When it’s time to get away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life, there’s nothing better than a vacation. And while most people think of a vacation as a long trip, sometimes a long weekend away is just what you need to escape and to explore a new Margaritaville Vacation Club destination. Plus, the shortened time makes it easier to plan — especially for those spur-of-the-moment occasions. Whether flying or driving, here are five travel tips to keep in mind for the perfect weekend getaway.

1. Do Your Research

Since you’ll have just a couple of days to explore your destination, making sure to do some homework ahead of time is key. Check out the neighborhood around where you’re staying as well as what some of the “must-do” activities are. Get a sense of travel times between your home base and some of the things you want to do so you don’t end up crisscrossing all over town.

This is also a great time to see if you need to buy any tickets or make reservations in advance for anything. Check to see if there are any events happening that you may want to attend — from a farmers market to a festival. Or, search for your destination on your social media channel of choice to scope out local eateries and tips from locals.

2. Pack Light

A lot of us are guilty of over packing. But when going on a long weekend trip, the last thing you want to do is haul a ton of luggage with you. Pack separates that are easy to mix and match so you can create a few outfits out of some key pieces. An easy method is to stick with neutral colors with a few pieces to add pops of color. Keep an eye out on the weather forecast too and plan accordingly to avoid having to buy a sweatshirt for an unexpected cold snap or a raincoat for a rainy day.

3. Stay Flexible

With so little time, it may be easy to quickly book up your entire day with meals, shopping, entertainment, and more, leaving you exhausted at the end of the day. Have a rough idea of what you’d like to do and see each day, with time to explore without being tied to a schedule. This also allows for some flexibility should you have to contend with any unexpected weather or a change in operating hours for an attraction.

4. Talk With Locals

Whether it’s your Margaritaville Vacation Club resort staff or the barista at the corner coffee shop, ask locals for their recommendations. Oftentimes you’ll learn about some great off-the-beaten path restaurants and hangouts that the typical visitor may overlook. Locals love showing visitors what makes their city unique, and you can get a really unique feel for the local culture by frequenting their recommendations.

5. Unplug

It’s not a weekend away if you take work with you! Take your weekend getaway to disconnect from your day-to-day, and reconnect with your loved ones. Leave the work laptop at home or turn off the notifications for your email. If you’re traveling with the people who contact you most (like family), designate only one person to have a phone with them to keep everyone else free and notification-free. Need a tech-free way to remember your trip? Keep a written journal during your trip and fill it with all the fun things you did.

In Bike & Hike tours, some sections are covered by mountain bike, while others are climbed on foot. In this way, you can get even more from your mountain adventure. Several miles of forest roads with a moderate gradient? Clearly too boring to walk! But on your bike, you can get there fast and finish the trail in record time. Steep and rough trails, however, should preferably be conquered on foot. To ensure that your combination of mountain biking and mountaineering is a complete success, just do three checks in advance:

1. Technology check: safety first!

On Bike & Hike tours, you need to be able to rely on your bike. That’s why it’s important to give it the attention it deserves. So take your time before hitting the road to check its technical functionality.

• Brakes: Check the braking power of your bike. Just glancing at the pads can give you a first impression of the general condition.

• Gears: Check the settings of your gears. A damaged rear dérailleur significantly affects your comfort and safety while riding.

• Tyre pressure: Adjust the pressure according to the load on the tyres. The permissible pressure range of your tyres is marked on the outer side.

• Tread depth: Prevent slips and falls by having sufficient tread depth on your tyres. Therefore: If the lugs in the middle are visibly worn off, a new tyre should be used.

• Lights: Especially with rechargeable or regular battery-powered lights, you should think about replacing them or having a charging option.

2. Outfit check: Dressing well has to be learnt

The date is set for your Bike & Hike tour, and you check the weather forecast daily. One thing’s for sure: One or two showers are coming. And then there’s the combination of mountain biking and mountaineering. The right clothingis essential here. The multilayer principle has proven itself:

• BASE LAYER: This lies directly against the skin and transports sweat towards the outside. Suitable underwear is the starting point for permanent comfort. With their removable gel pad, these breathable boxers are ideal both for descents by bike and trails on foot.

