GOMO // 12 Ideas to Get You Walking

Eventbrite, the largest self-service ticketing platform out there (!) coined the new term, "Go Out More Often," abbreviated "GOMO," made up to counteract this other term, "Fear of Missing Out," abbreviated (betcha can't guess) "FOMO."

I don't have any, like, any (ANY) desire to go out more often, and I can't relate to this fear of missing out that people seem to have.  I've got lots of school to do these days, and when I'm not doing school, I'd like to be all nicely cooped in my house doing crafty thangs.

BUT, I do enjoy a good walk now and then, so when I started brainstorming a list of ideas, I actually got really excited about the idea of going out more often, if only to go on a walk!  Perhaps you could use Eventbrite's event management software to host your own walk of sorts, like a charity event or something!

Many people who write posts for EventBrite put "Go on a walk" as one of their listees.  I decided to  go all out with that one option.  I tried to make all of these ideas free of the need to spend any money.  However, many of these, if not all, require a good bit of time.  Also, most of these would be best done someplace with many people, and like, in a cool dowtowny place.  As I made the list, I kept thinking of downtown Wake Forest near us.  It would be so much fun to tramp around there!

Sooo, here is a list of all sorts of different walks you could go on to Go Out More Often!

• Scavenger Hunt >> Come up with a list of things to look for, based on where you're walking, and check them off as you find them!
• Word Search >> Come up with a list of words to find, words you would expect to see where you're going, and some you wouldn't expect.  Bonus if you can find words you didn't expect to see!
• Talk to Total Strangers >> Come up with a list of random and silly questions, and then go to town or somewhere with many people, and ask random people your random questions!  And then give them candy or something for their participation.
• Random Acts of Kindness >> This isn't specifically a walk, but I mean, how can you do this without walking some?  Honestly, this idea kind of scares me a little.  I'm like, "You said what now?  You want me to advance out of the regions of my comfort zone and talk to people - total strangers (again)?!"  But it's a very good thing to be kind to everyone all the time anyway, and this is an opportunity to share the love of Christ!
• Hide-and-Go-Seek Walk >> This would be a good option if you have four or five people.  Together, plan your route, and then everyone except "it" will hide somewhere along the route.  (It might be a good idea to have everyone meet at a certain place after some amount of time.  You don't want to seek for too long!)
• Not Halloween Walk >> We've never done Halloween, and I'm totally cool with that, but I still really like the idea of giving out candy to total strangers (especially kids, but I digress).  So, carry around a bucket or basket of candy (or homemade cookies?), and randomly give it away!  Even better, do this sometime not around Halloween or the holiday season!
• Christmas Light Sightseeing >> Crazily, Christmas is not that far away, and pretty soon, Christmas lights will start to appear!  If you live in or near a neighborhood where lots of people decorate for Christmas, take the opportunity to walk (or drive) around and look at them all!
• Make Someone Else Go On a Walk >> This would be a fun birthday surprise!  Arrange for a friend to arrive (notice I did not say meet) at a specific location.  Before they come, grab some sticky notes or small pieces of paper and tape, and put them up around, on light poles and the like, with directions on each for where to go next, or maybe just arrows!  Where the friend first arrives should clearly be the starting point, and the last should clearly be the end point.  At the end, have some little (or big) surprise for the person.
• Color Walk >> Make some sort of chart (or not!) and tally how many times you see each color, and then make something using however many swatches of however many times you saw each color.
• Shop Hop >> Bar hopping is where you "hop" from bar to bar, so shop hopping is "hopping" from shop to shop.  You don't even have to spend money if you don't want to!
• Draw Your Journey >> As you go along, draw any interesting, or not interesting, places you see, and label what place it is.  You could also photograph, but to me, drawing sounds better for this.
• Night Walk >> Need I say more?  Try to do it on a really light, bright night.

And there you have it!  Which of these will YOU try out?