The Joys (and Difficulties) of Day Trips

Feb 28

Feb 28 The Joys (and Difficulties) of Day Trips

I travel a lot, or at least, as much as my budget permits. But there is one type of travel I rarely think about, and that is the day trip. Part of this oversight is practical. I don’t own a car and, honestly, I dislike driving, which inherently limits one’s mobility. Particularly in the US where everything except some cities are designed around people having cars. Certainly going to, say, Shenandoah National Park to go hiking, something I’d definitely enjoy, requires a car. All of which is to say that I’ve never really thought about day trips much.

This changed a couple weeks ago, when I was thinking about President’s Day weekend. My sister told me that since I had nothing planned for three days, I had to take a day trip somewhere. Do something fun and different. And while I don’t drive often, the nice thing about DC is there is a lot of access to different places on the Eastern Seaboard.

About 30 minutes of googling later, most of which involved looking up the MARC train system, and I’d decided and was ready to go to Baltimore – only about an hour away from DC on public transit. And go to Baltimore I did.

I’d been to Baltimore before, but really only to visit the Aquarium. This time, I decided I’d go to the Walters Art Museum, and otherwise just check out the city and walk around. And honestly, I had a great time. Baltimore doesn’t have much to recommend it – it’s another metro with some museums, largely forgettable downtown architecture, and some great food/drink options.

But, even though it was only an hour away and not terribly different from DC, it was refreshing to be up there. To visit a museum I’d never been to and eat brunch at a locals’ spot where I wasn’t a local. Even just walking through the downtown area, from the train station to the harbor and back again was nice simply because it was some place different. Baltimore is not my neighborhood in DC, and even just walking while listening to the exact same playlist felt slightly more fun.

Travel gives us all the ability to both see new things, but also exist in a different context, and that is true of day trips. No matter how similar the actions – brunch with a mimosa, walking while listening to K-pop, and looking at East Asian and South Asian art in a museum – it still feels new when you are doing it in a different place. Even a very, very similar place only an hour away. That, I think, is the beauty of a day trip. It allows us to change our context without much effort, time, or money.

Another kind of day trip, or at least a relative of it, is the layover trip. That’s when you have an extremely long layover and decide to go and do something in the city you’re stuck in. It also provides you with a mini-vacation and a change in context, albeit in a different way.

I have only done this once, and that was last December when I had a 7-hour layover in Cleveland. I took the long layover as an opportunity to visit the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame. Which, for the record, is awesome. I loved it and if I’m ever in Cleveland again I’ll go back. To be honest though, the only reason for me to be in Cleveland at all is a layover. I don’t have any family there, or any particular reason to spend a long weekend there at any point. But the layover gave been the same opportunity as a day trip would – to experience a place and see something fun and specific to there. It was a great experience and makes me more open to the idea of long layovers in random places, particularly one’s I’d never otherwise visit.

Travel, any travel, is not all sunshine and roses though. A major downside of day trips, especially if you are taking a train or need to get back to the airport, is that the whole day feels kind of like a countdown. When I was in Baltimore, I found myself regularly checking my phone for the time and calculating things like “ok, I have 2 more hours until I have to start walking to the train station.” And you have added stress if you can’t get back to where you need to go. In Cleveland I had a 20-minute fight with my phone to get the Lyft app to work (in between trying to see if there were cabs in Cleveland - apparently there are not) and then waited another 20 minutes for the ride to show up. All this made me extremely stressed when I was getting back to the airport. It worked out in the end, but it sucked when it was happening.

Day trips have the same stresses as all travel, in terms of unexpected things going wrong, but also the joy of travel in terms of seeing new things and unexpected awesomeness, be it in the form of food/drink or something you see or a random person you meet. There is also something delightful about just walking around somewhere different, visiting a site you’ve never visited before, or going to a new restaurant. And travel has the benefit of capturing the joy that comes from the ephemeral. While technically I can go to Baltimore anytime, it’s more of an investment than just going to a Smithsonian here in DC, and thus far less likely to happen.

I don’t know if I’ll take more day trips from here on out – partially just for the logistic issues posed. But even something as small as going to a very similar but different place for a few hours can help rejuvenate you the same way longer-trips do. And remembering that makes me want to take more of them – even if I have to rent a car and drive.