Jody and I really struggled to pick a place for vacation this year. Between being uncertain of travel and regulations due to the pandemic, and work keeping us extremely busy, planning a trip for our anniversary took a bit of a backseat. It didn’t help that we couldn’t narrow down a place to visit – our ideas were either too hot for the last week of June or too much effort to plan than we had time for. However, one of the ideas was a surprise trip, in which the destination would be a secret until you depart for your trip. I LOVED this idea but wasn’t sure that my planner-self could let go enough to have someone else control how and where we would spend our week. I kept this thought in the back of my mind but figured I would just take care of planning a trip.

As we inched closer and closer to our anniversary with no trip booked, I revisited the idea of having someone else plan and book a trip for us. The idea of not having to plan anything intrigued me – while I love planning the details for a vacation, I loved the idea of taking a little off of my plate. Jody, on the other hand, was all for it. He dreads the planning aspect of travel and is perfectly content knowing as few details as possible. The more we thought about it, the more we wanted that arrive at the airport with no idea where we were headed, so we decided to let go of all control and booked our surprise trip with Whisked Away.

To book, we had about ten minutes’ worth of work before turning it over to Charlotte McGhee, the founder of Whisked Away. She offers several different packages that we could choose from, rooted around the region and mode of transportation. Since international travel hadn’t completely opened up yet, we opted to travel within the United States via plane. From there, we had a short survey to complete, which included questions about what kind of activities we like to do when traveling if we’d prefer to have cheaper or direct flights, the ideal weather forecast (which makes me giggle – I wish that could be controlled!), and places we would like to avoid on our trip. This helps Charlotte curate the perfect, customized itinerary just for us!

On our survey, we said that we enjoy visiting National Parks, walkable cities, and spending time near the water. We also mentioned that we were hoping to avoid hot and humid locations and like to spend our time trying local cuisine and hiking. While we try to keep an open mind of where could possibly be sent, we did list a few places we didn’t want to go, like Kentucky and Coast Maine, mostly because we had recently visited.

After completing the survey, we were done! It was such a strange feeling to have nothing to plan or prepare. All we had to do was wait. Two weeks prior to departure, we received a packing list and forecast from Charlotte, as well as our flight time. We were informed we need to pack hiking clothes, comfortable clothes (including layers) to walk around town in, as well as a nice outfit for an evening out. These details helped us prepare in terms of what to bring, and also gave us a few hints about what we might be doing! A week later, we received the envelope in the mail with our surprise destination and itinerary, but we have to wait until we arrive at the airport to open it!

Trying to guess our destination has filled the last few weeks of waiting, and we are anxious to find out! My original guess was somewhere west, like Wyoming or Montana, while Jody thought we were headed to Arizona. After receiving our forecast, however, I think we are headed for the Pacific Northwest, specifically Seattle or Spokane, Washington, and Jody thinks we are going to Colorado. We only have to wait a bit longer to find out because in less than 24 hours, we will be on our way to who knows where!

As our departure inches closer and closer, the anticipation and excitement increase. I cannot wait to rip open the envelope tomorrow morning and be whisked off to our destination. Feel free to follow along on this adventure – I will be sharing our destination, along with our travels on Instagram!