Valentine’s Day is quickly approaching, storming towards you like a freight train. The question is: are you waiting to hop on? Or are you going to get smashed by the Valentine Train? This is how you can be your loved one’s Valentine’s Day Superhero and select the best Valentine’s gift!
Let’s put some of those lower-quality Valentine’s Day gift ideas out of your mind. And why do we procrastinate shopping for those gifts?
Or to buy tickets for a tour or event in your neck of the woods or wherever you’re planning a trip, click here to visit my Viator portal, enter where you’re going and when you’re going there in the fields, and click Search.
How Buying Valentine’s Gifts is Like Booking Air Fare
Buying Valentine’s Day presents for that special someone can be like booking a flight. Or dental work. You know you should book the flight now to get a better deal, an early bird rate. Plus you’ll have more seats to choose from when selecting your seats. It just hurts to spend money. Sure, you know you’ll enjoy the trip. Perhaps your whole family will enjoy the trip, but you’ve got to enter that credit card number and pay the bill in a few days. Plus, you have to log on to the site, search for routes and fares. It’s a little too tempting to put off booking the flight.
If you wait, though, you have fewer flights to chose from. The flights book up. You have fewer seats to choose from. The planes fill up. Planes’ seats filling up means prices are probably rising.
I’m going to tell you why to book that flight now, to buy that special someone’s Valentine’s Gift now. More importantly, I’ll let you know why you should combine the two.
How Buying Valentine’s Gifts is Like Getting Dental Work
Buying a Valentine’s Day present for that special someone can be like getting dental work. I just recently had a crown replaced. My dentist has been after me for almost two years to get it replaced.
I’m Shayne.fun, and he ain’t dentist.fun.
Dental work is uncomfortable–sometimes painful–and very expensive. It’s a lot like booking a vacation. You know you’ll feel better when it’s done. You’ll enjoy your nice smile. You’ll need that smile for the selfies you take on the amazing vacation you need to book now.
Just like procrastinating buying air fair will only make it more painful and more expensive…Well, you get the idea. This isn’t dental.fun. It’s Shayne.fun. It’s right up there at the top.
So book that airfare, unless you need that money for necessary dental work. Debt is also no shayne.fun.
Why Most Valentine’s Presents Are a Waste of Money
You probably don’t need me telling you this. It’s a big reason why you won’t pull the proverbial trigger on those flowers, chocolates or precious gems.
Why Jewelry Is NOT the Best Valentine’s Gift
I’m starting with the most difficult to convince. Who doesn’t love new bling!? Sure, your loved one will love a new stone: a sparkly ring, shiny earrings, or a shimmering necklace.
Stones are expensive, though. The jeweler will try to convince you that gems are a good investment. Have you ever tried selling a ring? You will not get what you pay for it. Unless you’re an expert and know what you’re buying and from whom you’re buying it, you’re buying high and selling low.
Jewelry can be lost or stolen. Depending on where you go, you may not want to wear that shiny jewelry. You could lose it, or someone might take it.
It’s fun to show off the ring. Like most material things, you enjoy it for a while. Then you want something else.
Why Chocolate is the Wrong Valentine’s Day Gift
Chocolates are a little easier to convince you is a lesser gift. Chocolate is highly romanticized. Not that I’m not convinced. I LOVE me some chocolate! Yes, chocolate dazzles the senses. Unless you dislike chocolate, eating it is a sensual, pleasurable experience.
Chocolate has a dark side, though. I don’t mean yummy 70% cocoa. I’m talking about the bad side of chocolate.
It’s full of sugar. You know all the reasons to avoid sugar. Yet, there are a couple of aisles full of tempting, heart-shaped boxes of this sugary confection. Don’t load your loved ones up on sugar.
It goes to waste. You wouldn’t want to eat that much sugar anyway. There are all those weird flavors with mushy fruit or old nuts. Most of them we take a bite, then spit them out in disgust.
Chocolates for Valentines are cliche. That’s a massive part of why the store has an aisle of heart-shaped boxes. It’s what everyone does, usually at the last minute, because they don’t take the time to put much thought into a fantastic Valentine’s Day gift. Doing what everyone else does will not make you a Valentine’s Day Superhero!
Giving your loved one a more thoughtful, unique, and memorable gift will make you the Valentine’s Day Superhero.
Why Flowers are NOT the Best Valentine’s Gifts
Yes, your loved one will cherish flowers. Flowers aren’t necessarily bad gifts. There are several reasons why flowers are bad gifts:
- They are overpriced.
- They die.
- Everyone else does it.
Just like traveling during the holiday season costs a premium, flowers during the holidays are demand premium prices. We could probably have flowers sent to our loved ones on two separate occasions for less than the cost of sending flowers on Valentine’s Day.
There is a crucial caveat here.
Do not let your loved one be the only person in their office who doesn’t get flowers. Sure, it’s a racket, an ugly side of peer pressure. Just don’t let your loved one be the only one. No matter how much they agree with you that flowers are a bad gift, that they’re a waste of money and will soon die, don’t let them be the only one who doesn’t get them.
