How We Plan Our Scouting Trips (Day Trips)

One of the values Teddy and I share in our relationship is a love of adventure. While we love road trips throughout the United States, we also really love exploring our home state of Pennsylvania. We love to learn the history, explore the small businesses, try local foods, and have unique experiences.

What is a Scouting Trip?

We never really had a name for them until recently. We just knew if there was a weekend day that was free, we’d plan a few stops and spend a half day or so out exploring. Recently, in a way to share our experiences with others we started to call them “Scouting Trips”. We go out and explore new or familiar areas, with a few items on our list that we want to experience.

What makes up a Scouting Trip?

Everyone’s scouting trips are going to look different. For us, there’s a few things we try to include in them if possible. We usually get 3-4 of these but not often do we hit all 5.

• Breakfast + Coffee – We try to find somewhere local and avoid chains as much as possible.
• Learning – This could be just learning about the area we are visiting, or it could be learning from an in person or audio tour wherever we are headed. Other times, we’re learning through an experience. Or, we just choose to listen to a book or podcast on our drive and that’s the way we learn while we’re out.
• Outdoors – We tend to end up hiking, but sometimes this may look like a walk, bikeride, a picnic, fishing, or touring a garden.
• An Experience – These can really vary, but sometimes the experience is a tour through a garden or a home, other times it’s an event or festival, it could also be a train ride, or battlefield or even just a farmer’s market.
• Lunch – No chains allowed. We love to find somewhere local and either dine in or take it somewhere for a picnic.

How long is a Scouting Trip?

We usually start out in the morning and come home in early to mid afternoon. They tend to be around 4-6 hours depending on where we’re headed. Some that we have planned upcoming will be a bit longer.

How do you plan Scouting Trips?

We started by just talking the day before about what we wanted to do that weekend. Over time, we had additional ideas of places to visit, and now have a list of places and suggested things to do in each area. We try to plan some of these in advance because some spots we want to visit for a specific event or season. Others are flexible so we can go wherever.

How can you plan your own Scouting Trips?

Step 1: Brainstorm – Think about what types of things you’d like to do on an ideal day. Your scouting trips could include museums, wineries, breweries, bookstores, music festivals, sporting events, car shows, biking trails, gardens, taking a class or foodie spots. Make a list on your phone or piece of paper of the various events you enjoy.

Step 2: Prioritize – Highlight your top 5-10 things you’d like to do. From there, see which are in a similar area to narrow down where you’d like to visit.

Step 3: Plan – From your list, think about what time of day these could make sense to do and plan accordingly. If you like to visit sporting events or a music festival, those may be later in the afternoon so maybe your events are from mid after noon through the evening. It’s also helpful to consider what days events are or what days the locations are open.

Step 4: Commit – Pick a date you’d like to have your first Scouting Trip. Put it in your calendar. It’s okay if you don’t get to everything on your list, but having something to look forward to in your calendar will help you with excitement for the future and get out of the monotony of the day to day.

Step 5: Future – Think about how often you’d like to do these in the future. Maybe it’s once a month, or maybe once a quarter. If it’s things you find joy in and looking forward to, determine what frequency is realistic for you. As you have an awareness of how many you’d like to do, continue brainstorming your ideas so you already have a bank of options when the time comes to go exploring!

Happy Scouting!