Plan a Day Trip. Full Adventure in a Day.

Updated April 13, 2024

Why? Because there is nothing like a quick week DAY getaway! With everyone else working and the kids in school, it leaves time for uninterrupted exploring and bonding.

If you plan it right, a weekday trip can feel like a mini vacation, full of adventure.

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Planning is essential to make good use of the limited time. Here’s how to do it…

Plan a Day Trip: How much time do you have?

Knowing exactly how much time you have is essential. For us, this is easy. We can leave after I drop my son off at school. And we need to be back when he gets out of school. So we have from 8 am-4 pm. How much time can you spare?

Plan a Day Trip: How far can you go?

This can vary depending on your preferences. I don’t like to spend more time driving than exploring. So we set the driving limit at 2 hours, one way. That would be a max of 4 hours of driving, with 4 hours of exploring.  How far can you travel?

Plan a Day Trip: your cornerstone activity

Next is deciding on the main activity of the day. Since we are currently visiting all 52 Arkansas State Parks, we would just pick a park to explore. But we have worked our way through all of the parks within a 3-hour distance.

Now I pull up Atlas Obscura, which will scan a radius around me and find unique attractions. You can also scan through The Best Outdoor Date Ideas: Summer Edition, Top 10 for ideas. What is it you want to see or do?

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On our last trip, we decided to visit Mister Ed’s grave (“A horse is a horse of course of course”….. Yes, that one). Depending on how much time we had left, we would pull up Atlas Obscura again to see if there was another attraction within a close radius of that location.

Plan a Day Trip: Verify Days/Hours of Operation

Exploring on a weekday, especially on a Monday, has its disadvantages. For our last trip, our initial plan was to visit the remaining state park within a 2-hour drive of home. After arriving, we found it was closed on Mondays.

So we pulled up Atlas Obscura and found Mr. Ed’s grave. But after visiting Mister Ed’s grave, we found our next 2 Atlas Obscura sites were closed (despite Google assuring us it was open).

Check Google, websites, and/or call the location you are visiting before making the drive there.

Plan a Day Trip: Dress For the Occasion

It’s important to know the weather forecast if you plan on playing outdoors. We spend a lot of time exploring the outdoors.

Layers of clothes, hats, gloves, jackets, sunglasses, rain jackets, sunscreen, etc may be on our packing list depending on the time of year.

Eat Breakfast and Pack for the Day

Start the day on a full stomach, and pack supplies for lunch. We usually make sandwiches and pack a few snacks, along with plenty of water.

Other than clothes, I may pack a backpack and boots if hiking is a possible activity for the day. 

Plan a Day Trip with Atlas Obscura

Atlas Obscura does a good job of giving information on the attraction and a “Know Before You Go” section.

For example, Mister Ed’s grave marker is on private land and sits on an awkward corner, making it easy to miss. But with the information from Atlas Obscura, we had very little trouble finding it.

Despite arriving at 3 closed locations, this day trip went well with the use of Atlas Obscura giving us activity ideas.

After visiting Mister Ed’s grave site, we roamed the streets of a small downtown at Christmas time, played dress up in a hat store, and accidentally found a castle (“The Franklin Castle House”).

This was the perfect weekday date of random adventure that we love. Use these steps to help plan your next weekday adventure and leave a comment letting us know how it went!

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