Learning While On Vacation

My son recently informed me that by time the summer of 2011roles around, he wants to have visited at least two other states than where we live as well as Canada and Mexico. Upon further discussion, he revised it to visiting these areas my the time he graduates high school.

Now, I am a firm believer in learning about places by visiting them. I grew up taking a four to six week summer family vacation every year, mainly in the United States, so I certainly have no objection to taking him travelling. In fact, I used the opportunity to begin educating him almost immediately. For instance, when I talked about going to Toronto or Montreal, he asked me if those places were in Canada. I then started talking about the difference Provinces in Canada.

The problem with getting to some of these places is finding the time and money to get there. I immediately began thinking about some day trips we could do this summer and he was thrilled about that. He does, however, want to take a real vacation. I don’t blame him. He is 10 and has never been on a “Real Vacation”, so I need to start checking where we can go, what would be fun AND educational and look for low fares and ways that we can get a vacation without spending a lot of money.

Having traveled myself as well as having taught student who have done some travelling and some who haven’t, usually the ones who have traveled are better rounded individuals and actually tend to do better in my class, so if I can set up some inexpensive vacation packages, I certainly am interested.