Road Trip
May 17th, 2008 by Diane Cordell
Hello new friends and Mommies of all genres! Since summer holidays are in the future for many of us, I thought I ‘d focus on family vacations in my first This Mommy Gig posting.
I inherited the traveling gene from my Dad, so early on I established the “we must leave home for at least one family trip” rule. Depending on available time and money, these adventures in togetherness ranged from the obligatory pilgrimage to Disney World to a week in Cape Cod to a long weekend in Vermont (within an hour’s drive of our home). 
Other family favorites included Ottawa and Montreal, Canada; Hershey, PA; and Boston, MA.
Through trial and error, I came up with some rough and ready guidelines for maximizing enjoyment and guaranteeing survival:
• Pack quick and nutritious snacks. A hungry child is not a genial traveling companion. Some good choices are snack-sized fruit cups, yogurt, mini-bagels & peanut butter, and, our special breakfast alternative, home-made oatmeal cookies with mini-chips. Air travel is a bit more challenging: make sure to purchase some kid-friendly items in the airport food court, even if your child claims he/she doesn’t want to eat. Once you’re airborne, your choices are slim and none.
• Bring a variety of activities. Notebooks, crayons, pencils and a deck of cards don’t take up much room but can be lifesavers if batteries run out on more sophisticated toys. On a car trip, insist on some interactive time even if your vehicle has a DVD player or the kids are toting iPods or cellphones. The idea is to reconnect as a family not travel as isolated units. Do some advance planning by checking out sites like Mom’s MiniVan and Family Fun for game suggestions and downloads.
• Whenever possible, stay in a hotel/motel with an indoor swimming pool. Since we didn’t have a pool at home, this was always a big treat for our kids – plus it added an end-of-the-day calming activity.
• Know what child-friendly attractions are in the area you will be visiting. Petting zoos and children’s museums are always fun. Don’t neglect to inquire about local parks and libraries, which frequently run special programs during school vacations.
• Limit your own online time, as well as that of your children. One of the main reasons I insisted on traveling was to have uninterrupted family time. That’s more difficult now than it was 20 years ago, but not impossible. Ban or curtail connective technologies during your time away from work and school. The bonds you form, the memories you create together while your children are young, will help all of you survive some of the more difficult teen years.
I’m sure many of you Mommies out there can add to my list. What tips and tricks do you have to make family vacations more enjoyable for everyone involved?
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Great Tips! Heading out on three vacations this year with daughter. Maybe we will meet at NECC (2nd out of 3).
One of the most thoughtful - and valuable - gifts my father gave me as an adult was a trip to Ireland for myself and my then-17-year-old daughter. We needed that time away together and got to know each other again.
More than workshops or professional development, I’m looking forward to making personal connections with my online friends at NECC. I’m make sure we meet, count on it!
Diane Cordells last blog post..She Never Existed Before: Mother’s Day 2008
Welcome to the Mommy Blog. Love your first blog! Can’t wait to read more. My favorite travel tip is plan the days with your child(ren). My daughter, husband, and I always plan at least one activity that is chosen purely for my daughter’s pleasure. It gives her something to look forward to, helps her feel like she has some control over the vacation, and we usually end up loving her choice. Example: Costa Rica - swimming in the waterfall.
See you at NECC!
We have always beleived travel is one of the best gifts we can give our kids. My “big tip” is to ALWAYS ask the question “What is the ONE thing you “need” to do to say you had a GREAT trip?” and then we set out to include those things. Another hint, my kids have always helped pack their own stuff (even when they were so little that the packing list was in pictures) - it helps them to feel involved in the pre-trip maddness in a good way!
Great tips! We provided our children with a small bag of goodies to keep them busy no matter where we went. We included scrapbooks and encouraged them to collect flyers, leaves, drawings etc to help document the trip. Each night we would sit down with them and let them decide what to include for that day (You can tell we’re both teachers can’t you?) Anyway, I recently found these scrapbooks again and it was wonderful looking back on our holidays together (My boys are teenagers now and refuse to go anywhere with their parents!)
Julie Squiress last blog post..It’s all about passion…Blogs, wikis and other web 2.0 passion quests.
Lisa,
Love your suggestion - has it ever resulted in impossible or just plain silly requests?
Gail,
You also take the kids’ desires under consideration, a great way to guarantee involvement. I see a lot of little ones on airplanes with cute backpacks to carry their personal items. A picture list for the pre-literate is a fantastic idea. Would help with rounding up items for the return trip, too.
Julie,
Srapbooking, whether “real” or online, would extend the fun even after returning home. Journals are another way to preserve those family vacation memories. Give your teens a few years, and they may be willing to travel with you again - son was happy to visit Montreal with us when a Dave Matthews concert was included in his itinerary (along with a friend invited along to share the experience).
Diane Cordells last blog post..Objects Modified by Changing Light
[...] first posting on This Mommy Gig, Road Trip, discussed the importance of family vacations. Today I’d like to focus on business [...]