Creating defining moments on a trip

The best moments on a trip, defining moments, often occur serendipitously, or so they seem. You go looking for one thing and then suddenly, something unexpected occurs and without warning, your jaw is dangling, your eyes expand to Ping-Pong ball size and you’re babbling like a baby or, conversely, bereft of any words.

But these magic or defining moments don’t have to be accidental.

The Power of Moments

As Chip and Dan Heath point out in their excellent book, The Power of Moments, such occurrences can be created. Moments that are both meaningful and memorable don’t lose any of their appeal because they are manufactured. In fact, as I recently discovered on a trip to northern Italy and Slovenia with my wife, 24-year-old son and his recent bride, the intentionality put into crafting such defining moments can actually enhance them.

The Power of Moments provides a framework for these “defining moments.” Such experiences demonstrate one or more of the following characteristics:

• Elevated – they occur outside of our normal routines.
• Insight – they provide a new understanding, often an “aha” moment of clarity or awareness.
• Pride – they reflect a sense of accomplishment.
• Connection – they make you keenly aware of your relationships and draw you closer to others.

Applying The Power of Moments to a trip

In an effort to enhance our trip, I suggested that each of us take on the responsibility to create a learning experience for the others. Each person could choose whatever they wanted, but the goal was to make it meaningful for the other travelers as well. For example, I would have loved to have attended an all-day photography workshop, but that likely wouldn’t have thrilled my non-photographer family.

I honestly expected some pushback from the clan on this. I steeled myself for responses such as, “This feels like homework,” or “We don’t have time for this on our trip.” But nope. They all took it as a welcome challenge.

And here’s what happened.

If at first you don’t succeed, try cheese

My son had planned on having us all learn how to yodel. We were, after all, in the Italian Alps with Switzerland a nearby neighbor. But the timing and location of the yodeling school (yes, there is such a thing) didn’t work out. So he shifted to plan B.

In the small town of Feldthurn where we stayed for several days, he found a class teaching traditional woodcarving, a specialty in the region. But once again the timing didn’t fit our itinerary. On to Plan C: cheese tasting.

We’d passed through several regions famous for their cheesemaking. In one of these, my son purchased a variety of different cheeses. Then one evening in our rented apartment in Ljubljana, Slovenia, he had us taste four types. Our goal was to identify the flavors and bonus points if we could name the cheese. I’m not a huge fan of cheese, but he carefully selected mild ones with interesting flavors: smoky, spicy, and rosemary, for example. He explained each, provided apple slices, crackers and sparkling water to “cleanse the palette” and made the whole experience surprisingly (even for me, the non-cheese guy) enjoyable.

Of vines and blooms

My daughter-in-law presented her “experience” the same evening. She had been gathering a variety of flowers along the way, most dried already. She then used those as raw material to teach each of us how to make small wreathes of vines and flowers. It’s not a craft I’d have chosen myself, but as with the cheese, it became a wonderful creative and bonding event. In addition, on our first day in Italy, she ran across an article in a magazine about a local drink for a cold evening made of wine, apple juice and cranberry jam, all heated and mixed together. She served that while we made the wreathes.

It’s all about how we felt

Two evenings before our cheese/wreathe/warm toddy event, my wife had arranged her “experience” in the small town of Solcava near the stunning yet remote Logar Valley in Slovenia. The region is known for its production of felt. Through a helpful woman at the tourist information center there, my wife contacted a local felt artist who agreed to do a workshop for the four of us that evening. At 5:00 p.m., we showed up at her studio and soon we were taking pieces of raw wool, layering them, adding a mixture of soap and water, and rolling the wool in our hands until, as we joked, our fingers began to lose the whorls of their fingerprints. Taking soft wool from the local sheep and rolling it long enough until it stiffens is like magic. We came away with little felt sheep, a felt mushroom and a deep respect for what it takes to make felt by hand. I would likely never have bought such cutesy items as souvenirs. But because we made them ourselves, they took on much greater significance.

