I booked a surprise trip with a travel agency that doesn't tell you where you're going. Not having to plan was freeing, and I want to do it every year.

• Emily Davis booked two trips with Pack Up + Go: a road trip with friends and a solo one to a city.
• Pack Up + Go is a surprise travel agency that lets you book a trip without telling you about your destination.

This as-told-to essay is based on two conversations with Emily Davis, a 22-year-old nurse based in Macon, Georgia, who's booked two trips with the surprise travel agency Pack Up + Go since 2021. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I was scrolling through social media back in 2021 and saw an ad for Pack Up + Go that caught my eye. I liked the fact that the trip I could book was a surprise and that I would find out where I was going the day I was leaving. I was also in the middle of nursing school and had a super crazy schedule, so the fact that I didn't have to plan the trip and figure out all the details myself played a big role in my decision to book.

The first time I booked through them, I went on a spring break trip with my mom and two of my friends. And then I fell in love with the company and the whole idea behind it and did a solo trip with them to Seattle this past January.

The way it works is you go on their website, and they have four trip types: plane trip, road trip, outdoors road trip, and staycation. You pick one, and tell them where you're from, and the places where you've been in the past, so they don't send you somewhere you already know.

There's a whole questionnaire with a list of hobbies and activities, things that are important for you to be able to see or do on your trip. You just go through all the questions and you pick out what you like to do and say who you're going with. And then you pick your budget, and they work with that. I found the budget is pretty spot on.

For the outdoors road trip, we spent $1800 for four people for three nights. When I did Seattle, it was $2000, including the plane ticket, for five days and four nights. You pay them everything upfront and they use as much of your money as they can to book the plane, the hotel, and some of the activities. Most of the food you have to pay for.

Don't open the envelope

Some 10 days before your trip, they email you the weather forecast for your destination, so you know what to pack. Then, around a week before your trip, they send you a big envelope with a smaller envelope inside. You can open the big one, but they tell you not to open the smaller one with your surprise destination inside until right before you're leaving. In there, you have all the information about where you're staying, where you're going, recommendations about where to eat, activities, museums, and so on.

I was so close to opening the envelope before I was supposed to. I had to put it somewhere and forget it existed. But I didn't cave, and for the first trip, I opened it in the car right before leaving, while with Seattle I opened it the morning before I left to go to the airport.

The first time, we went to Polk County, in Florida. We would have never picked it as a destination and we were so confused when we opened the envelope. But we stayed on a ranch that had a rodeo on site, went on a food tour, and rode horses. There was a lot to do.

Seattle

When I went to Seattle, they had given me a list of transportation options from the airport and they had booked the hotel for me and everything like that. They had organized dinner for me at an Italian place that first night and given me a gift card for it as well. I had some really good pasta.

The next day, I had a bus tour scheduled, that took us around the city and to see a waterfall outside the city, giving us information about the history of Seattle and what the normal, day-to-day living is there. I ended up meeting some friends on that tour, so we went and rode the ferry over to one of the neighboring islands, which is something that wasn't organized by Pack Up + Go.

That same evening, they had another dinner reservation planned for me — American cuisine — and then the next day they had booked me a time at the Chihuly Garden and Glass Museum, and tickets for the Space Needle.

Everything else I did that day was on my own. On the last day, I did a donut tour that they had set up for me: I just went around the city with a tour guide and we tried donuts at different restaurants. That was a fun time for sure.

If I had been on my own, probably the only thing I would've done was the Space Needle. It's the big attraction there and it's probably the only one I truly would've known about. I ended up loving the rest of them and I was thankful that they had found them for me, but I probably wouldn't have found them myself. Especially the restaurants. Sometimes it's hard for me to try new foods.

They know about and find hidden, hole-in-the-wall places that give you a different experience and are off the beaten track, things that the normal tourists aren't finding on their own.

I've always been very into traveling and I used to be such a planner. I had to be in control of all the things that were happening and wanted to know everything. Being able to give that aspect up was freeing. I loved it. The price they charge for traveling and not having to plan is so worth it. It was everything to me, so much so that I chose to do a solo trip the next go around.