Wes and I are always looking for ways to escape the hustle and bustle of the city for a slower paced lifestyle on the weekends. Just a quick road trip away, we’re able to find peace and serenity out west, in the more rural parts of Virginia. There’s no better feeling to me than when we hop in the car on a Friday night with the pups and drive into the sunset.
Our weekend getaways are so, so important to us. They’re the perfect way to recharge and reconnect. I like to think we’ve found a knack for finding the most special places to visit in our area, we’ve found so many good ones! I’ve been extra excited to share our latest discovery with you, Getaway House.
Getaway reached out to me at the end of last year and invited us to experience one of their quaint, tiny houses in the woods. Getaway is super unique in that they don’t reveal the exact location of your house, or where you’re even going, up until the week before your trip. All you know is that your getaway experience is located less than two hours from the city, surrounded by nothing but nature, and equipped with everything you need for a relaxing weekend away. I love that they’ve taken out the question of “Where should we go,” and all the Google mapping we sometimes get caught up in when planning a trip.
To me, it’s not as much about where you’re going, but who you’re with along the way.
The simplicity of the Getaway House felt so freeing, if that makes sense. It’s crazy to realize how much physical things can actually weigh you down mentally. The quietness and simple nature of the Getaway House allows you to spend more time with yourself – Something, I’m sure, we can all benefit from every now and then. On the Getaway website, I love how they describe the experience as one that will “challenge us to rediscover the pleasure of boredom.”
During our stay, we never really paid any attention what time it was, we just based our day off of how light or dark it was outside. So these are just my estimates, but here’s what a typical day looked like for us during our Getaway stay:
8AM: We’d awaken to the sun beaming in through the floor-to-ceiling window located at the foot of our bed. I loved that window!
9AM: With nowhere to be, we would take our time to wake up, until one of us brewed two cups of the Getaway-provided, pour-over coffee. Pour-over coffee is so delicious and almost feels therapeutic to me but it’s not something I would ever have the time to do at home. So I happily took on the burden of this daily task for us.
10AM: Wes, equally as happily, took on the duty of starting a fire. Each Getaway house has its own fire pit and firewood available for purchase. We would sit by the fire with our coffees, talking and watching the pups play.
12PM: After breakfast Wes would work on keeping the fire going and we’d set up for some leisurely activities like reading and games. The Getaway house has cards and a Bluetooth speaker, we also brought our favorite two-player game as of lately, Backgammon.
3PM: Nap time. What a treat this was! But, if it wasn’t snowing, we would have explored one of the nearby hiking trails. We will when we go back this summer, in search of waterfalls!
4:30PM: We would take the dogs for a walk and then Wes would restart the fire while I prepared us some afternoon “aperitivo” – Light snacks, a glass of wine for me and a beer for him.
6PM: For dinner, I warmed up pre-made sweet potato gnocchi for us with chicken sausage on the stove and assembled a bagged salad. However, the Getaway House provisions basket had some delicious looking gourmet pasta and pasta sauce that I wouldn’t have minded eating either.
7:00PM: After the dishes were all cleaned and put back in their designated spots in the tiny house, the fire was put out, and we would jump right into our pajamas. At home, I’m never in my pajamas by 7PM, so this was such also such a treat too.
The rest of the night would entail some good music, good conversation, a good bottle of red, and just enjoying how truly relaxed and rejuvenated we both felt. It wasn’t until after our trip when I really understood the meaning of the Getaway house. It’s an escape, but also a discovery. With nothing to do while you’re there, Getaway House was a perfect way to disconnect and recharge, to embrace boredom, rediscover something you forgot about yourself or learn something entirely new.
If you’re planning a trip of your own to a Getaway House (in Virginia, Boston or New York) and have any questions about what to bring, what to wear, what to do while you’re there, or anything else you’re want to know for planning your Getaway, you can comment below, email or message me on Instagram!
