Our Mystery Trip — None Scheduled in 2012

On this page, you will find...

• ...very little useful information. 

But then, that is the point. 

Our Mystery Trips always explore one of Europe’s less well-known corners.

They are really designed for people who already know us.  After all, are any of you new folk, wandering around this web site for the first time, going to send a pile of money to a bunch of manifestly odd people you don’t even know, to take you some place they refuse to identify?  Obviously not.  And if you do sign up, well, you’ll fit the spirit of things just fine.  Welcome!

Even our alums should worry.  But history suggests that they won't.  Our three past Mystery Trips have been great successes, filled with carefree people (not much to worry about if you don’t know what’s next, is there?), who were a lot of fun to travel with.  And they are certainly fun for those of us who work here :-)

There are some carrots, to go with the obvious “stick.”   As a group, you, our alums (and the people you bring with you), account for 70% of the people on our trips.  So, when we know we are likely to have a concentration of you, we are going to try to treat you well, aren’t we?  It would be dumb to do otherwise, wouldn’t it?  So, maybe, just maybe, the hotels will be a notch up from the norm.  And there might even be a special dinner or two....

Jump down the page for the...

• ...prices anddeparture dates for our one-week Mystery Trip...
• ...and links to trips which connect to the Mystery Trip.  
  
  

The History of the Mystery Trip
What can we tell you about the Blue Marble tradition that is the Mystery Trip?  We could pretend that, like the Beatles, we got the idea from British Rail’s 1960-era “Mystery Tours” (they stuffed innocents on trains and took them to random places that they would not otherwise have chosen to go).  We didn’t, but our inspiration was similar. 

The Mystery Trip was born in 1994, when we were trying to figure out how to convince people to go to the Cévennes, which we knew no one had ever heard of.  A friend observed, “well, since it won’t mean anything to anyone, why say where it is?”  So we didn’t.

We were surprised by what ensued.  The trip turned into a giant alumni reunion, plus friends and a couple of intrepid (foolhardy?) newbies.  It was our most heavily-subscribed trip that year, and a wonderful ride.  Which produced, among other things, two marriages and at least two children, to date....

Our second was an international affair, in Belgium, Luxembourg and Holland, and which served as the basis for our Northern Star trip, still a favorite.  It remains today the largest single trip we have ever operated, a raucous affair which we remember most fondly.  It only generated one marriage, but there are three children.... 

The third, most recent Mystery Trip (in 2010) went to the Jura, the mountains along the French / Swiss border.  We stayed at a winery for two nights, climbed lots of hills, saw lots of cows, and ate very, very well, in one of France’s most beautiful and interesting corners.

The Mystery Trip can be combined with the following:

Depends on the trip....