Booking a library

My experience occurred in Slovenia’s capital, Ljubljana (lewb-liana). I had arranged for us to visit the Seminary Library there. It was the first public library in the country, set up in the early 18th century. This isn’t your neighborhood branch public library. The few images of it I’d seen of it reminded me of something out of Harry Potter. Unfortunately (or maybe not – there’s added value to the elusive nature of the place), you can’t just show up and visit. You have to arrange for a private tour in advance. And so I did. The idea was to create an experience that would remind us all of our love for books. The plan was to immerse ourselves in this beautiful space with all the old, leather-clad volumes, ornate wooden shelves and stunning ceiling frescoes. Then, primed with bibliophilic zeal, we were to walk to a charming nearby bookstore I’d researched that carried art books and supplies, hand-made journals and a good selection of English-language books. I would then give each person a 20-euro bill that they could use to buy any book or item in the bookstore of their choosing. We’d then visit one of Ljubljana’s many riverside cafes for coffee, gelato and the chance to share about our purchases and favorite books. The whole experience seemed like a sure winner for my reading-obsessed family. Until my son picked up some bug early that morning that wiped him out that entire day. Thus, only my wife and I visited the library. It was wonderful, but not the meaningful moment for the whole family I’d envisioned.

What we learned

The library visit ended up being more of a typical trip excursion, highly enjoyable – the librarian, our guide, was gracious and wonderful at explaining the history and context, plus it is simply a gorgeous room – but because it was incomplete from the original plan, not a defining moment per se.

The other experiences, however, were phenomenal. In fact, at the end of the trip, all four of us agreed that the two evenings, one making felt and the other doing the cheese tasting and wreath making, were the peaks of our trip. Why?

• They involved elements that could only have happened by being where we were on the trip (adding to the already elevated nature of travel).
• They demonstrated effort and creativity on the part of each participant to put together an experience that they knew the others would enjoy. As a result, the connection for us as a family was dramatically heightened.
• We actually made things with the felting and the wreathes. That provided a strong sense of accomplishment and pride and gave us tangible reminders of the experience to take home.
• We learned about areas most of us knew nothing about, particularly the felting workshop. Insight was thus a key factor.
• Best of all, the very act of being intentional on a trip to use “ingredients” we gathered along the way and to design experiences that meant something to all of us, that truly helped to turn these into defining moments.

It proved to me that magic, defining moments can be planned. They can be crafted. They don’t take away from other activities on a trip. In fact, they add to them. For example, because all but the library took place in the evening, we still did our hiking, sightseeing and other activities during the day. But the events gave us something to look forward to at day’s end.

Honestly, even at the start of our trip, I was skeptical that this would come off well. I figured people would flake on doing it or that what we did wouldn’t be all that special. I was wrong. I hope to incorporate other such experiences in future trips because they add so much. They created peak experiences during the trip and then, on our last evening together, by recalling what we did, it created a wonderful end experience.

What you can do

If you want to try to create a defining moment on your trip, start by reading The Power of Moments. Understanding more about elevated, insight, pride and connection will help. Then, do a bit of research to know about what your traveling companions like and how that aligns with the specialties of the area you’re visiting. Finally, if, like us, the original plans don’t work out, just be open to alternatives. They’ll present themselves along the way and that too can add to the meaning and fun.

We’re a family that loves art and craft. If that’s not your thing, find something that is. Sports, history, cooking, music, adventure activities or any hobby you and your traveling companions enjoy likely has a relevant outlet on your trip. Just discovering what that might be is half the enjoyment.

One final tip is to focus on the details of a place like we did: cheese, flowers and felt. Find the things the place is known for then pay extra attention to those. You may find my Guide to Seeing the Right Details by Asking the Right Questions helpful in this regard. Whatever you do, make it fun. That alone will help make it memorable and maybe even magic.