July/August 2006
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New Family Values
Text by Margaret Loftus Photo by Heinrich van den Berg/Getty Images
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Many parents are taking kids on meaningful trips to places such as Botswana. |
Today's summer vacation is all about learning, giving, doing
 he complaints started in earnest about two weeks before the Sasos left for Tijuana and reached a crescendo during the first few days of the trip. Rather than spend their family summer vacation, say, going to the beach like many of their friends, Patt and Steve Saso were taking their children to the barrios of Baja to build houses for the poor.
"What kind of parents would make their kids do this?" moaned the children, aged 11, 12, and 14. Faced with hours of daily physical labor and no running water or electricity, Patt herself began to have doubts, writing in her journal, "Why did I say 'yes' to this trip?" But by the end of the week, everyone had met new friends and was proud of his or her accomplishments. "It was actually fun," says Patt. "The experience cemented us as a family."
Whether it's volunteering to build houses in Baja, learning about Buddhism in Burma (Myanmar), or digging up Pueblo Indian artifacts in Colorado, more families are trying to integrate meaning into their summer vacations.
These parents see travel as a chance to instill values or provide a learning experience for their children, such as teaching them about other cultures or the environment. What's more, they say the inherent challenges in such vacations allow for the type of bonding that's hard to come by these days. "We have this idyllic view of family coming together around the dinner table, but with schedules and the variety of forms families take, that communication and bonding happens less at home," says Hank Phillips, president of the National Tour Association (NTA). "Family travel has become the new family dinner."
Indeed, tour operators who once looked to retirees for the majority of their business are now marketing to parents who want to take their kids farther afield. Nearly half of NTA's members now offer family packages, up from 35 percent in 2003. And demand is strong. Asia Transpacific Journeys, for example, has seen a 22 percent rise in family bookings to places such as Australia, Borneo, and Thailand in just the past year. CEO Marilyn Downing Staff says its clients are looking for vacations with an educational component. "They want to expose their kids to things they wouldn't ordinarily see, to dig deeper."
Even the Walt Disney Company wants a piece of the action. Last year, the theme park giant launched Adventures by Disney, guided family vacations that build on the success of the company's seven-year-old cruise packages. While there's no chance of theme parks becoming endangered anytime soon, the company realized that families aren't going to spend every vacation at a Walt Disney resort. Chairman Jay Rasulo says the growing market for more family adventure vacations was obvious a few years ago when a 14-day cruise through the Panama Canal became Disney's fastest booked cruise ever. This year, Disney is offering seven itineraries, from the Canadian Rockies to Costa Rica, up from last year's two pilot programs in Hawaii and Wyoming.
Industry experts say a couple of social trends are driving the phenomenon. "We've seen an upsurge in people wanting to be closer ever since 9/11," says Rasulo. "They're saying they don't want to go on a vacation without the people they love." Secondly, these jaunts are often financed by grandparents…even if they're no longer living. "Many grandparents have left their children financial legacies that parents are choosing to use on family travel experiences," notes Staff. She adds that today's parents, many of whom may have already trekked the Annapurna Circuit or cruised up the Nile, see travel as a birthright. "They want to give that legacy to their kids."
Cristy Clarke and her husband, David, have taken their now 10-, 12-, and 13-year-old daughters on far-flung summer vacations since they were infants. "We are all extremely busy during the school year; we tend to have many of our 'big' conversations when we go away together." In that sense, she says, adventure travel helps "redeem me as a parent." Two years ago, the Clarkes spent a month in Burma, which included trekking in the Shan Hills. Clarke hopes that exposing her daughters to different cultures will foster confidence and maturity. "I want them to know how to take care of themselves if they were to be dropped anywhere in the world."
Both the Sasos and Clarkes say that the cultural exchanges that travel
creates have made their children more thoughtful. After handing out clothes at a Burmese school, then eight-year-old Lily Clarke was surprised to see how happy the children were to receive them. "It made her appreciate things she'd been taking for granted, like having new clothes," remembers Clarke. The eldest Saso child, Brian, wrestled with the profound differences in lifestyle between Tijuana and his home in Silicon Valley, California. "Not everyone lives the way we live. We have several cars, toilets that flush, all the food we want, hot running water. It's hard to wrap my head around the differences." Now a junior in college, Brian has started a website that features interviews with homeless people to educate others about those less fortunate.
Of course, wanting a more meaningful travel experience isn't just for traditional families. For the past ten years, Ann Glowacki, a database administrator who lives in Westminster, Maryland, has spent a week or two every summer volunteering at an archaeological dig at Crow Canyon, near Colorado's Mesa Verde National Park. Glowacki, who doesn't have children of her own, took along her 14-year-old niece three years ago. "She can't wait to go again," says Glowacki. "She said it was the week of her life."
While there's no doubt that kids adore pool time and life-size cartoon characters, they may end up surprising parents with their appetite for alternative adventures. Clarke fondly recalls the family road trips of her youth, but it wasn't until her parents took her to Africa that she caught the travel bug. "I felt completely immersed in another world." She loves how her girls similarly embrace the challenges that come with the less beaten path. For example, Clarke recalls the night her family spent sleeping on the floor of a Burmese monastery, where the outhouse was a quarter of a mile away. "It was disconcerting," she says. "But our kids say it was their favorite night."
The New "Family Dinner": Trips of the Meaningful Kind
Asia Transpacific Journeys' family trips, such as "Down-Under Discovery," on Australia's Gold Coast, and a "Wildlife Adventure" in Borneo start at $200 per person per day.
Crooked Trails, specializing in community-based travel, has developed a homestay trip to Peru's Sacred Valley of the Incas for families with children ages five and under (yes, you read right). Land costs are $1,695 for adults; $995 for kids.
Crow Canyon Archaeological Center in Cortez, Colorado, features a family archaeology camp. Adults, $995; youths ages 12–17, $800.
Habitat for Humanity International's "Global Village" trips welcome families on all projects, from Tajikistan to South Dakota. Land costs for a 5- to 21-day trip average $100 a day.
Mountain Travel Sobek offers many nature-based adventures, from "Kayaking the Sea of Cortez" (from $1,390) to the "Ultimate Tanzania Safari" (from $5,140).
Wildland Adventures' trips focus on culturally and environmentally responsible travel. Children walk with elephants in Botswana or have dinner in the home of a Turkish family.
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