• MIDLAYER: This serves as a warming insulating layer. Light, elastic and highly functional materials are used.

• SHELL LAYER: This is adapted depending on the place and type of use. It insulates, protects against sun, water and wind and must be extremely hard-wearing. The JACPACK BAG, which transforms into a protective rain jacket in seconds, is the ideal shell layer: Storage space meets rain protection.

Hiking boots on your feet are equivalent to the tread on your tyres. Sturdy footwear ensures your safe footing over rough terrain.

3. All-round check: Equipped for every eventuality

Whether you’re in the Dolomites, the Ötztal Alps or the Großglockner, the following items should be on your packing list:

• Bike lock: While you’re ascending to the summit on foot, you shouldn’t need to worry about your bike. Safely locked at the hut, it waits for your return.

• Helmet: Opt for a space-saving helmet model. The climbing helmet also protects your head while cycling, making it suitable for biking and hiking alike.

• Spare parts: A flat tyre on the road should not mean the end of your tour! Pack an extra tube or repair kit and the right tools.

• Food supplies: Even though the next hut isn’t usually too far away, you should always have enough water and a small snack with you.

Adapted to your personal level of performance, you can now relax while enjoying your Bike & Hike adventure.

Canada is a country that has much to offer visitors, from island sights to scenic mountain waterfalls. Stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific coasts, this former French and British colony has a rich heritage from the North Coast Indians of British Columbia to the French explorers of Quebec. Since both French and English are the national languages, a visit to Canada is like visiting two countries. Indeed, Canada has appeal for travelers who are interested in nature and cosmopolitan cities. An overview of the top tourist attractions in Canada:

10. Gros Morne National Park

Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland is important to the world, geologically, because the ancient rocks help people understand how the oceans and continents were created. The park is a nature lover’s paradise featuring lowlands along the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the alpine setting of the Long Range Mountains.

The park is popular with wildlife viewers who’ll see everything from tiny songbirds to giant whales; black bears, moose and deer are common. Most visitors come here during the short summer season. The exception is the peak winter season (from February to April), when the park experiences another mini-boom in snowmobiling and cross-country skiing.

9. Calgary Stampede

The Calgary Stampede, one of the most famous rodeos in the world, traces its origins back to the traveling wild west shows of the late 1800s and early 1900s. The Stampede has grown over the years, today attracting the best cowboys in the world who compete for $2 million in prize money.

Other activities include live concerts, a carnival, lots of food and dancing as this Canadian city hosts the best in the west. A 4 km (2.5 mile) parade opens what Calgary calls “the greatest outdoor show on earth”. The 10-day event is held every July.

8. Victoria’s Inner Harbour

Victoria’s Inner Harbour on Vancouver Island is a cool place to visit. There’s the water on one side and stately government buildings on the other since Victoria is the capital of British Columbia. The city hosts a classic boat festival on Labour Day in September, with the harbor filling up with wooden boats.

Visitors can also navigate the harbor on kayaks or tour boats. Take time out to have a traditional British tea at the Empress Hotel, a Victoria landmark since the early 1900s; it’s right across from the harbor.

7. Bay of Fundy

The Bay of Fundy, located on the Atlantic coast in eastern Canada, is famous for its high tidal range. Because of the unique shape of the bay, the difference in water level between high tide and low tide can be as much as 16 meters (52 feet). One of the best places to watch the tides are the Hopewell Rocks, a number of sandstone towers topped by trees. The base of the rock formations are covered in water twice a day and can be seen from the ground level at low tide.

6. Athabasca Falls

Jasper National Park in the Alberta province is the largest of Canada’s Rocky Mountain Parks boasting broad valleys, rugged mountains, glaciers, forests, alpine meadows and wild rivers. One of the top attractions is Athabasca Falls, a beautiful waterfall that thunders through a narrow gorge.

Even when the water level in the upper Athabasca River is low, huge quantities of water pour over the falls. Several viewing platforms and trails where it is safe to photograph the picturesque scene are located around the falls. Motorists can cross over the falls by taking Highway 93A into the town of Jasper.

