“Sometimes Vix thinks when the Big Four-O comes along she’ll get an envelope from some exotic place and inside will be an airline ticket and a note — Come celebrate with me.” (Blume 404)

Summer’s end draws near. And now that almost a full year has passed, I’ve finally found the time to write about The Big Four-O Tour of 2024!

2024 was the year for us 1984 babies: we turned forty. How did my friend Hannah and I celebrate this momentous milestone, you might ask? A once-in-a-lifetime bookish vacation! We embarked upon an utterly gleeful whirlwind trip around coastal Massachusetts, where we dove headlong into our obsessions with Little Women, Salem Witch Trials history, Edward Gorey, and above all, Summer Sisters.

For over 15 years, Hannah and I had joked about celebrating a big birthday with a trip to Martha’s Vineyard, in tribute to one of our favorite and most formative books: Summer Sisters, by Judy Blume. (I calculated that I’ve read it at least 25 times, and two of my paperback copies have crumbled apart from overuse.)

A decade previously, we’d talked about the possibility of going for our Big Three-O, just as Vix spends her 30th with Caitlin in Italy. But no, we weren’t ready. Instead, Hannah came out to San Diego for a visit, and we made three Summer Sisters meals in one day.

And then, all of a sudden, our 40th was imminent. The Big Four-O is the last significant birthday mentioned in Summer Sisters. Last January, we decided that we could and would take this chance: we were going to Martha’s Vineyard together. Feverish preparation ensued. The second week of September, we left our (incredibly supportive) families at home and launched into seven days of literary indulgence.

Since we would be landing in Boston, we decided to add a few more essential pilgrimages. Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House and Salem weren’t far, and Hannah asked if we could stop at the Edward Gorey House en route to the Vineyard. What resulted was The Big Four-O Tour of 2024, aka Our DIFTP Trip (being official olds, we had just learned this term and found it hilariously appropriate for this vacation). Just about everything went so beautifully, fulfilling decades of daydreams, that I found the real world terribly disorienting for almost a month after my return. (What do you mean, I have to work instead of live in a storybook?)

I’m going to share our whole vacation plan here in a series of posts. I hope they might help a fellow nerdy traveler, especially one who’s on a librarian (or equivalent) budget. I know Hannah and I aren’t the only Summer Sisters superfans out there. For me, one of the absolute greatest things about growing up has been the ability and privilege to pursue these oddly specific interests in ways that I could only imagine as a kid or teen. We Did It For The Plot — here’s to 40 and onward!

The Big Four-O Tour Blog Series:

• Bookish Day Trips from Boston: Concord, Salem & Yarmouth — We stopped at Louisa May Alcott’s hometown, historical sites from the Salem Witch Trials, and the Edward Gorey Museum.
• The Summer Sisters Experience: Martha’s Vineyard — We visited real locations and recreated as many experiences as we could from the book.
• The Summer Sisters Playlist — I jotted down all of the music mentioned in Summer Sisters and created a playlist for our car rides. I have to say, this playlist is a total vibe.
• The Annotated Big Four-O Tour Itinerary — Are you planning a literary vacation to the Massachusetts coastline? We found it helpful to peruse other travelers’ itineraries as we were planning. Here’s ours, in more detail than you could possibly want or need.
• The Best and the Meh-est — To close the series, these are our trip superlatives!

Blume, Judy. Summer Sisters. 1998. Bantam Books, 2023.