My wife works in the front office of a school. She sees every gift and bouquet that comes to the school. I make sure she also has a bouquet to display. I can’t afford to give her the best or the gaudiest arrangement, but I have a nice one delivered to her.
The flowers will die soon. Then all you have is a memory like many other memories because it’s what everyone else does. Doing what everyone else does will not make you a Valentine’s Day Superhero!
Since we kind of have to have flowers delivered anyway, here’s a bonus idea. Use the card with the flowers be the way you announce the fabulous vacation you’ve purchased!
Are They Really That Bad?
Any of these gifts create a pleasant memory. They’ll (you’ll) treasure opening the box, displaying the fragrant bouquet on their desk, or relishing delicious chocolate.
But there’s a significantly better way to make memories. Together!
Why Travel is the Best Valentine’s Gift
- Experiences are better than things.
- A gift of travel is unexpected.
- The anticipation of the trip is fun!
- The memories last a lifetime.
Experiences are Better Than Things
Just as this article from Entrepreneur.com* states, we get more happiness spending money on experiences than stuff. That’s what you want from a Valentine’s Day gift. You want to give your loved one a little pleasure.
One of the reasons from the ariticle is that “experiences introduce you to a whole new world.” It’s a commonly known benefit of travel, so it makes a gift of travel that much sweeter.
Another reason is that the stuff doesn’t contribute to social relationships. Spending time together traveling, especially if a little adventure is involved, will help you get to know one another better and grow closer together. What more would you want for your family?
This Independently Happy post explains why we can’t give happiness. Still, we can at least give a little pleasure with the surprise, some diversion with the anticipation, fun during the trip, a lifetime of memories, and essential bonding during the whole process. You can’t give happiness with experience just like you can with stuff, but the reward of experiences from travel far outway the brief joy of the stuff. Especially if you eat the stuff or if the stuff dies after a few days.
A Gift of Travel is Unexpected
At least this first time. Your loved one will be expecting chocolates, flowers, or cards. Maybe jewelry. Imagine their surprise when they see the tickets or the voucher for a romantic cruise or family vacation to Disney World! You’ll be a Valentine’s Day Superhero. If you want to be a Vacation Superhero, then hire me to help you plan your vacation.
Next year, you may have to mix up the way you deliver the news of the trip you purchased. Better yet, mix up the destinations and type of trips. Your loved one will be the envy of their friends and colleagues. Even the ones who got rocks.
The Anticipation and Planning of the Trip are Fun!
Planning a vacation can be fun. Sure, there can be a little stress. What is stress, though? It’s something uncomfortable, new. Exciting.
When we started planning our first Disney trip, we were utterly overwhelmed. Four parks, two waterparks, different ticket options dozens of resorts, and countless restaurants. Friends told me it would be the most stressful and most expensive vacation we ever took.
Then a friend recommended we contact her sister, who was a Disney Travel expert. She made everything so easy for us. She helped us pick the right resort and tickets and helped us plan so that we stayed within our budget. She helped us enjoy all the fun parts of a Disney vacation and handled the stressful parts for us. (She didn’t even offer to do our Fastpasses for us.) I decided then that I wanted to be a Disney Travel Advisor. My friends Rob and Kerri helped me make that happen.
With a little help from your friends ( my friends at Creating Magic Vacations and me), you and your family get to enjoy vacation planning. You can relish planning while we take care of the hard parts and guide you to a magical experience.
While you’re all scouring Pinterest, Instagram, and your local library looking for fun ideas, you’ll all have a blast. You’ll enjoy the planning process and love the anticipation of your trip. You’ll be a Vacation Superhero! You wear the cape and get all the credit with me back at HQ watching the monitors.
We do that for all of our trips. We create Pinterest boards for New York City, Madrid, Tampa, and Orlando. It is so much more fun than saying, “Hey, remember those flowers I got you that time that died a few days later? Yeah. Me neither.”
The Memories Last a Lifetime
Flowers of lovely, but they will die. I guess you could say that, like life, they are precious because they’re fragile. Do you really want something that will die in a few days to represent your undying love and affection? At best, the flowers should carry the card that tells your loved one about the vacation you purchased for them.
You might hope the chocolate will last a little longer. If you wanted to keep it around as a symbol of your love, the chocolate would eventually go off. It starts getting this powdery white coating. It’s disgusting.
Memories may fade a bit, but a little reminder with photographs or journals will help keep the memory vivid. Taking time on your vacation to be present and savor each moment will imprint those images on your mind permanently.
You’ll enjoy recounting the stories of your travels. Facebook has a handy memories feature. It reminds you of each year of posts you shared on each day in the past. It’s fun to reshare those posts and reminisce about the wonderful times!
Most of the usual gifts we give and receive for Valentine’s Day only last a few days. The memories of travel will be something you can all cherish for a lifetime!
A Surprise Vacation is the Best Valentine’s Gift
You can stop procrastinating now. No more stress. You don’t have to be the sad person wandering through what’s left in the pop-up tent in the grocery store parking lot on February 13th. Contact me now and be the Valentine’s Superhero!
Cherish the surprise your loved one will enjoy when they see the gift. Enjoy the planning and the anticipation leading up to your trip. Get to know each other better and grow closer together. Make memories that will last a lifetime!