You don’t have to wait once or twice a year to do a far away trip to experience exciting sightseeing, beautiful scenery, fun active pursuits & fascinating history. These opportunities are right where you are!

Gen X Travel Club is based in the Washington DC/Baltimore metro area – a tourist hotspot with curious travelers coming to visit from all over the country & world to explore our little corner of the planet. At any given time, you can watch out-of-town tourists wandering around with that wondrous excitement in their eyes as they take in all the new & different stimuli surrounding them.

It’s not lost on me that their surprising, fixated excitement is happening in my own backyard where I traverse on a regular basis. I have to say, it does serve as a reminder and keeps the following thought in the back of my mind – “wow, look how enthusiastic & impressed they seem, I should figure out why that is and investigate these apparently intriguing sights and activities myself.”

With our daily grind of work & responsibilities and routine of being in the same environment day in day out, there’s a tendency to forget how cool our own area actually is and all of the interesting & fun things there are to do & see. Your own city becomes underappreciated. How many times do you tell yourself you’re going to check out x, y or z, whether it’s that new museum or art exhibit, or historic site or iconic building, or other popular sightseeing attractions that out-of-towners have on their top list of things to see.

It’s understandable why we don’t take advantage of and enjoy the adventures lurking in plain sight where we live. I have the same challenge. What works for me is to make plans to see places with friends, which ensures the outing actually happens. If I just tell myself I’m going to see it the next opportunity that I have free time, it doesn’t happen – I’m just too lazy or find something else I should be doing.

How Gen X Travel Can Help You Be A Tourist in Your Own Town

Gen X Travel Club offers monthly “meetup” outings to explore locally. We have local Gen X Travel meetup groups in Washington DC, Baltimore MD, Southwest FL (Naples/Bonita Springs/Ft Myers), and Southern CA (Irvine metro area).

At these outings, we do our own local sightseeing to explore our community and see & do things that we haven’t seen or done – but totally should have! And sometimes, we just want to experience them again because they’re that wonderful or important and worth enjoying more than once.

Here is a sampling of the types of events we organize:

- outdoor adventures such as an urban walk-about through the neighborhoods or hiking at nearby trails with awesome views – all with the bonus of great exercise!

- visits to classic/important buildings and sites (e.g., Washington National Cathedral & the Kennedy Center in DC) as well as little-known hidden gems

- historic touring around to learn how our local cities came to be, which can be super interesting and usually lots of little nuggets of new info is learned

- an afternoon exploring local wineries, breweries or distilleries

- day tripping or weekend getaways to the mountains, beach or other scenic area

- fun active pursuits such as kayaking/paddleboarding, skiing/snowboarding/tubing

- casual social gatherings such as happy hour, lunch, brunch, dinner

Our monthly get-togethers are fun, social outings that are a terrific way to not only learn & explore locally, but also to meet & hangout with new or old friends - who are also your neighbors. You can meet many of the Gen X travelers that go on our cool, non-touristy trips. If you’ve been on one of our trips, you can keep in touch with your travel buddies and grow your friendship adding to your experiences together. If you haven’t been on a Gen X Travel trip yet, it’s a great opportunity to meet folks that travel with us and get your comfort level up traveling with people who you don’t know – yet. :) After attending a few of our monthly outings, you’ll get to know new friends. And then when you guys see a trip get posted that you want to go on, now you have new friends to coordinate with to do the trip together! You may discover you're a perfect fit with Gen X Travel!

Be a tourist in your own area. Have the mind-set of that excited, inquisitive version of yourself when you are on a far-flung trip. Get excited about the possibilities to explore. See everything as it’s the first-time, take it all in, and appreciate the fun, beauty, history of the places that are right in your backyard. Channel that inner kid in you & get in discovery mode - locally!