Last week, I wrote about my family’s fun road trips to New Hampshire and Canada back in the 70s and 80s. Remember that giant bunny picture I posted? Well, 30+ years later, and my daughter and son posed on that very same bunny on our of our trips to Santa’s Village in New Hampshire. It’s amazing to be able to visit the same places with my children that I visited with my parents – and to have pictures taken in the exact same places is wonderful.
Of course, my family road trips have changed quite a bit since I was a kid. Now, instead of highlighted paper maps, we have GPS and smart phones, and we don’t need to do nearly as much pre-work before leaving. The kids have their fully charged iPads in their laps, and we listen to regular radio, satellite radio, or music from my iPhone. When we need to take a quick break, we don’t need to stop at a rest stop on the highway, instead, I can search on my phone to find a local place with a kids’ menu. And, when we are stuck in traffic, I can easily search online to see if there’s a quick alternate route. While it seems like this is so much better than how it used to be, I think I’ll try to inspire more conversation with my kids on our next trip. We shouldn’t all just have our heads down in our iPads and iPhones.
If car rentals are part of your family travel plans this holiday season (and beyond), remember that you can get at least an additional 10% discount on your rentals by joining the Alamo Insiders program.
Disclosure: Alamo provided me with a prize pack of my own as a thank you for writing this post. However, the views and opinions expressed here are purely my own. Congratulations to Jennifer for winning our Alamo gift pack giveaway!
Family tradition travel is so rewarding to do. My kids love looking at pictures of where I went when I was little and then seeing them in person. My sister and I got our picture taken on Trot-Trot at Polly’s Pancake Parlor in Sugar Hill NH every year when we were little (and ironically so did my husband). Now even though they’re on Trot-Trot #3 we trek there yearly for a little tradition and some good pancakes.
(I also went to Santa’s Village as a kid but I have the memory of being kicked in the head while climbing up the giant Nutcracker to mar that a bit!)
I’ve heard so many great things about Polly’s Pancake Parlor – I’ll have to check it out sometime!