By: Stephanie Reynolds
HELLO my fabulous neighbors! I hope September was a wonderful month for you!
I wanted to give y’all an overview of what we did for our beach trip. Please take some of these ideas and make your next vacation (even if it’s just a staycation) fun and exciting and memorable. I think it is important to make your staycation as deliberate and memorable as a vacation (ooo…! Do I sense a future article? Why, yes, I believe I do!)
I mentioned lagniappe in Part 1, so let’s dive deep in that. Budget is a concern, of course, so I got things inexpensively. I shopped locally as much as I could and then ordered what I needed to.
Each of us got our own beach bag. Each bag had lots of pockets which I filled with: comfy shoes for a quick trip to the lobby, two sets of water shoes, a beach towel that “fits” each personality (Sort of. Mine was a bizarre “Star Spangled Tomato” thing. Not sure what that says about me, to be honest.), mini puzzles, face/skin/hair treatments to include Korean face masks, floating chairs, a gift card for snacks, cheap sunglasses, a hat, lip balm, tumblers, bright plastic flower hair clips, an inner tube, goggles, journal and pen, etc.
I cleaned my truck (the first part of the experience was a clean farm truck) and I decorated the inside with paper flowers, a Chinese lantern, and various tropical signs and cut outs.
I got cheap tin boxes and filled them with candy and gum for the car rides. THAT was awesome. It was a super inexpensive way to add some fun on the way there.
I used bins instead of suitcases. They stack, you can fit a lot, and when we got to the condo, they were easy to load onto a cart and take upstairs. I normally tend to use a suitcase, but then need several smaller bags for miscellaneous, and this worked so much better.
We had already calculated the time, but I highly suggest double checking your GPS. I am still not convinced the route we took was the quickest. We ended up getting there later than we intended and by the time we checked in, got groceries, and came back, it was dark and we were exhausted! If we had left earlier, we could have enjoyed a more restful first evening.
I don’t know if you remember, but a while back I wrote an article about how to enjoy the trip even if you are sick. Welp, you guessed it, one of us succumbed to some sort of crud—sniffly, feverish malaise. Now, “salt water, fresh air, and sunshine” is a great treatment for a cold, but her being sick did mean we couldn’t go out to the one nice restaurant we had planned on as we didn’t want to share germs and ruin other peoples’ vacations. But my amazing daughter-in-law, who had been the one to want a nice supper out, suggested we just dress up all pretty and eat in the condo, and that’s what we did! Honestly, it was more pleasant to eat by the ocean than in a noisy, crowded restaurant.
Let’s see, what other tips can I think of? Well, we had a Starbucks on the property, but they did not take the Starbucks cards I bought for the ladies because they were not an official store, just sold the coffee. I am glad I found that out before they tried to use theirs!
I liked the drivers in Florida but not the gas prices! WOW! I tried to eke my way back to Alabama for some cheaper gas.
I also loved the water. The fish were honestly so friendly! There were schools of blue-silver striped fish that swam right around us on their way down the coast. There were little fish that hung out at our feet, following us around, to eat whatever we kicked up from the sand. There were tiny hermit crabs and even a live sand dollar! As we walked a very long way to the pier from our condo at night, we saw schools of some type of ray, silent and shadowy in the dark, which delighted us no end.
I highly recommend making one of your first stops at the Tourism Office wherever you are going. Those offices will know of deals, coupons, events, and other things to make your trip amazing.
The biggest tip for making a trip wonderful is to not expect perfection. Expect that it might rain, be cold, be sneezy. Expect forgotten swimsuits and lost shoes. Expect things to be a little more expensive or closed for repairs. If you do, you keep your mind in a spirit of adventure instead of “If it’s not perfect, it’s terrible.” Instead of being tragic, bumps and oopses become opportunities to laugh, pivot, and make unexpected memories. Indeed, the most “perfect” trips can be the ones where nothing right happened at all, but you were with your loved ones and y’all survived and thrived together.
Don’t forget the Cemetery Stroll on Sunday the 4th of October at the Athens City Cemetery and the Storytelling Festival on October 22-24!
By: Stephanie Reynolds, Athens-Limestone Tourism Association
