Tap the Untapped - Be a Tourist at Home

Whenever I travel I am quick to pounce on the travel brochure kiosk at my hotel. I also peruse whatever maps and free information  are available at ranger stations, rest areas, state and national parks visitors centers, etc., and I've purposely visited various towns' visitors bureaus when I know virtually nothing about a place.*  But I've never tapped that resource right here in my own hometown, until recently.

Just before Christmas a new, highly detailed map of my area was published by National Geographic, the first such of this area. I was so excited because I'd heard that "this trail" hooked up with "that trail" if you went far enough and all sorts of other things about particular canyons or peaks, but I wanted something that would show me everything, in both one big picture and in the minutest detail. This map that I desperately wanted was being sold at the local visitors bureau, so one day I stopped by there with my kids.

I stopped in my tracks and marveled. Ten years I've lived here and not once have I stopped by there. I'd picked up some things here and there at a nature center, a ranger station, or the library, but here at the visitors bureau was the wealthiest treasure trove of information beneficial to learning about and living in this area (and much of the outer surrounding area and even surrounding states) and I was just incredulous that it had never occurred to me to go there--because I live here. 

So, I'm telling you. 

If you want to enrich your life at home and if you want your children to learn more of everything about where they live, take a field trip to your local visitors bureau. My daughter was just as excited as I was and we giddily brought home stacks of free maps, history, folklore, scientific information, activity suggestions, and even coloring/activity books that fit right in with our current unit study. I even had a wonderful conversation with a knowledgeable elderly gentleman who volunteered there. 

So, go! Get you to your visitors bureau!

*Yes, I know you can find almost anything on Google. But don't you get tired of everything being on a blasted screen? Give me a map I can touch and smell and lay out on a table and peruse for hours! (And can carry in a backpack to places where there's no internet.) Besides, a web search is only as good as your search words. I guarantee you there are things you'll miss because you just don't know all the things you could be looking for.