Family Forum / Parenting / Parenting / January 2006

Undoubtedly it's easier (and less expensive) to travel without kids.  
Plus, KIDS cost money, which may not leave as much for travel.

If, however, traveling is a high priority for you, you find ways to do
it, anyway.

It never has been for me, even BC, so the fact that I've done so little
traveling with my kids is sort of irrelevant.  I have two siblings (one
with no kids, one has just had his first) who do a LOT of fairly exotic
traveling, but none of my siblings WITH kids have.

Oh, certainly we will.  Though I suspect some of it will be traveling to see
them.  Before we had kids we traveled the world.  And despite them being
hardy travelers, I'm sure once they are off on their own we will travel even
more.

Of course I travel less since I became a parent.  For cost reasons, for the fact
that my activities were limited by the need to supervise my child.

As my son has gotten older, his interests have been a determinant in when and
where we travel.  During school breaks only, and I don't think I would have
taken a ten day road trip up the east coast of the U.S. from South Carolina to
New York devoted to battelship and naval carrier museums if it weren't for him
;-)

I've changed my professional job as well, to one which requires very little
travel compared to the research work I did before.

I guess I'm a little puzzled - doesn't it practically go without saying that
there will be big changes in travel frequency and plans for just about everyone
(save movie stars with nannies in tow) once kids are in the picture?

Cheers,
Banty

Oh definitely we would travel more if we didn't have kids.
We wouldn't have the costs associated with kidraising, and
we wouldn't have to buy tickets for them.

For people who thrive on travel, I guess this would be
a real drawback to having kids.

Scott DD 12 and DS 9.9

I have traveled about the same amount before having a child as afterwards.
Not a lot---generally one distant conference and one long trip for
other reasons a year.  Traveling as a couple plus kid is a bit more
expensive than as a couple, but not 50% more.

------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Karplus     karplus@soe.ucsc.edu    http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
(Senior member, IEEE)    (Board of Directors, ISCB)
life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels)
Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed)
Affiliations for identification only.

I think all that is true. We travel a fair amount, *but* we have an
only child. (Her first plane trip was when she was under a year old and
my in-laws had their 50th wedding anniversary.) We've hauled our
daughter to Mexico many times, the first when she was a toddler, and
we've taken other air trips -- a couple to Hawaii, one to the
Southwest, one to Disneyland, many times to the Pittsburgh area when
the in-laws were still around  --- plus taken car trips, especially up
and down the coast. We'd like to take her to England, but right now our
money is going into private middle school, so it's hard to seriously
consider that kind of expenditure.

But, again, we have an only child. I didn't have only one kid because I
wanted to travel...I didn't think that far ahead...but I constantly
realize if I had more than one, we couldn't do these things.

I think it's just a practicality. Unless one has infinite money, one
can't buy an increasing number of airplane seats to Tahiti (for
example; it's no place I've been). And people who are kidless are going
to have more freedom than our family has. What's surprising to me is
that it didn't occur to me how much I would be tied to the school
schedule until it was too late to do anything about it. I would have at
least gotten in a trip to the East Coast for the changing of the
leaves; I'd love to see that. So, I should be able to go in -- what? --
another 7 years. If there's any money left after paying college bills,
that is. ;)

beeswing

We would absolutely travel more if we did not have children.  Before Kids,
we used to take off on the spur of the moment and go wherever we felt like
going (one particular time we went from CT to a wedding in DC and planned to
stay in DC for the week, but at the reception DH said, hey, lets drive down
to Disneyworld.  Which we did).

Its not only easier to go without kids, but its easier to plan (working the
schedule for 2 vs. 4 people), and much less expensive.  Besides, much of the
'fun' stuff we used to do when travelling as a couple just isn't feasible to
do with a couple of kids (casino, restaurants, Broadway shows, etc)>

I think the biggest change pre-kids to post-kids is our willingness
to consider long-haul travel.  BK, we went to central America (from
Europe), and were considering other trans-continental destinations.
We also went away a lot at weekends - I think we probably went away
at least once a month.

After kids, we stopped most of the weekend trips: going to stay
with a group of friends is difficult if you have the only child
there.  We also stopped a lot of the foreign travel.

OTOH, we hadn't been married very long before I got pregnant, so
we hadn't established a habit of going away as a couple.  I think
if we were used to frequent trips we probably would have done more
to maintain them.

I agree.  Alone the fact of airfare times four can be limiting money
wise, and once you're locked into a school schedule you *have* to travel
 during peak season, which makes crowds and availability tough.  Added
to that the more exotic locations which can be less than kid-friendly
and we haven't left the East Coast in years.

Lesley

For me, the issue is more money than traveling with my daughter and husband.
She's almost 4, and we've went to Florida with her before, we're thinking of
a western trip. I think it actually is more difficult when they're in school
(and of course, costs mount as they get older).

These friends of yours may be seeing the world, but there's nothing like
having a baby. She is my world.

Theresa

Well my husband was in the Navy, which involved travel to different
duty stations.  This was true from the very start of our marriage.  We
covered a good bit of the US in the process.  

DH hadn't traveled much before he joined the Navy, but I had, so it
wasn't so terribly different for me, and I liked moving from place to
place.  

When I had kids, they had to come along.  Plus my mom loved to have
the kids come visit her, so at least once I left them with her and met
my dh in Europe at various ports.

Since the kids have been grown, we've gone back to traveling again -
since I've retired, we've gone south for the winter every year but one
- five out of the last six years.

grandma Rosalie