This New Guide Delivers Curated Weekend Plans To Loudoun County Families

LOUDOUN COUNTY, VA – A Loudoun County dad tired of scouring the internet for family-friendly weekend events has launched his own guide to fun stuff in his corner of Northern Virginia.

Loudoun Go, a new website and free weekly newsletter, debuted this month with an array of activities for tots to teens and the grown folks actually doing the chaperoning.

Founder Farai Sikipa, 36, tells Patch each issue opens with a ready-made plan for the weekend, including what to do if it rains, and every selected activity is checked for times, costs, parking and age appropriateness.

Each week the guide also takes on one question families are weighing, like which pumpkin patch is the best value for a family of four, and answers it with side-by-side comparisons.

Loudoun is full of families with children, and yet, “what's on each weekend is spread across dozens of Facebook groups, town sites and county calendars, and few of them tell you what to actually expect,” he points out. “Will my toddler enjoy it? Will my nine-year-old be bored? Where do we park? Are strollers allowed?” he told Patch. “We answer those questions on every pick, and if we can't confirm something yet, we say so rather than guess.”

In deciding what events to highlight, Sikipa says he asks, “Would we go ourselves? Is it worth the drive? Does it work for more than one age?” LoudounGo users will see a smaller selection of truly curated events, rather than a Jackson-Pollock style barrage of data.

In addition to helping Loudoun families filter out the noise to find truly worthwhile events, Sikipa hopes “to reinforce to families how much exploring together matters. Our time with our kids is limited,” he said. “You get about 940 Saturdays with your child before they turn 18.”

For this coming weekend, the plan is, “Farms by day, frights by night, pickles on Sunday,” and features a farm tour, several Halloween party options and an international food festival. Scrolling down LoudounGo’s website shows more activities with crucial details like dates, times, addresses, costs, expected crowds and more. Events can be sorted by five Loudoun areas or for the whole county, and activities with registrations closing imminently are highlighted.

LoudounGo is also launching seasonal guides, like its Halloween guide, out now and including the hours for trick-or-treating events around the county.

At least some of the impetus for the guide arose from being one of the many dads now trying to plan family time in what is still a pretty mom-dominated space, with its own vernacular, media and networks. “There are a ton of mommy blogs that have events,” Sikipa points out. “They speak to that specific demographic, so it can be difficult for someone that doesn't identify, even culturally, with a suburban mom, and may not even understand the lingo, right?”

LoudounGo is deliberately designed to speak to everyone in the county, he says, across ages, genders, cultures and more.

The guide is free, and the picks are not for sale, Sikipa says. Local businesses that serve families can partner with it, and paid partner content is labeled.

Hundreds of families have signed up for the newsletter so far, Sikipa says, and the response has been even better than he'd hoped for.

Check out the new guide here.