Family travel
Tuvalu will become a center for Climate Change Tourism. Photo from Timeless Tuvalu
Peering into my crystal ball for 2016 — which due to budgetary concerns is more like fiberglass this year — I foresee the following top ten developments in the ever-changing, sometimes wacky world of travel:
Try to pare this down to wallet size, please.
- A 747 will be diverted from Omaha to New Orleans overnight because passengers in seats A and B get into a spat over who can claim the middle armrest. Oddly, none of the hundreds of passengers aboard complain as they gobble down their jambalaya and beignets.
- Spurred by the success of a tour agency named “Toodle-oo Tuvalu” and a boutique hotel called “Sinking Along With the Breeze,” Climate Change Tourism will be huge, in which ghoulish travelers will journey to low-lying Pacific atolls soon to be inundated… Continue reading
What town is named after this “jolly old elf”?
I hope you’re all having a wonderful holiday season.
Mine has been truly memorable, as our family welcomed its newest member and my first grandchild into the world at 6:33 a.m. on December 26 in Tucson, Arizona. Baby, parents, and grandparents are all doing fine…who needs sleep when the greatest Christmas gift of all arrives early the following morning?
Perhaps needless to say, we’re already plotting our first big trip with the newborn; I’ll keep you posted! (Multi-generational travel is one of the big trends in baby boomer travel, and we intend to do our share.)
Now for the answers to our first annual Merry Christmas Travel Quiz. In case you missed the earlier post and would like to take the quiz, I’m listing the answers at the bottom.
1. Christmas Island was discovered by British Royal Navy Captain… Continue reading
You can bicycle along this canal with VBT. Photo from VBT Bicycling and Walking Vacations.
It was news to me, but National Grandparents Day is on Sunday, September 13th.
According to Family Travel Association:
- 50 million U.S. households are now led by grandparents, forecasting a continued travel boom by this large group of baby boomers.
- Today’s grandparents are far more active than their parents were, spending lots of time planning trips around specific activities.
- As a result, multi-generational adventure travel is up 30% year after year. (Multi-generational travel is the fastest growing segment of the travel industry and tops the list of travel trends, according to the Virtuoso Luxe Report.)
- More grandparents are traveling with just the grandchildren, leaving the greandkids’ parents’ behind.
- 22% of all grandparents traveled with just their grandchildren in the past year.
Here are a few suggestions for multi-generational travel, whether it’s… Continue reading
Elfreth’s Alley: The oldest residential street in the U.S. Photo by Charles Ridgeway.
Quick Quiz:
What city in the U.S. can claim the first American:
- Public school (1698)
- Residential street (1702)
- Library (1731)
- Independent hospital (1731)
- Fire-fighting company (1736)
- Meetings of the U.S. Congress (1774)
- First university (1779)
- Public Bank (1780)
- Daily Newspaper (1784)
- Stock exchange (1790)
- Circus (1793)
- Manned air flight (1793)
- Art museum and school (1805)
- Carbonated water (1807)
- Theater (1809)
- Natural history museum (1812)
- African American university (1837)
- Advertising agency (1869)
- Zoo (1874)
- Merry-go-round (1867)
- Ice cream soda (1876)
- Cafeteria-style restaurant (1902)
- Funeral home (built as such) (1905)
- Thanksgiving Day parade (1919)
- Totally air conditioned building (1932)
- Cheesesteak (1932)
- Girl Scout cookie sale (1932)
- Fully electronic computer invented (1946)
- Slinky (1948)
- Polio vaccine (1960)
Not to mention (though I’m mentioning them anyway): the first U.S. Mint, the first department store, the first botanical garden, the first opera… Continue reading
The Cape May-Lewes Ferry Crosses Delaware Bay.
Long before I could afford to take an actual ocean or river cruise, I loved riding ferry boats wherever I traveled around the world.
Whether it was ferrying around the Greek Islands, or riding the Star Ferry in Hong Kong, or taking the ferry from Washington State over to Victoria, BC, riding ferries was a way of getting out on the water both scenically and inexpensively.
And I still love it.
That’s why my wife, Catharine, and I (who shares my enthusiasm) have ridden the Cape May-Lewes Ferry three times in the past six years that we have vacationed in Ocean City, New Jersey, including this August.
The ferry travels from Cape May on the far southern reaches of the Jersey Shore across Delaware Bay to Lewes, Delaware, which lies north of beach communities like Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, and Ocean City, Maryland.… Continue reading
Since I just returned from a bike ride in Ocean City, New Jersey, I thought it would be a good time to reprint a post from two years ago about this bike-friendly city, complete with a few updates:
Bicycling is great exercise for baby boomers, who may find running to be too hard on the knees, surfing too fraught with teenagers, golf too pricey and frustrating, and hula-hooping just all-around too embarrassing.
With cycling, though, it’s easy to just hop on a bike and take off. Of course, it’s good to have someplace safe to ride.
Ocean City, New Jersey, on the lower stretches of the Jersey Shore south of Atlantic City, knows how to make cycling safe and appealing, which helps keep people out of cars and improve physical fitness and air quality as well.
Its longtime slogan “America’s Greatest Family Resort” is morphing into “America’s Greenest Family Resort.”… Continue reading
Multi-generational travelers might opt to sail away to Alaska aboard the Disney Wonder. Photo from Disney Cruise Lines
Multi-generational travel is hot.
So hot that it’s up 30 percent over the past year. And boomer-led family groups are spending an average of $1,000 more per year than other travelers, according to findings at a recent family travel summit.
The second TMS Family Travel Summit, organized by TMS Family Travel and Family Travel Consulting, brought together 38 travel journalists, editors, publishers and marketers to hear the latest research, discuss travelers’ needs, and determine marketing strategies for family groups led by retiring boomers.
The multi-generational travel phenomenon presents both challenges and opportunities for those in the travel industry.
But what, exactly, constitutes multi-generational travel?
One speaker defined it as a travel party comprised of at least one traveler over age 60 with at… Continue reading
Rafting on the American River. Photo from American River Recreation.
When I wrote my first family travel guide to California for Fodor’s 20 years ago, I took my children — Grael, then age 14, and Lia, then age 11 — all over the state as a vital part of the research.
Usually I could sense right off the bat which attractions and activities they liked: going on rides at Universal Studios theme park, good; driving endlessly around Lake Tahoe checking out hotel rooms, bad. Camping in Death Valley, good; walking tour of Monterey Bay Historic Park, bad. (Lia was particularly bored with that one.)
One activity I knew didn’t bore her, though, was our whitewater rafting trip on the American River in the California Gold Country, with an outfitter called Adventure Connection. What I didn’t know for sure at the time was whether she found it exhilarating or terrifying.… Continue reading
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