Traditions / planning
Name the Trip, or It Stays a Trip
- 7 guys
- We used this
Name your trip after the group rather than the destination, because a destination name dies the year you go somewhere else. The method that works is a backronym: pick a short word that means something to the crew, then make the letters stand for what you actually do. Decide it before you order swag, because the name is what gets printed and printing has a three-week lead time.
We have bought and used this ourselves. Anything on the page we have only researched is labelled item by item. Prices change, so check.
Most groups never name the trip. They say “the Vegas thing” or “are we doing the cabin again”, and every year it stays a weekend away rather than becoming a thing anybody is a member of.
The name is the whole difference, and it costs nothing. It is also, practically, the single item that everything else in this section depends on: you cannot order a patch, a coin, a hoodie or an engraved glass until you know what goes on it. See the full guys trip planning system for where this sits in the countdown.
Name the crew, not the place
A destination name has a shelf life of one trip. Men of Vegas is a good name right up until the year you go to a lake, and then you are either the Men of Vegas at a lake or you are starting over.
Name it after the group, what you do, or a joke that predates the trip, and it survives every change of destination for the next twenty years.
Three that work
The reference. Something the crew already quotes. Ours is HTTM, for Hot Tub Time Machine, which is the movie that ends up on after every fishing day whether anybody chose it or not. Nobody decided that was the name. It just became true and then we admitted it.
The straight description with an edge. Short, literal, slightly wrong. The kind of thing that reads as a club rather than a holiday.
The backronym. The most reliable of the three, and the rest of this page is about how to do it.
How to build the backronym
The order matters, and almost everyone does it backwards.
Start with the word, not the words. Pick a short one first, four to six letters. It should either already mean something to the crew, or be funny enough that people say it out loud unprompted. Then work backwards and fill the letters with what the trip actually involves.
Doing it the other way around, listing what you value and hoping the initials spell something, gets you a name that nobody ever says. That is how you end up with a five-word phrase in a group chat title that everybody ignores.
Then run it through four checks:
- Would a stranger fail to get it? If a stranger gets it instantly, it is a souvenir. The whole value is that it means something only inside the group.
- Can you say it in a sentence? “We are going to HTTM in October.” If the name needs a preamble, it is not a name.
- Does it survive moving? If the destination changes next year, does the name still work?
- Does it fit on a shirt? Short wins. A long name printed across a chest shrinks to something nobody can read from ten feet, which is the only distance a shirt is ever read from.
Worked examples
Ours is not one of these. HTTM is a reference rather than a backronym: the letters stand for a film, not for anything we do. It is worth saying because the best names are usually noticed rather than built, and if one has already attached itself to your crew, take it.
Where nothing has attached itself, you build one. These are built, and they run mildest first.
| Name | Stands for | The trip |
|---|---|---|
| BASS | Brothers Avoiding Serious Subjects | A fishing crew, and the fish is the point |
| ELKS | Everyone Left Kids and Spouses | Any crew, and a nod to the lodge your grandfather belonged to |
| NUTS | Nature, Unity, Testosterone and Spirits | An outdoors or cabin weekend |
| DICKS | Dudes In Cabins Killing Stress | A cabin trip, and yes it is the whole joke |
BASS is the model here. Four letters, it is already a fish, and it describes what the trip is actually for. It works on a hat with no explanation attached, which is the ceiling for this method. ELKS does the same trick on a different joke, and if your grandfather belonged to a lodge, that one lands harder than anything you could invent.
The last one will get a reaction. That is not automatically a problem, because a name your crew still says in fifteen years beats a name nobody minds. Just make that trade deliberately rather than discovering it when somebody’s mother sees the hoodie.
Before you put it on a box of shirts
Check the printer will print it. Custom printers have content standards, and a word that reads as a harmless joke inside your group can trip a review on the way to production. Find out before you spend an evening on the design, not after. The polite version of this question is asking whether they have any restrictions on the text, and it takes one message.
Have a clean version ready. The initials alone usually solve it. The full phrase across the front of a shirt is a conversation you will be having all weekend; four letters and a year on a patch is just a patch. That is also the version that works when somebody wants to wear it to a bar with his kids, or through an airport.
Decide before you order, not after. Swag has a three-week lead time and a shirt that arrives after the trip is worth nothing. The name is on the critical path whether you treat it that way or not.
What it unlocks
Once the name exists, everything in this section becomes possible, and most of it becomes cheap. A year-stamped patch, a challenge coin, an engraved glass with four letters on it. None of that works without a name, and all of it works the moment you have one.
Shirts
Custom zip hoodieswe use this
Expensive next to a printed tee and worth it, because a hoodie gets worn for years while a shirt gets worn once.
Once you are therePick the garment before you start designing. CustomInk's catalog runs to dozens of blanks and the price swings hard between them, so it is easy to fall in love with a design on a garment you did not mean to buy. We went with the American Apparel USA-Made flex fleece zip hoodie. Order a size up if guys are wearing it over a flannel, which is most of the time.
CustomInk pending
Custom UPF 50+ long sleeve sun shirt
The one piece of custom swag that is genuinely functional, which is why it outlives the trip.
Once you are thereAsk which print method they use, before anything else. If the answer is direct-to-garment, walk away, because the print will crack off a performance shirt. Get the hooded version if the trip involves a boat all day. Sublimation prints edge to edge at no extra cost, so a design that wraps the sleeve costs the same as a small chest logo.
Link pendingunverified
Hats
Custom trucker hat
Outlasts a shirt by years and gets worn at home, which is the real test of any of this.
