Would you rather travel to the Great Barrier Reef off Australia or the Great Wall of China? And, by the way, what was your worst bathroom travel experience?
These are just a couple of the questions two travel agents ask in their new board game — a game meant to keep people laughing, talking and dreaming about their next travel adventure.
Trip to Tales is the brainchild of Richmond resident Rhonda Dashevsky and colleague Kathryn Comeau-Wong, two travel agents who were forced to come up with a plan B when the pandemic all but shut down their industry.
“On March 13, we were scrambling around trying to get people back home and figure out what airlines were doing, what insurance companies were doing — it was crazy,” Dashevsky recalled about the day a vast number of travel restrictions were enacted in Canada and around the world.
“By the end of April and the beginning of May, we started to realize it was sort of set in what was going on and that this was going to be a bit of a long haul.”
But even if people can’t travel physically, they can still take trips down memory lane and dream about adventures to come, concluded the two agents — both of whom love travelling themselves.
“We didn’t want people to lose sight of their dreams and memories of their various travel experiences,” said Dashevsky.
So, the pair took a professional side road and decided to invent a game.
Trips to Tales “is an opportunity for people to share their travel stories while looking forward to their future travels and possibly adding more places to their bucket list,” said Dashevsky.
The game revolves around the players, acting as travellers who have been touring the world but suddenly realized they’ve run out of money and need to earn some to purchase a ticket back home.
Every card, which either states a challenge or poses a question, has a value that will add up and help the players earn the cash they need for that ticket home — and win the game.
Dashevsky told the Richmond News the game is not only a form of entertainment, there’s also an educational aspect.
If you come up across a place or activity that you’ve never heard of before, you’re encouraged to look it up online. Who knows, that could be your next travel destination.
When asked what travel means, Dashevsky said “it opens the mind.”
“Travelling gives you an opportunity to see how other people live and their cultures,” she said, adding that even when people return to the same place, they always learn and experience different things every time.
And while many people have put their travel plans on hold, Dashevsky has no doubt the business will return with a vengeance.
“Travel is definitely coming back — and it’s going to come back strong.”
The game can be bought online at https://www.tripstotalestravelgame.com