5. Churchill

It may only be a small town of 1,000 residents in the Manitoba province on the Hudson Bay shore, but Churchill draws huge crowds every year to see its most famous inhabitants, the polar bears. Nicknamed the “Polar Bear Capital of the World,” it is one of the top tourist attractions in Canada. In addition to polar bears, Churchill is also a popular place for viewing beluga whales, birds and the aurora borealis.

4. Niagara Falls

Many Americans think of Niagara Falls as being only a waterfall in the United States, namely New York, when in actuality, Niagara Falls is three falls on the border between the United States and Canada.

Horseshoe Falls is the largest falls and is located mainly on the Canadian side, while the smaller American and Bridal Veil falls are mostly on the U.S. side. Combined, the three falls have a higher flow rate than any other in the world. About 20 million people visit here annually, with many of them taking a boat ride on Maid of the Mist, the falls’ oldest attraction.

3. The Canadian

Travelers looking for a relaxing way to cross Canada may want to consider the train, in this case, the Canadian. Connecting Toronto and Vancouver, this is one of the world’s more famous train rides, traveling through the lakes of northern Ontario, the prairie provinces and the Canadian Rockies including Jasper National Park, to end at the cosmopolitan city of Vancouver. It takes 3 days to cover the 4,466 kilometers (2,775 miles) connecting the two cities. Via Rail recently spent $22 million modernizing the train.

2. Vieux-Quebec

Vieux-Québec, or Old Quebec, is an historic district in Quebec City. This is where the French explorer Samuel de Champlain founded Saint Louis Fort in 1608. The military presence here was strong under both the French and the British, with the area being heavily fortified. Today it is a tourist district with many small boutiques and hundreds of historical and photographic points of interest.

Visitors will want to take in the Citadel, known as she “Gibraltar of the Americas,” because of its strategic location overlooking the St. Lawrence River. Visitors also will want to take in the iconic Chateau Frontenac, and enjoy the charm of European style shopping on Rue Saint Jean.

1. Moraine Lake

Moraine Lake, in Banff National Park is one of the most photographed places in western Canada. This glacier-fed lake is a gorgeous blue-green surrounded by mountains in Alberta. It’s located in the Valley of the Ten Peaks at an elevation of 1,885 meters (6,183 feet). The Rockpile Trail is popular with tourists who snap their photos at its end.

At one time this alpine lake was featured on Canada’s $20 bill, earning this site the nickname of Twenty Dollar View. Other hiking trails offer spectacular views of the lake; visitors can get a different view by canoeing in it.

It has already become a fact of life that, aside from having fun and collecting positive memories, traveling has a way of enhancing a person’s quality of life. However, several objective studies also confirmed that traveling also enhances the quality of a person.

A research commissioned by the US Travel Association has confirmed that the exposure to an unfamiliar environment jumpstarts a person’s overall mental performance. Hence, these mild waves of ‘fight or flight’ adventurer stimuli encourage the top 5 areas of mental performance:

Spatial Intelligence

Traveling requires a good sense of direction. For better or worse, the misadventures of getting lost or going around in circles within the foreign territory develops that innate mental compass. With enough exposure (say, three months), a person can move around the unfamiliar ‘concrete jungle’ with relative ease.

Enhanced Ingenuity

In a study conducted by a professor at Columbia Business School, people who experienced long exposure to foreign cultures are more creative than their insular peers. After all, it requires a serious degree of flexibility to accommodate more than one type of society – to think outside the box, per se.

Interpersonal Skills

As an extension of ingenuity, traveling also allows individuals to effectively deal with people within the vast cultural spectrum. In fact, being able to turn on the same page with assorted personalities is (arguably) the most crucial career-oriented trait gained of all the top 5 ways traveling makes a person smart.

Knowledge Expansion

Whether it is practicing new useful skills or updating academic trivia, traveling is the ‘textbook and classroom lecture on overdrive.’ Literature provides second-hand knowledge about things that originate in other places. Traveling, however, allows explorers to acquire detailed knowledge via the original source.

Numerical Acumen

Traveling, particularly one that is done solo, entails a gruesome day-to-day logistical assessment. Making every second and every penny count becomes a natural chore of every avid traveler. Simply put it, traveling forces one to do the math on an hourly basis.