Virtual Wanderings

My daughter needs to compose a travel diary for a school project.
Each student was given a hypothetical sum of money (budget) and told to select their destination (somewhere in N. America), make travel arrangements, find lodging, create an itinerary for a seven-day stay at this destination and keep a diary of daily impressions, visits, etc.  Of course she has to stay within her budget too.

Without any direction from me, she chose Charleston, SC as her destination.
She found a low price airfare on a travel website and after considerable research, found a hotel with reasonable prices and accommodations - she even made a list of (actual) restaurants she would visit and estimated how much she would be spending on food.

We lived in Charleston for almost eight years in the 90s, so when it came to the itinerary, she came to me to give her ideas.  Going from memory, I started numbering a variety of places for her to visit and things she could do.  She took notes, as she was much too young to remember any of these when we lived there.  As a next step, she will continue to do her online research, find more information about each destination or activity, including any fees associated with it, and start writing about this fictional trip.

I am looking-on, trying not to interfere too much, amazed at how much information she has been able to uncover online and how much detail she is fleshing-out in her travel diary from her virtual wanderings in this place we used to call home.

Once upon a time, when I was only a few years older than she currently is, I would satisfy my desire for wanderlust by loading a backpack with my stuff and heading-off for one of the Greek islands.  The degree of planning back then was typically limited to word-of-mouth and sometimes on a travel guide that listed mostly historical sites (which I found quite boring in those days).  I am amazed at the degree of information that has been made available in the intervening thirty or so years and can only begin to imagine what the next thirty years will bring.