The story

Travel boxes are very exciting

When we were little, my parents would pack my three siblings and me in the family van to go on adventures. Sometimes we’d go on little adventures, like to Northern Michigan for the day, but other times, we’d go on big adventures, like California or Maine or Florida. We had a maroon and white 15-passenger van, “Bessie”, that afforded each of us our own bench seat on our travels, though sometimes we would convince our dad to take one out and give us a fort-making, stretch-out playing, big, wide open space in the back. All of this was great — packing up a week or two’s worth of blankets, pillows, clothes, books, games, batteries, CDs and flashlights to keep us comfortable on the road — but the very best part of the whole vacation was the travel box.

Our travel boxes were carefully crafted by our mother out of 9×13 covered metal baking pans with blue bubble letters identifying which of us each one belonged to. She’d spend weeks picking out the right assortment of things for the inside of the box and would categorize each item as an “eating thing” a “doing thing” or a “sharing thing”. All of these items, plus a few staples (for me it was a National Parks passport, a sparkly pen on a rainbow lanyard, a notebook, a book of codes I had written and a little pouch my grandmother made of old drape material to keep it all in) were carefully packed in the box, not to be opened until we got to the highway – the highway that was approximately (according to google maps) 4.3 miles away from our house. That fifteen minutes to get on the highway was probably the longest fifteen minutes of our lives, generally peppered with four little voices asking “can we open them yet!?”. As soon as dad pulled off the on-ramp, onto the highway, the lids of the travel boxes were off and we were digging in to see what treasures would occupy us for the next few days or weeks.

As the trip went on and we ate the “eating things”, did the “doing things” and shared the “sharing things”, we would be able to replenish from mom’s brown grocery bag supply of things. It was a wonderful system she devised to keep everyone happy and occupied while we traveled.

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It’s with this system as a guide that I deliver you the same childlike excitement in your very own travel box, filled with surprises and some staples to keep you occupied and informed about your next trip. And, of course, a selection of perfectly chosen “eating things”, “doing things” and “sharing things”.