The quote “It doesn’t have to be fun to be fun” was on our minds as Kim and I prepared for a recent trip. Kind of a funny idea. You’d think that to have fun, you’d have to constantly have fun. When I said that line to the leader on our trip, his immediate response was, “Oh, you mean Type 2 fun?” As it turns out there is a whole body of research on different types of fun, I just didn’t know it.

Type 1 fun is an activity that is fun both while doing it and after the fact as well. This kind of fun is definitely needed to keep our spirits bright. It gives us pleasure in the moment and great memories when we look back. Types 3 and 4 fun are the types of fun that, well, don’t really seem like they count as fun to me. Type 3 fun isn’t fun while you’re doing it and isn’t fun in retrospect, although it might make a good story. It’s typically a dangerous situation that you end up narrowly escaping. And Type 4 fun is fun that you don’t really want to remember. Things that you do that seem fun in the moment but aren’t fun in retrospect or that you may even feel remorseful about. Not the kind of fun that is healthy or good for us.

Then there is Type 2 fun. Type 2 fun is something that isn’t particularly fun in the moment and may push you out of your comfort zone a little but that is remembered as being fun. Sort of a delayed gratification. As I was learning about these different types of fun, I realized that gardening definitely falls in the Type 2 fun category. Sure, walking through your garden and enjoying the flowers is Type 1 fun. But the path to that beautiful garden is filled with some perspiration. We work hard on our gardens, and when we are knee deep in a hole, soaked with sweat, it doesn’t always feel like fun. But afterwards, the rush of completing the task and standing back to see what you’ve created overtakes the feelings you had while you were working and gives you an overwhelming feeling of satisfaction and joy. It’s what keeps us coming back to gardening to be sure.

But it isn’t just gardening that is Type 2 fun. There are lots of other activities that qualify. Maybe you’ve had some great Type 2 fun experiences before; I’d love to hear about them. Kim and I had our fair share of Type 2 fun on our recent trip, but I’m not ready to tell you where we were just yet. I want to see if you can guess. Slide over to our Facebook or Instagram pages to participate in our “Where in the World Were Kim and Joey?” contest. We’re giving away a $50 gift card to 2 randomly selected participants with correct guesses – see our posts at noon today for details and more clues; new hints will be posted over the next few days. (If you’re not on social media, you can email us your answer.) The pictures below are your first little hints, and we’ll tell you next week exactly where we were. It was, for sure, the most Type 2 fun we’ve ever had.