Where can I find help planning a multigenerational vacation?
Multigenerational family vacations include the three generations, or four generations - in my family we have four generations now. An intergrational trip is just the grandparents and the grandchildren, and there are tour operators out there. There are a lot of things that you need to look at. Again, if you are traveling with a grandparent who may have a cane or a walker or a wheelchair, you need to make sure that things are accessible. You don't want to go to a place that has too many stairs, and you don't want to go to a place that's too far from the beach. So it's very similar to when you're planning for a young child. You don't want to go to a family resort where there are only going to be young people there and that your in-laws or your parents are not going to have anybody that they could really relate to. To some parents it doesn't matter, because you're going and the family just spends its time together. But it's also nice if you separate - I think part of every family vacation is what I call Time Together, Time Apart - it's good to try to balance those things. We have the most socialized group of children that America has ever seen. They've been in daycare, they go to afterschool, they like playing with their peers; they're not used to being with their parents 24/7. We're not hip-to-hip with our kids all the time. So I think it's important that they have the opportunity to play with their peers, that they go someplace where there are going to be other children there. The same applies for the older generation, that they too have something they like to do. Maybe they want to play golf. My husband and I are not golfers, but my mother and father were golfers, so they would play golf and we would spend time with the kids - we would go bikeriding. Afterwards, they would spend time with the kids. Everybody does it differently - you need to make it work for you. I keep repeating that because it's really, really important to understand that your brother's favorite vacation and your best friend's best vacation ever may not be the best vacation for your family.
