Put a Wiki to Work to Plan Family Gatherings

Between Christmas and New Year's Eve every year, we try to meet up with cousins somewhere between New Jersey and Boston, Massachusetts, where many of my husband's siblings and their families live. Sometimes it's been just for a night in Mystic, Connecticut. But as the kids get older (the cousins span preschool to college), we're trying to put a little more thought and time into finding a fun middle ground where there's more to do than overwhelm a hotel with 19 grandkids, jump on the beds, and watch movies.

So instead of trading scads of emails as we typically do, we thought we'd try a wiki this year. What's a wiki? In addition to being a fun word, it's a web site that can be added to and changed by the people invited into it via a password. There are several free wiki web sites, including Jotspot and PBWiki. They're great for collaborating on work projects; some college professors are using them to help teach classes. I started a family winter trip page on PBWiki, which has easy-to-follow instructions, templates, and video tutorials that help you put together a page (or pages) easily.

I've posted a small table for the six families to put in the dates that work for each of them during the week, then a possible meeting point in The Berkshires, recommended by my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, where we can do some relatively inexpensive skiing and snowtubing. In short, a place where everyone can find something fun to door outdoors and in.

On one page, we can add links to other recommended places, then start a comment thread under a "Comments" section to help us hone in quickly on an idea. You can design your page with the headings or templates you choose; there's lots of flexibility.

If we have a plan before Thanksgiving, it will be a banner year. I'll let you know how it goes, and if our PBWiki helps us reach consensus more quickly than in the past.

Have any of you used wikis to plan family trips and other events? Let us know your favorite and how it all worked out.