Keep Exploring Through the Community Tripsters Program

by Jennifer Pitterle | Aug 2025

iStock/SolStock

Plymouth’s Community Tripsters program offers day trips and extended adventures for adults 55 and older.

One City of Plymouth recreation supervisor, Meghan Constantini, is setting out to change the perception that adventures are only the purview of the very young. “How do we feel young?” Constantini wonders. She says, “By doing new things each day, breaking the routine and seeing new places. Traveling helps people feel whole and like themselves.”

Constantini is the city’s recreation supervisor for adults 55 and older, and she helps organize the popular Community Tripsters program, which offers local and regional day trips plus extended adventures abroad. (Although the trips are primarily geared to that 55-and-older crowd, anyone 18 and up can register, making it easy for adult children and other caregivers to tag along.)

Community Tripsters—which also includes the recreation departments of Brooklyn Center, Crystal and New Hope—has offered day trips to locations like art museums, apple orchards and other outings locally or within an hour or two of the Twin Cities. The cost per traveler is kept around $100 and includes admission or tickets as needed, coach bus fare and a meal. “People love having everything taken care of from the moment they park their car at the community center,” Constantini says. Volunteer escorts go along on all day trips to help with logistics and serve as guides.

The program’s extended trips, which began in 2023, have also been very popular. “We work through a tour operator who does all the planning,” Constantini says. “For a lot of travelers, this allows them to check off a bucket-list destination. We work to keep the trips reasonably priced so that, when people retire, they can still find adventure.” Recent trips have included a voyage to Belgium and the Netherlands to see spring tulips in bloom; an Alaskan cruise to view glaciers; and a trip to Washington, D.C., to celebrate America’s birthday. Pricing varies and typically includes accommodations, airfare, cruise fees and most meals.

Constantini says registration information also includes a mobility estimate. “We let people know whether wheelchairs and walkers are welcome, or whether we’ll be walking several miles a day, for example,” she says.

Check out the sidebar for a glimpse of upcoming trips and register soon—Constantini says they tend to fill up quickly. “It’s a great way to get to know yourself all over again on these adventures,” she says.

Upcoming Day Trips

September: Tour St. Paul’s historic Summit Avenue and peep some fall colors.
October: Take a train ride to Osceola, Wisconsin, and visit an apple orchard after lunch.
November: Enjoy a morning “coffee concert” at Minneapolis’ Orchestra Hall.
December: Tour local holiday lights, and enjoy dinner.