The Task: A favorite aunt and her two children from another state will be visiting your family for a two-week vacation. They want to spend one full week of their visit exploring Minnesota. It is your (the students') job to prepare a one-week (seven-day) travel itinerary that will show off the best and most interesting places in our state. The written itinerary must provide a day-by-day plan showing the cities, attractions, activities, and landmarks (with brief descriptions) to be visited as well as travel times, routes, and mileage (See example). Students must also locate and label all cities and places visited on a blank Minnesota map and draw in and label the roads they would need to travel in order to reach them.

Guidelines:

• Travel itineraries must include visits to at least 15 different places (attractions, landmarks, or activities) chosen from the lists provided (you may choose to visit as many additional places and take part in as many additional activities as you can squeeze into your trip).
• You must include at least two places from each of the four regions of Minnesota as described by the Minnesota Office of Tourism (Metro, Northeast, North Central/West, Southern )
• No more than three days can be spent in any one of the four regions.
• No more than six hours can be spent in the car (driving) in any one day.

Assumptions:

• Your trip will take place during the summer , so assume the weather will be wonderful!
• You will be traveling by car. Use a Minnesota map or a web page such as freetrip.com for distances between cities/towns. For estimated driving times, assume an average of 70 mph when driving on I-94, I-90, or I-35. Assume an average speed of 55 mph for all other roads.
• Your visit to an attraction, landmark, or your activity will take at least the amount of time indicated in the list. Travel time between places in the same town is 10 minutes in Greater Minnesota (out of the Twin Cities) and 30 minutes in Minneapolis or St. Paul.
• Your day can start as early as 7:00 am with breakfast (allow at least 30 minutes for breakfast).
• Assume that no attractions open before 9:00 am.
• You must include times for lunch (at least 45 minutes) and supper (at least 60 minutes) in your daily itinerary.
• You cannot start a visit to an attraction after 6:00 pm unless you are attending an event that you know occurs during the evening (such as a Minnesota Twins' or St. Paul Saints' night baseball game).
• You must start your supper no later than 8:00 pm.
• Allow 15 minutes for checking into a hotel and 10 minutes for checking out.