Well folks let me let you in on a little secret...Laura and I are leaving for vacation tomorrow (Feb. 12). TO PUERTO RICO!
HOLY SHIT.
I feel better. I mean, yeah, I've been telling a few people here and there but mostly I've been keeping this trip a secret, from everyone including Laura. In fact I've flat out lied to a bunch of people. Why? Well it's Laura's 30th birthday on the 16th and I wanted to give her a memorable birthday...and the fewer people who know the easier it is to keep a secret. Plus I have this thing where I can hold a grudge(I can't help it!), this would be one of those things I wouldn't forget quickly.
So let me tell you what it's like planning a vacation in secret.
It's hard, really hard. Especially for someone who isn't used to dancing around the truth.
First off there is all this sneaking around and spending money, more money that usual. We do a pretty good job communicating our expenses too. But for reasons similar (though not on such a grand scale) to this, we both manage our own credit cards so that we can buy some things under the radar for surprises. The credit card I manage, we use for everything we possibly can so when I'm buying plane tickets over the holiday shopping season, sneaking in an extra $500 gets a little easier.
But there is more to consider than money, as if that wasn't enough of a challenge. Think about your daily life with a roommate who does everything with you. Like groceries, if you're into buying more fresh food than preserved food, you have to time an out of town trip nearly perfectly with a trip to the grocery store and include possible leftovers. This has to be casual, so as to not arise suspicion.
Another thing to think about is conversation, like oh, well I'll take care of that when we get back. No you must say lets work on that (the day after we leave) I don't feel like it tonight.
What else? Everything I do digitally is saved digitally, for example with Chrome my recent searches pop up after typing only a few letters into the search bar. Enter incognito mode (cmd+shift+n) and boom, no more saved searches. What complicates things, my email notifier on my desktop, Priceline says, HEY! Your hotel room is confirmed! in a big ol pop up after my computer wakes from sleep. So I have to be diligent with archiving E-mails on mobile before they show up at home. Oh don't forget this bonehead mistake, I left my car rental page OPEN after I came home for lunch to do some research. Not just open, but the only open tab in incognito mode with no other browser windows in sight. What a rookie. Needless to say I raced home from work that day to make sure I was the first one to wake the computer luckily I remembered. This as far as I know has been my closest call and I was less than one week out. Don't forget those things pop up on the cell from time to time too, get that shit on silent, turn off notifications and cross your fingers she doesn't look at my gmail app over my shoulder.
Another hangup is to make sure you actually CAN go on vacation. This is a loaded statement, but if you can't get the time off work for whatever reason, you probably shouldn't go. Fortunately for me I have a well placed friend and I was able to procure the e-mail address of Laura's boss. (Thanks Michelle!) She was super helpful and her HR background I imagine helped her with keeping a secret without hinting that anything was amiss.
So what about all that planning? That's the easy part actually. Trip advisor, and a few recommendations I've archived in my brain planned the trip for us. Also we have this weird thing where I can spend hours on my computer and Laura only checks in to say hi, this is not out of the ordinary. Bonus, I leave about 45 minutes after Laura every morning for work. The best part is I like to just know what there is to do, and shoot from the hip on vacations. Sometimes it's nice to know what sounds great and get some local advice on timing, or alternatives. It's worked in the past and I have no doubt it will work this time.
Bonus, secretly buying plane tickets for a secret vacation that your wife's boss just OKed while your wife is sitting less than 10 feet from you is quite a thrill.
How to cover up all this sneaking around? More on this topic in a later post but I made a fantastic 30 days to 30 countdown where my goal was to create a fantastic event where every day Laura got a card that sometimes contained a hint about a present (from me or someone else) or just a something very nice for me to do for her. This has worked in my favor because when I give her two plane tickets to a caribbean destination a few days before her birthday, she won't think something is up until she reads the date on the ticket, if she even gets to that part on her own.
Unconfirmed as of this writing but I think there may be some anticipation for something building. Fortunately for me I've been using a few well timed questions and discussions I'm convinced she thinks there will be something on her birthday, she just doesn't know how big of a what. Right now the plan is to hang out on a beach all day. That sounds pretty great.
So there you have it, planning a secret vacation is hard. But if you keep in mind all of these things and probably a million others, you too can pull it off.
Oh, if you're going to write a whole blog post about it, don't forget to either save it and post after you let her know, or schedule it in the future.
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