When I was a child our family holidayed at different British seaside towns every year, we tried Whitby, Llandudno, Hastings, and once trekked all the way from Yorkshire to Torquay. One of the highlights of these happy holidays was a simple day trip on a coach. We passed a billboard that advertising ’Mystery Tours’ and in a rare act of spontaneity my Mum booked seats for the lot of us. It must have been a rainy holiday or a dull seaside town, because she didn’t usually spend cash on holiday entertainment. If we got an ice cream with a flake we thought ourselves lucky.
Of course the point of a Mystery Tour is that you don’t know where you’re going. I went on this Mystery Tour but I still don’t know where we went. I remember a scenic village and a cup of orange squash in a quaint tearooms. It wasn’t an exciting trip, but the mystery of this random day out turned it into a special day.
So, my invention for today is a club for mystery holidays. What if a group of people got together to swap holidays? Set a date, choose a holiday, then throw your adventurers hat on and enter a holiday lottery with the other swappers.
If you wanted to work out dull details you could say the holidays had to be of roughly the same value. I prefer getting some holiday company sponsor to add an expensive holiday prize, then you could have holidays worth any amount with more holiday lottery tickets for those who bought a more expensive holiday. The draw is done and you might get a week in Australia or a week in Rome. But does it really matter about cost when they’re both such exciting places to visit?
The one important lesson I learned on my random seaside holidays as a child was that any holiday is fun. It’s the anticipation, the mystery of a new place, and the good times spent with loved ones, that’s what makes any holiday special.
A nice holiday memory and a good idea!