visiting, travel and vacations

[walkitout]

I had a couple conversations with I. and R. over the course of the WDW trip that got me to thinking. My family took us to Disneyland from Seattle several times -- three times when I was quite young, twice by car and once on Amtrak. We didn't just to Disneyland, in fact at least on the first couple visits, we only spent a day at Disneyland, and spent the rest of our trip doing things like Universal Studios, NBC studios. Boy was that worse than a dead loss -- it was a real working studio, and my kid sister got whacked on the head hard by someone passing with something or other. She cried, of course, who wouldn't and honestly, these days there'd probably be consequences from doing that to an elementary school kid. Given the seizure disorder that later showed up, we probably should have sued. Anyway, despite having long hair in two french braids, some jackass thought she was a boy and told her to toughen up. Different world back then; for all the overprotection and helicoptering, it is worth remembering how cavalier everyone used to be about children. We also went to Knott's Berry Farm and presumably other things; one trip we stopped in San Francisco on the way down and went to Coit Tower, Fisherman's Wharf, went on a little ride, dunno what else. I went with not-my-entire-family when I got older. Trips to Disney, and summer trips to Whidbey and later Orcas Islands were among our happier vacations when I was a kid.

I., if I understood correctly, didn't get anything like that growing up. Her dad took her along on trips when he went to chess tournaments. We used to pick on my dad for not treating vacations with adequate respect but that's much, much worse. She had a fair amount of travel to visit relatives, but I tend to think of those kinds of things as separate from vacations per se.

R. lived near Six Flags New England, and they took summer trips to a couple different places on the coast.

But despite what apparently was more effort to engage in consumer vacation wonderland on the part of my family compared to R.'s and I.'s families, we still thought we were vacation deprived, largely because in the schools we were attending, a lot of families were doing a summer vacation to Hawaii and a winter vacation to Sun Valley. This seems _really weird_ now that I'm on the east coast, but if you want seasonal activities and you live in the Pacific Northwest, a summer trip to warm and a winter trip to cold is the only way you're going to get it done. We didn't ever go to either place and, as I noted, we drove to California. Clearly, ability to afford air fare for the whole family was a big distinguishing factor between the kids I went to elementary school with (many of whom lived in The Highlands, or in Innis Arden) and my family.

R. pointed out, however, that there was another difference. My compatriots were taking family vacations, parents with all the kids. He says that wasn't the case when he was growing up and says Massachusetts adopted that earlier than other areas. According to him, adults vacationed separately from children, an idea that doesn't just shock me-now, but I can't relate it to anyone I grew up with. I don't think it was at all common in the Pacific Northwest, in fact, a lot of the kids who had rich(er) fathers got taken along on business trips if they were to places that had fun things to do. R. found this freakish and bizarre to think about in the context he grew up in. I'm thinking again, this is a who-can-afford-airfare-when thing. There may be some regional weirdness -- Seattle is the Jet City, in part because it is so far to drive to anything else worth doing on vacation, for suitable definitions of vacation.

I also, however, am up against small sample size problems. Time to do a little research. :-) Any suggestions on a good Social History of Travel/Tourism/Vacation in the US?

Comments

Separate vacations

[rolandgo.livejournal.com]

Before my parent's divorce, there was a time where we went to summer camp for 2 weeks once or more per summer. It was during these times that the folks went to Bermuda or some other place. I'm not sure if this happened a lot. Our 9 year age span may have required a sitter for Joe. But whatever, it happened at least once when I was 12. I remember because a hurricane that sent everyone home from Bement. We got to stay with the backup parents for a couple of days. This didn't happen every time. I have postcards & letters exchanged from other summer camp trips. They're addressed to home.