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La Vista Travel Club offers residents chance to get away
Picture yourself standing on a beautiful beach, sand between your toes, sipping wine as the sun sets. Or imagine biting into a tasty rack of ribs at a Kansas City barbecue festival. Or envision attending a theater performance with fellow enthusiasts in New York.
Those are just a few of many possible trips the La Vista Travel Club could soon be offering to area residents.
The group, organized by the La Vista Recreation Department, is currently gathering feedback from residents about how much interest they have in group travel and where they might want to go. The recreation department is working with Travel Leaders travel agency in Omaha to put together the periodic group travel events.
Recreation Assistant Director David Karlson, who is spearheading the group, has seen successful travel clubs first-hand in his previous work experience.
“When I worked for the City of Des Moines, we had a travel club,” he said.
Karlson said the city was constantly planning all sorts of group get-aways, from whitewater rafting to ski trips to local trips.
According to Connie Miller, sales and marketing director for Travel Leaders, the La Vista Travel Club idea is still taking shape.
“What we’re trying to do is to get a barometer of what people’s interests are,” she said. “We have a lot of resources, and we can see this going a lot of different ways.”
Miller said the idea of a travel club is most often to put together trips around common interests or passions. For example, if one group of people has a passion for theater, a trip could involve backstage passes to a big time New York theater performance, a tour of a renowned theater venue and even an acting lesson with a well-known teacher.
Miller said that travel clubs come with a number of advantages compared to individual travel. Travelers would get better rates, special features on their trips and they would also get to travel with people who had a shared interest.
“The experience becomes better,” she said. “What we want to do is provide a vehicle for travel that also hits the interests people might have, whether it is cooking, dancing or sports activities.”
Miller said trips could range from single-day bus trips to air trips of varying lengths.
Currently, recreation department officials along with Travel Leaders agents are presenting the idea to the department’s many activity groups. Dora Bitsos, general manager for Travel Leaders travel agency, spoke to the La Vista Senior Center on Oct. 29. Bitsos, who presented many different ideas to the group, found that many of the seniors were interested in traveling to Branson, Mo.
Karlson said he also has many ideas for the travel club. Possibilities include taking a train trip to the Great American Beer Festival in Denver, taking a trip to see a race at Kansas City Motor Speedway, or taking a shopping trip to the Mall of America in Minneapolis, Minn.
The La Vista Travel Club could also benefit La Vista’s youth sports programs. Miller said teams could take a sports related trip or set up a trip with special features through the club to compliment a tournament they might be playing in at another city.
Miller said the La Vista Travel Club might also be an outlet to help local families get information about planning a Disney vacation.
Travel Leaders is a Disney authorized agency, meaning they are well versed in what Disney trips are available and have close ties to Disney representatives.
By Trenton Albers, Staff Writer, The La Vista (NE) Sun
