Delicious Little Dials

June 26, 2025

Last week, I wrote about the three core ingredients of a great vacation: food, motion, and awe. This week—the height of last-minute vacation planning season—is about how to make the recipe your own. Whether you’re planning months ahead or flying by the seat of your minivan, you can fine-tune each ingredient with three simple dials: novelty, variety, and accessibility.

Novelty is how new something feels, and new really sells a vacation. Nudge the dial up a notch and you might end up with a (true, in my case) story of a snack schedule tied to your car's odometer; crank it to 11 and you’re sampling street dumplings with mystery fillings and trusting the universe.

Variety is the spice rack of travel. A single campground day could include paddleboarding in the morning, cloud-watching in the afternoon, and four kinds of sausage sizzling by sunset. Add in a playlist that spans a hundred years of music history and suddenly you’ve made one day feel like five.

Accessibility is the magic dial that helps everyone have a great time. It’s about adjusting for budget, abilities, and logistics, or it can even mean just paying close attention when someone's stomach shouts NOW! Maybe you swap a strenuous hike for a nature walk with a scavenger hunt. Maybe you serve picnic tacos from the trunk instead of waiting for a table. When everyone can help control the accessibility dial, it turns “that’s too hard” or "that's too expensive" into a “let’s do it this other fun way instead” adventure.

Oh, and absolutely get the kids involved! Give them some control over those metaphorical dials so you can bump up the novelty, variety, or accessibility of your food, motion, and awe together, whether before you hit the road or as you roll along. You’ll be delighted at what happens when everyone feels like a co-pilot: Suddenly, the trip becomes something everyone is shaping, not just experiencing...  turning it into a true travel party. And if you find yourself opening a glowing container of Cheez-Its, carrot sticks, and M&Ms at Mile 300 because some kid dialed up Variety on a theme...just remind yourself that it’s those tiny orange details that turn crunchy little moments into delicious memories.

—Deb