In June of 2012, we took six weeks to unplug, disengage and travel with our middle school children. On a road trip. In a 19’ travel trailer. While were were traveling, and since we’ve returned, the number of questions we’ve gotten about our road trip has been astounding.
“How did we stay sane?” is a big one.
“Would we have done anything differently?” Oh yes…
But probably the biggest question we get, by far, comes when we are out in public with our kids and one of them pulls out their wallet to pay for something society tells us a parent should pay for… “Did he just pay for that? With his own money?”
This has happened to us in gas stations (the kid was buying snacks, not gas), when we’ve signed up for activities at school, or when we’ve been in line to buy t-shirts and other souvenirs. And when we explain that our kids nearly always pay for their own expenses out of a budget they’ve been on since age 7, the questions continue. So we’ve decided to answer a lot of those questions here.
This is absolutely still a site about family road trips and traveling with teenagers, but we’ve realized it can be more. If you click on the Money category in our overhead menu, you’ll learn about this less familiar aspect of our lives – that of teaching money management to our kids.
I just wanted to say I just started to read your blog. It is alot of fun. 9 years ago we decided to do our little road trip(compared to yours). We tarveled in our van from Rochester NY to the Garnd Tetons and Yellowstone with our 11 and 9 year old boys We tent camped at both spost and those were the best 17 days of our life. The Grand Tetons are amazing and I miss them immensly. Yellowstone is a very special place as well and one of these days my wife and I will go back. 2 years later we did the same thing only this time we went to Bryce canyaon, Zion, Grand Canyon, mesa verde and Rocky mountain. The bioys still talk about those trips and it was the best thing we ever did with them.
Thanks Dave! Now that we’ve done this once, it’s hard to resist the urge to go on more grand adventures. I think we’ll find a way to work more “doing” into our family, rather than more “getting” as a way to spend our time and money together.
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