So many of us RVers love RVing because our parents or families introduced us to camping as little kids. Is this true for you?
When you were younger, did you go on family vacations with your parents as a child? And no, for this poll we don’t just mean camping trips, we mean any kind of vacation. Perhaps your family took you to Hawaii, or to see the Grand Canyon, or to the historic East Coast… Maybe you even traveled internationally with them!
After you vote in today’s poll, please leave a comment and tell us about your favorite family vacation you took as a child. We love reading those comments and we’re curious to hear your stories.
Camping all over the east coast in a huge Ted Williams 3 room canvas monster tent from Sears with my 3 other siblings. True tent camping with a dining fly and the Coleman lanterns and the Coleman coolers. Usually 10 days at a time as the family vacation during the summers
Yes – if you can call it that! Always two weeks during spring vacation driving from PNW to Arizona/S. California and back. Pa liked to brag about how many miles he could drive in one day. 4 kids in back seat. White bread and baloney sandwiches handed back from front seat.. no bathroom stops until situation became critical except when he stopped to “check the tires”. Leave camp in the dark…set up in the dark…No sightseeing at “tourist traps” – just watching the world go by from car windows. We visited lots of places but seldom actually went in. I was so jealous of my cousins who went to the lake or beach and spent a week in one place!
I said “no” but that’s only half right. We camped and traveled when my dad changed duty stations.
EVERY summer for the last two weeks in August! I went to California at age 5 (13 hours across the desert {sister was 4}), and Florida at about 9 or 10. California again at 12 (Disneyland at that time). Several shorter trips like to the Big Bend of Texas or Hot Springs, Arkansas. ALWAYS the whole 2 weeks or last few days at Camp Warneke in New Braunfels, Texas where my parents had honeymooned in 1938! (My first trip to California was in 1953.)
We went camping on weekends from time to time, but we never had the money or time (Daddy was a farmer)to do a week’s vacation or go far from home. We did go to Florida once for 3 days.
We were farmers. Never went and, just worked all year.
One family trip from Canada to AZ to see grandparents. Rode in the back of a Pontiac station wagon all the way. We stopped at Disney on the way and now have Gr8 memories of that trip. The other vacation memories are multiple New Years Eve celebrations in Minot, ND. to get out of the Saskatchewan cold for a week over the Christmas break.
Yep, road trips in a ’52 Chevy sedan and later in a ’57 Chevy station wagon with no air conditioning! Funny how all 6 of us survived those summer vacation trips in NM, CO, TX, and OK with no AC. No parent today would even think of doing that to their kids. But then, they don’t need to because even a Mini Cooper comes with AC! I know because we have one and it wasn’t even an option when we special-ordered it.
Only once do I recall a “family vacation” that had a purpose other than visiting relatives.
I can only remember 2 and they were on labor day weekend. Those were one in Maine and one in New Hampshire. That’s it. Another reason I joined the military to travel and boy I traveled and love 20 years of it.
My parents divorced when I was 5 but my dad took my brother and me camping. One of my favorite memories was camping in the mountains of Tennessee and that’s what got me hooked on mountain camping. My mother’s parents took us to see relatives a few times. She didn’t have much money because my dad didn’t like paying child support. That was before the courts automatically attached the wages.
We would take day trips from our home in PA to the Jersey shore. No overnight trips unless it was to visit a relative sleeping on floor. My dad worked for the old AT&T and would be called out for line repairs. Dad’s vacations were to paint house or other chores.
My parents took me on a road trip every year, to the best I can remember, sometimes a couple of shorter ones. Brave stuff with a kid prone to motion sickness.
My dad had never been out of our home state until he married my mother, she’d been coast to coast over a few trips by train. They married at fairly late ages in the early 50s and took a train trip across the ocuntry. After that, they went by car – few interstates, staying in tourist homes and inexpensive motels. We had a cooler (not very good), stopped for groceries every day, cooked our main meal on a Coleman camp stove in a roadside rest.
I’ve never stopped taking trips.
Yes! My parents didn’t have a lot of money but they would load us 4 kids in the car and we would drive to state parks in our home state, Illinois. Their love of travel helped to instill a love of travel and curiosity about the world in me. I thank them for that.
Unfortunately not. My Dad only took one summer vacation and three months later he had a stroke and passed away. He was a WWII Veteran and always worked while the work was there. I took my time and went someplace even if it was to a local state park.
We too took a lot of family vacations when I was a kid but my favorite one was probably the summer right after I graduated from high school. That was 30 years ago. I was a fair amount in trouble my last couple years of high school so I was stuck with my parents that summer. I was the last kid at home and we took a cross country road trip in our truck and camper from our home in New Mexico to see family in western New York. We made many stops on that trip, both planned and unplanned. I’ve realized in the years since then that my parents, especially my dad and me, forged a bond that I’ve never forgotten.
The first time I went on a vacation was the third year of marriage at age 35. My father worked and my mother was a housewife. My father’s “vacation” time was spent doing large chores. For example, painting the interior or the exterior of the house, putting in a garden, or clearing land or sowing grass seed to expand the pasture available for our beef cattle. My wife did not agree that working at home instead of at work is an appropriate “vacation,” so we traveled for our vacations. In retirement our RV trips are “vacations.”
Yes, did up in Bobcaygen Ontario mostly with my Mom. My Dad would come up Sat. nite after work & stay over until Monday nite. My Dad used used to take me Fishing & say “Quiet” the Fish will hear you.
What I did enjoy was taking my Kids & along with my Wife down I75 to Florida to spend time with her Parent’s as her Parent’s were very good people. Enjoyed those trips as it was about a 24hr. trip around the clock with my Wife & I splitting the Driving. We had fun thru the whole time there & back.
For a couple of years my father had four weeks vacation. He took it all at the same time
and we traveled from NJ to California twice, Nova Scotia once, and Cherry Stone Campground, Virginia a few times.
We only made two trips to NE KS from North Central MO and both were to visit relatives. It wasn’t until I was 24 that 1st wife and I went to CO and I loved that trip. Now I’ve been to 48 states and 8 countries.