommend having one in the trunk of your vehicle at all times. Here at DayZipping, we never leave home without our fannys — both of ‘em. If you’re about to blaze a new trail while watching the clock, the last thing you need to sweat is figuring out a comfortable way to simultaneously hold your wallet, keys, GPS, camera and / or smartphone. For you skeptics, would the man himself, Chuck Norris, rock a fanny pack if it wasn’t the right thing to do? You may get a few inquisitive stares, but a properly equipped day tripper always gets the last laugh. Always. 
Stay tuned right here for more quick tips on making your trips a success.
…and We’re Live!
We’ve just published some updates to the site making it easier for users to share their day trips. We know there’s probably a few bugs here and there and we appreciate your patience while we iron out the kinks. Overall we’re really proud of the updates and would love to hear your feedback!
Improving the trip creation experience
We’ve been working hard to past few weeks to make the trip creation process a better experience for our users. Luckily we figured out early on that the only way to do it right was to start from scratch and we’ve been knocking prototypes ever since. Here are a few features you can look forward to in the coming weeks.
Internet dropped out in the middle of creating a trip? We’ve got you covered
Trip drafts are saved early and often on so you’re feel free to start and stop at your own leisure so in the event of a zombie attack you can finish up when reinforcements arrive.
The world wants to see where you’ve been. Now it’s even easier to share
Upload a whole set of photos at once! A new interface has a progress indicator for each individual photo so those of you on dial-up know exactly how long you can take a nap before returning. You can even choose a photo for your trips album cover.
Searching destination points is a snap
Adding and sorting destination points for a trip is now a breeze. Search for locations directly on the page or drag and drop map pins.
More room to breathe when you’re flexing your fingers
We’ve opened up the publishing area to give users a better experience when writing their trip entries.
We can’t wait to show you what else we’ve been working on but we’re still ironing out the kinks. We’ll be posting some teaser screen shots before go-live so be sure to check back in for updates!
