Starting this month—May 2005—you'll begin noticing a new feature on PortalWisconsin.org. We're calling it "Day Trip," and it will provide you with ideas for fun, one-day excursions to communities around Wisconsin.

We'll cover places large and small, urban and rural. What makes these columns unique is that they're contributed by guest writers from cultural organizations throughout the state. Like the rest of the site, these columns will focus on the arts, humanities and history, and many of them will be authored by writers from museums, theater companies, libraries and other institutions that make up the backbone of the state's cultural life.

These writers from Wisconsin's cultural groups are your virtual tour guides—and they know intimately what their communities have to offer because they're a part of what makes their hometowns distinctive.

We've asked the "Day Trip" writers to come up with a single day's worth of activities in their community—what they might suggest to a friend who had never visited their town before. As a result, each column is not an exhaustive listing of what there is to do in each place. For further ideas, follow the Web links provided or search the listings on PortalWisconsin.org. These columns are a way to get you started on building a fun excursion of your own.

"Day Trip" columns will remain archived on the site, and we'll add new stories periodically. We begin with looks at five distinctive communities: Madison, Mineral Point, Monroe, the Sparta area and Wausau. Come back to the site for future "Day Trip" additions.

While traveling to distant places can be exciting and enriching—some of my most memorable experiences have been on travels to Germany, England and the Netherlands—it's also worthwhile to consider how much there is to do in one's own state. Trips don't have to be expensive or involve great distances to be enlightening, relaxing or just plain fun. And there's something to be said for trips that don't involve passports, airline tickets and lots of advance planning—sometimes it's best to just grab a map and some sunglasses, hop in the car (or on a bike) and go!

If you have comments about this feature or anything else regarding PortalWisconsin.org, drop us a line at portalwisconsin@wpt.org.