Make the Most of Family Trips

Add Pizzaz–and education to family travel!

Mary Jo and I did and both Kent and Lisa and their families have benefited from it immensely. Plus it certainly made travel easier and more enjoyable for all of us!

Do you have a trip planned for Thanksgiving or Christmas—or otherwise? Plan ahead. Make a driving trip pass quickly and add educational value. How? Get a map, highlight the trip, and assign different family members to research, online or otherwise, points of interest on or near the route. As you get close to a location of interest, let the person assigned to that place tell about it.

If you plan a trip from Chicago to Dallas, obvious highlights would be Springfield, IL, St. Louis, and assuming you’re taking the Eastern loop, Memphis, Little Rock and Dallas. And there are many secondary locations. You might say, “We’ll go by the towns of Pontiac and Lincoln, IL. Who would like to find out what they’re are named for? Do you think it’s automobiles?” And you might add, “We’re going to go by America’s only diamond mine. Who’ll look it up?”

Along the way you’ll be near Indian mounds, huge caves, the site of one of our biggest earthquakes ever, battlefields and other historical sites, towns named for prominent Americans, etc. Capitalize on the opportunity to pique interest in the events, places, and people who have played a part in the shaping of our nation.

It is obvious that most children are learning little of our country’s geography or history in the public schools. So families are the key if we want them to know our land and the stories of our founding fathers and mothers and others who have made our country great. Family travel can be an enjoyable and enriching way to achieve those goals.

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