Bon Voyage

Suumer means vacations and if you have a teen, you know the drill.  Often a teen does not want to leave their peers to travel with their family. It can get darn unpleasant.  I remember one trip to Colorado when my 15 year old had a bus schedule to get back to Muskogee.  I pointed out a 12 hour trip was 36 hours on the every stop Greyhound.  A sullen and scowling son retulrned home on our schedule, in our car.

Where you are going to vacation and what you will be doing when you get there are all important things that need to be decided upon. Giving your teen a say in these important decisions will give him/her some ownership of the family vacation. This will help him/her feel more responsible for the outcome of the trip and he/she will strive to enjoy the trip more.
If you already know where you are going, have your teen plan out a day trip or the family’s daily itinerary. Give him/her resources to help with the choices they have, either online or with a printed guide book. The trick is to commit to do whatever your teen has chosen. If he/she wants to sleep in until 10 a.m. before starting the day, then that is what you should let him do. The only way you should change anything is if it wouldn’t work dynamically. For example, at Disney you can’t get from Epcot to the Magic Kingdom in 5 minutes. You’ll need to point these facts out to your teen and allow him/her to make the adjustments.
Here are some resources online for your family to use:

• About.com Travel has wonderful recommendations on places all over the world. Another good source is  Family Vacations site. There is also a great collection of travel videos.
• MapQuest is one of the best online tools I have ever used for road trip planning.
• More travel videos can be found at TravelVideo.TV.
• Be sure to get the weather forecast at Weather.com.

Have fun.  Make memories.....and cross your fingers.  chrissie