Traveling with grandchildren is both fun and rewarding. Sometimes, though, it’s nice to plan trips that don’t involve costumed characters or thrill rides. If you’re looking for some ideas for building your relationship with your grandchild and creating wonderful travel memories, why not pursue a favorite hobby or new activity together? You could take a cooking class, learn to make wreaths or flower arrangements or visit a display of airplane models.
If you’re looking for special interest travel ideas, here’s a sampling of ideas and destinations for hobby and special interest travel:
- Photography
Most children love to take pictures. If your grandchild doesn’t have a camera, you can choose from the many inexpensive, kid-friendly cameras on the market. Disposable cameras are both economical and easy to use. Several companies now make digital cameras for children ages three and up. Even if you’ve never taken pictures, both you and your grandchild will enjoy looking at familiar places in a new way – through a viewfinder.
There are many ways to share photography experiences with your grandchildren. For example, you can spend five days with your grandchild hiking and learning about photography at Yosemite National Park with Elderhostel. Teenaged grandchildren are welcome at Horizon Photography Workshops’ annual summit in Chesapeake City, Md. At this three day event, you and your grandchild can learn the basics of photography or professionalize your portfolios.
- Geocaching
If you have a GPS unit, or even if you don’t, you can try geocaching with your grandchildren. Geocaching is a techno-treasure hunting activity in which you use GPS coordinates to find a hidden “treasure” and log book. Kids love to look for concealed objects – that’s why the I Spy book series is so popular – and you can find geocaches practically everywhere. Geocaching is possible whether you're visiting Pittsburgh or Pompeii.
Here’s how it works. First, visit Geocaching’s website to search for “caches”, hidden containers you find using GPS coordinates. You can search by address, ZIP code or country. Next, grab your GPS and a pencil and hunt for the cache. It won’t always be easy to find, but that’s part of the fun. When you’ve found the cache, enter your name in the logbook it contains. If there are small items inside the cache, you may take one if you leave something else in return. (Don’t leave food; you wouldn’t want the next visitor to find ants or bear tracks.) Finally, when you return home, you can report your visit by registering on the Geocaching website.
Many outdoor outfitters, such as Central Oregon Adventures , have capitalized on the geocaching craze and rent GPS units by the day or hour. You can even sign up for a guided geocaching tour.
- Birdwatching
In its latest National Survey, the U.S. Fish and Wildife Service reports that over 47 million people participated in birdwatching activities in 2006. Even very young children enjoy watching and identifying birds. You can take your grandchildren to a local park or wildlife refuge to watch and learn about birds, sign up for a bird walk or join a birdwatching vacation tour.
Many U.S. national parks, such as Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, provide birdwatching brochures for visitors. Everglades National Park publishes a bird checklist for recording your sightings. In some parks, rangers lead birdwatching hikes. In others, including Everglades National Park, concessionaires offer tram or boat tours that bring you closer to the birds’ habitats.
You can incorporate birdwatching into any trip. Bird counts are a great way to introduce children to birdwatching, and you can participate in them from your home or hotel room. In the U.S., the Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count, which takes place during December and January, and Great Backyard Bird Count in February are two of the largest bird counts. You simply count and record the number and species of birds you observe and enter this information into the bird count’s website. You can look at national bird count statistics on the website or find out which species live in your neighborhood.
If you’d rather travel to a birding event, you’ll have many to choose from. For example, you could head west to Godwit Days in Arcata, Calif., where birdwatchers track springtime’s migratory birds each April. You can also participate in international birdwatching events, such as the British Birdwatching Fair, held each August in Glastonbury.
