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Do you have a favorite thing to eat? Perhaps favorite restaurant chain? Favorite drink?

Chocolate!!!

Pilgrimages are typically referred to in religious terms, but there's no reason you can't make a pilgrimage...to the home of your favorite soda, or food. Have you eaten a hamburger at the oldest surviving McDonalds in Downey, California? Visited the oldest surviving White Castle building in Indianapolis (sadly, long closed but still architecturally sound)?

The Coca Cola Corporation has a well-known visitors center and museum at its corporate headquarters in Atlanta. Hershey, Pennsylvania is an entire city and theme park built up around the celebration of chocolate. Many creameries in the upper midwest offer tours of their milk and cheese operations. And even of they don't offer a tour, the tasting room can be quite delicious.

Just a taste, please!

Many companies have these sorts of attractions for you to come, sample their wares and perhaps learn a bit about how your favorite things are made. It's a pilgrimage with benefits, so to speak.

Celestial Seasonings has a terrific tour at their tea facility in Boulder, Colorado. The SPAM Museum is in Austin, Minnesota (no, not Hawaii). The Sea Spirits Distillery on Maui has a great tour in a gorgeous setting. McIlhenny Company, makers of Tabasco, has a famous visitors facility just a couple of hours from New Orleans.

If you're a wine drinker most wineries have tasting rooms. With wineries in virtually every state there's no doubt a pretty decent place just begging for a day trip. Or maybe visiting a brewery is more your speed. Or a distillery.

The point is that we often default on the standard adventures for our time on the road. Flying off to parts unknown and head to the beach, park or other. We don't often think about visiting those places, those institutions which may be a favorite part of our day.

It's worth the trip.

(There's a terrific website, Factory Tours USA, with loads of possible tours in all fifty states.)

Samples!!!

LOCAL KNOWLEDGE

Part of living the Travelers' lifestyle involves getting to know your own part of the world pretty well. A solid understanding and appreciation of the place you live is fundamental to setting a base-line for when you're visiting other places (how does this new place differ from your own) but also gives you the opportunity to show off where YOU live with visitors.

When family or friends visit from out of town are you able to highlight some of the places they should visit while in the area? What places appeal to you? Where would YOU go if only visiting for a few days. Is there a special sight which most people don't know? A point of interest? A restaurant which "only the locals" know? A cool little shop that's just a little bit different?

These are the things your visitors might want to see, do and experience. What best represents the area and why you choose to live there?

It can help get you a new perspective and appreciation for your own locale. For how others would see it. The good, the bad and the tourist-trappy. (Remember, Rick Steves' advice is to embrace the tourist spots for what they are, and get a good mix between diving into the local scene and spending the time at the touristy places.)

Knowing your own neck of the woods and being able to show it off to visitors is a basic skill for most Travelers. After all, if we don't know where we're from, how will we appreciate what we're seeing when we're somewhere else?