As a self-avowed lover of solo travel, I’ve taken pride for years in judging the large tour groups that travel by bus, staring down my nose at their lack of adventure and absence of “authentic” experiences. I’ve been known to roll my eyes and grumble as I see them stuff off of their buses and bumble into tourist traps, snatching up souvenirs along the way.
When I originally signed up for a group choir trip (through a church, nonetheless) to Denmark and Sweden with 35 other people from my small North Carolina town, this is exactly what I begrudgingly envisioned my ten days would look like. I felt like a hypocrite, and worried that my hard-earned money was being spent on an experience I would hate.
I could not have been more wrong.
Now, I’ll be honest. I got very lucky. I imagine 90% or more of organized trips aren’t as rewarding or fulfilling as my trip happened to be. The choir director who led the planning has done these types of trips many times over, so he knows a thing or two about how to make these excursions a success. But it was still humbling to be a part of a group experience such as this one.
Following a week of solo travel visiting my beloved Belgian family, I linked up with the group at our hotel in Copenhagen. Over ten days our group sojourned to four cities—the Danish towns of Copenhagen and Stranby, and the Swedish towns of Orebro and Stockholm—and performed a concert in each location. While we stayed in hotels for the majority of the trip, we were lucky to spend three of nights with host families from the Methodist Church in Stranby, Denmark.
Stranby is a small fishing town in the very north of the country. Unless you know someone there, there’s no real reason to ever visit this sleepy village. During a walk around town on our first night, my friend Matt inquired of his host father what landmarks there were in Stranby. “Nothing. There’s nothing here,” he replied. According to our choir director there are three restaurants in Stranby, but during my walks I only managed to find one cafe (and even then, I never saw it open). After being spoiled with patios and bars in Copenhagen, us young folks were disappointed at the lack of an evening watering hole at which to congregate.
But what the town lacked in attractions and brews, it more than made up for in its warmth, hospitality, and generosity.
To start, our host families all went above and beyond to make us comfortable. Despite a delayed, late arrival, every family greeted us on our first night with tea and coffee, homemade cakes and crackers, and other accoutrements. After a long day on the road, we were all re-energized by this first evening with our families. It was the true embodiment of hygge as we began building connections in the midsummer twilight over steaming hot mugs inside cozy Scandinavian interiors.
Great food was a consistent theme throughout our time in Standby. The chatter on the bus our first morning consisted of all the wonderful things we had enjoyed for breakfast: Swedish waffles, homemade jams, smoked salmon and boiled eggs on toast, the creamiest butters we had ever eaten—the list went on and on. Our wonderful breakfasts were later surpassed by a seafood cookout at the church featuring dozens of Norwegian salmon filets and hundreds of tiny “lobsters,” which, upon inspection seem to be more similar to crawdads than lobsters, caught right off the Standby coast, accompanied by a plethora of fresh salads made by the host families with ingredients straight from the back garden. I don’t think anyone from our group enjoyed less than two plates that evening.
On our last evening in Standby, we were the special guests at one of the town’s two midsummer festivals. Our groups’ plan was to sing a couple of songs, say a few words, watch a witch burn atop a pyre, and frolic on the beach as we enjoyed the late-setting sun.
But what happened in the field that night was more than a bonfire and music. It was a display of welcoming and community on a level I never fathomed existed.
As my roommate and I left the house to head towards the field, we were first surprised by the number of people we saw walking in the same direction as us. What, two hours earlier, had been a quiet town with barely a soul visible seemed reinvigorated with life as households began their short pilgrimage to the festival field armed with blankets, picnic baskets, and thermoses all in tow. There was an excited energy up on the ridge overlooking the field as friends and family greeted each other and the children eagerly eyed the small fires being prepped for cooking bread and pancakes.
The witch atop the pyre died an unexpectedly quick death mere minutes after one of the Scout leaders lit the bonfire, leaving myself and other group members to quickly scamper away as embers and debris were carried towards us by the ocean breeze. As the witch burned, the Scout leaders led the crowd in singing Danish folk songs, the pyre aglow and spewing embers and smoke over their shoulders.
(I would like to take a quick second to apologize to the Danish people for how atrociously we all sang in Danish that evening—it’s not easy to sing an unknown melody with very foreign words off a breeze-flapped program while simultaneously trying to watch a witch burn.)
Our group was then invited up front to sing a couple of songs, all of which went quite well given the absence of acoustics in an open field. Before being invited back up to sing one final song (yes, even church choirs can get encores), our director Kevin was asked to say a few words as the featured guest of the evening. He concluded his heartfelt comments by saying how impressed and thankful our group was not just for the warmth of the fire burning behind us, but for the warmth emanating from the Strandby community sitting before us.
As the choir disbanded, all of the group members made their way back to their host families. Sterling and Matt sat on blankets with their family while Joe and Jimmy sat up on the ridge with their family’s children. Don enjoyed a third piece of beer and rhubarb cake and a second mug of coffee with his hosts and their extended family.
I sat alone at the bottom of the ridge observing all of this for quite some time. Due to a scheduling conflict, my host family was unable to attend the festival that evening, and I wasn’t quite sure where to go or who to sit with, and I (unnecessarily) felt uncomfortable joining in with another family. So I opted to be alone for awhile and just watch the events around me.
I watched the vignette around me unfold long enough to be moved to tears. Everywhere I looked, people—group members, hosts, and community members alike—were laughing and smiling. Families feasted on cakes and mugs of tea and visited with neighbors. I watched as our hosts taught my friends and even our bus driver and tour manager how to cook the bread over the flames alongside the gleeful children (who were seemingly experts at open fire cooking given their young ages, much to my surprise).
As I sat alone admiring the vista before me and the pastel-colored sky above I became choked up as person after person approached me and offered a mug of coffee or piece of cake or invited me over to their blanket. Part of me was sad that my family wasn’t there for me to have the same experience as so many in my group did. But in hindsight I consider myself lucky to have witnessed the joy and friendship I did that night.
The beauty of that moment was rooted in watching as one community opened their homes and their hearts to another community, going beyond any reasonable effort to make us feel welcomed and even loved. As the pastor of the Strandby church worded it the next morning, our group brought out the best in his group. I think they also brought out the best in us. In just three days there were bonds forged and memories created that will last a lifetime. I saw a few tearful eyes the next morning as our bus drove away past a line of hosts sending us on our way.
At the dinner table in Stockholm on our final of ten evenings together, I asked my friends what their favorite memory from the trip was. All seven answers centered around our time in Strandby and our host families. More than Michelin-starred meals or stunning cityscapes or moving photography exhibits, our memories of this trip will be dominated by the warmth and generosity of our families and the larger Standby community.
Group travel does have disadvantages. We did our fair share of breezing by tourist attractions and quickly moving on. But this trip showed me that, when done right, group travel can have a lasting impact in the hearts and minds of group members and the people they interact with. As with solo travel or family travel, it is as much about the intent and purpose underpinning a trip as it is the destination or activities along the way.
I can easily say this trip was two of the best weeks of my life. I strengthened bonds that already existed and made plenty of new friends. I ate delicious food and imbibed on some wonderful drinks. I cried tears of laughter, tears of beauty, and tears of pain (that’s for another post).
There’s a whole world to explore out there, and I’m thankful that I’ve now seen a few more corners of it with an amazing group of people who made the experience all the better.
Another view of the Tilsandede Kirke. 
Image of the crowd awaiting the bonfire. 
Sheep graze atop WWII bunkers.