Link pendingimage: blank vendor mockupunverified
Drinkware
Personalized whiskey glasseswe use this
One glass per guy with his own name on it, which is the only reason anybody still knows whose drink is whose by the second night.
Once you are thereEtsy glassware is almost always listed in sets of four or six, and crews are almost never an even number. Message the seller before ordering and ask whether they will add a single to a set, because most will and it beats buying a second set. Put one name per glass rather than the trip name on all of them, otherwise nobody knows whose is whose by the second night.
.308 shell casing shot glasseswe use this
A shot glass built around a .308 casing, so the joke is the object itself rather than something printed on it that wears off.
Insulated can koozie
The cheapest thing here you can order a single one of, and it survives because it lives in a drawer rather than a closet.
Link pendingunverified
Personalized beverage tubwe use this
A steel tub with the crew name on it, which does the one job a cooler cannot: it sits out in the open where everyone can see it.
Personalized cocktail glasseswe use this
One glass per guy with his name on it, in a shape that suits a mixed drink rather than whiskey, which is the only reason to own both.
Etsy pending
Personalized flaskswe use this
One per guy with his own name on it, which is why these get kept instead of left in a hotel room.
Keepsakes
Hand-forged engraved bottle openerswe use this
Engraved with the trip number and the year it started, and forged steel means there is nothing on it to wear out.
Once you are thereEngrave the founding year, not the current one. Ours read the trip number plus the year it all started, which turns a bottle opener into a record of how long this has been going. A current year makes it a souvenir of one weekend. Forged pieces are made to order, so give the smith four to six weeks and confirm the engraving text in writing before they start.
Custom embroidered trip patcheswe use this
The longest-running item on this list, ordered most years since at least 2013.
Once you are thereThree inches across with a merrowed black edge is the size that works. Smaller loses any detail, bigger stops fitting on a hat or a jacket pocket. Keep the design to a few flat colours, since embroidery cannot hold gradients or thin lines. Iron-on backing is fine for a jacket that never gets washed hard, otherwise ask for sew-on.
Link pendingimage: blank vendor mockup
Two-sided custom challenge coinswe use this
Coins survive where shirts do not, because they live in a drawer rather than a closet and nobody throws one away.
Once you are thereOrder more than you need. We went ten deep for seven guys, and the spares are the whole point: somebody misses a year, somebody brings a new guy, somebody loses theirs. Reorders mean a second setup charge and a coin that never quite matches, so overshoot the first time. Two-sided costs barely more than one and gives you room for the joke on the back.
See the one we boughtimage: blank vendor mockup
Games
Custom branded poker chips
Priced these out for the trip tournament and never pulled the trigger, so this is research rather than a recommendation.
Link pendingimage: blank vendor mockupunverified
Custom deck of playing cards
Put faces on the court cards and it stops being a deck and starts being a running joke.
Link pendingunverified
The damage report
What we would do again, what we would not, and what the mistakes actually cost.
Do it again
- Naming it after the crew rather than the destinationthe name still worked when the trip moved
- A short word, four to six lettersreadable on a shirt from ten feet
- Letting the name arrive on its ownHTTM was never decided, it was noticed
- Stamping the year next to it, every yearthe count does itself
Do it differently
- Listing your values and hoping they spell a worda name nobody says out loudPick the word first, then fill the letters.
- Naming it after the destinationdies the first year you go somewhere elseName the group or the joke, never the place.
- Designing the swag before checking the printer will print itan evening of design and a rejected order inside the lead timeOne message asking about text restrictions, before you start.
- Still workshopping the name in year threeevery previous year of swag becomes an orphanChange it once, early, then it is fixed.
The one rulePick the word first, check it fits on a shirt, then stop discussing it. The name does not have to be perfect, it has to be fixed. A group still debating the name in year three does not have a tradition, it has a working title.
Questions people actually ask
What should we name our guys trip?
Something about your group, not about where you are going. A destination name has a shelf life of exactly one trip, because the year you go somewhere else it stops making sense. The most reliable method is a backronym: take a short word the crew already says, or one that makes everyone laugh, and make the letters stand for what the trip actually is. That way the name carries a joke and a description at once.
What makes a good guys trip name?
Four things. A stranger should not fully get it. It should be sayable in a sentence without explanation, so "we are going to HTTM in October" works. It should survive a change of destination. And it should fit on a shirt, which in practice means short, because a long name shrinks to nothing across a chest.
How do you make a guys trip acronym?
Start with the word, not the words. Pick the short word first, four to six letters, ideally one that already means something to the crew or that makes people laugh out loud. Then work backwards and fill the letters with what the trip genuinely involves. Doing it the other way round, listing your values and hoping they spell something, produces a name nobody says out loud.
Should the trip name go on the shirts?
That is most of the reason to have one. A shirt with a destination and a year on it is a souvenir, and a shirt a stranger cannot decode is an artifact. The name is the thing that makes trip swag mean something, which is why it has to be decided before you order rather than after.
Can you change the trip name later?
You can, once, early, and then it is fixed. A name that changes is not a tradition, it is a working title. The practical test is whether anyone has bought anything with it printed on it yet. After that, changing it costs real money and makes every previous year's swag an orphan.
Does the trip need a number as well as a name?
Yes, and the number is the cheapest thing you will ever add. A name says who you are and a number says how long you have been doing it, and the second one is what makes a new guy realise he has joined something. Stamp the year on the swag every year and the count does itself.