My partner and I had very different upbringings and are reaching the age and level of stability where we want to take our kids places sometimes when they have breaks from school. But we’re having trouble agreeing on things to do and I’d like some novel ideas.
I grew up in a rural suburbia. I have half a dozen adopted siblings, all at least 5 years younger than me. The neighborhood was nothing but retired people and us, which meant we were the only kids on the street. So I ended up in more of a babysitter role than a sibling role a lot of the time. And my parents took us on vacations to amusement parks and even a cruise once, but they worked themselves to the bone to do so and we rarely saw them. When they did have free time at home they turned on the TV and veg’ed out because they were exhausted. And even then, I was poorer than most of my friends, but in the kind of way where their parents spoiled them with the latest video game shit and always gave them money to go to the movies and mine didn’t. Overall, I had it very good. I was lonely, but taken care of.
My partner, on the other hand, was regularly food insecure or living without running water or electricity. They did not travel more than a couple times in their childhood and usually it was because other family was paying for stuff. But they went to the same school as me. So whatever shame I felt for not fitting the bougie standards, they had it significantly worse. They worked significantly harder than they should have had to to escape the poverty they were raised in and now they basically want a taste of middle class life. And sometimes I just hate it.
I feel so bad, but middle class life is such a facade of treats with no substance. Unless your family owns a business or some shit, it’s just sacrificing connection for spectacle because the alternative is sinking down into poverty traps. I’d be happy if I never went to another amusement park in my life. It’s all a fucking trap. They’re the same no matter where you are and they’re just tourist traps all around. I don’t have any concrete memories from them. I just have pictures and I know that I like the tilt-o-whirl and fried dough.
My partner wants to take the kids to Disney. I am literally repulsed by the idea. It would be a little tight, but we could afford it. But we just get so little time with our kids as-is, that I want our family time to be spent doing stuff constructive or engaging, not this hyper-capitalist spectacle. I would love to do site-seeing, but our kids are too young (both under 10).
If I can’t think of a good alternative, we’ll probably go to Disney and it’ll be what it is. I’m not gonna be grumpy the whole time about it and ruin it. But my partner is also open to other ideas for stuff to do. I just never did anything else, so it feels like I literally don’t know how to spend quality time with family. I’m also trying to be really conscientious about not dumping all this on my partner and making them feel bad about wanting to do fun stuff with the kids. Thoughts?
I would love to do site-seeing, but our kids are too young (both under 10)
They'll love it anyways, give it a try. At least a small hike in a foresty mountain and then spend the rest of time chilling at a lake shore.
Unless they really want to go to Disney and then your partner tells them "well I wanted to take y'all to Disney, but your boring ass dad wanted you to feed mosquitoes and catch brain eating amebas here"
Not sure if you're in California or in Florida, but I'll be honest Disney isn't terrible for one day. It's very expensive though.
Six flags is also an option if you live near Disney, significantly cheaper and tbh more fun.
I used to live in LA, so there's actually quite a bit in the area that you can do, or within 5-6 hour drive.
Mammoth is great, amazing sights to be seen, incredible hiking, and there are deals to be had on hotels. The whole area is almost like a national park but free. There's a lot of good mountain biking too if the kids want to learn.
Big Bear is even cheaper - you could rent a whole house for like 100-150 a night there. Lots of fun nature stuff to do there on the lake, hiking, mountain biking.
Of course there's always the national parks, throughout the state. Joshua tree probably isn't the best right now though it's way too hot.
All that said, if your wife wants to do Disney, it's not the worst thing ever. Just expect a lot of long lines lol. I went to Disney as a 5 year old and I think I had fun, but tbh I mostly remember standing in line lol.
For more a beach getaway you could look at San Luis Obispo. May be a bit boring for the kids. Gonna keep adding to this as I think about it
Oh yeah also zion, what a blast of a place to visit. They will love The Narrows for sure, kids love playing in rivers.
If you live in the middle of the country near Kentucky, Red River Gorge is super super fun. There's a big jumping rock and a swimming hole in the river, it's great. There's kayaking and stuff also, and of course, hiking, biking, rock climbing. So so fun
SLO also has the Madonna Inn, if you want to stay in the tackiest rooms ever.
I've seen that place from the highway a bunch as a kid and it always fascinated me.
Obvis it's a bit pricey, but it's great to spend a night in for a splurge. The room insides are all very kitschy. Definitely worth going at least once if you can afford.
If you do go, try the champagne cake from the restaurant at some point. It's delicious.
Strongly seconding the comrade who posted some nature suggestions, beyond that I really loved going to big cities just to do city stuff as a kid.
Obv isn't as fun if you live near big ones, and these days depends on your covid sensitivity, but depending on the city you can usually find theater performances, restaurants with food you can't normally find, cultural neighborhoods (Chinatown, etc), ride the subway (was a HUGE novelty to me as a suburban kid), literally just experience walkable infrastructure, play in huge parks, walk through farmers markets or street vendors or fish markets, and find other cool and unique attractions depending on the city. (I can give great Boston-specific ones)
The kids will love Disneyland, it's pretty much designed to ensure that.
That said as I got older I realized I appreciated my family's camping trips far more than any amusement park (nature just wasn't as stimulating), and the best trips were the ones where my parents didn't just let me sit around and play a Gameboy but had me do stuff. Take your kids out and let them try tending a fire, or camp cooking for themselves. Play board games in the wild, or maybe go fishing if one of them in curious. Teach em to skip stones on a river if you know.
There's a ton of stuff that isn't just hiking and taking pictures (something I didn't care for much as a kid). Give them experiences and not sightseeing and it won't matter where you take them
Gonna post some obvious alternatives here (feasibility depends largely on where you are located):
Yosemite
Tahoe
Zion National Park
Pinnacles (basically discount Zion)If you go to Yosemite the tent cabins are cheap and a great happy medium between a cabin and just roughing it.
It sure is. Some of my best memories are from there. Once got to see a black bear and her cubs and it's one of the coolest things I have ever seen.
It's much better in winter though when there's less people, lots of snow, and way more likely to see wildlife.
Summer Yosemite is a total zoo. Way too many people lol. Sequoia can also be a zoo but less so
That reminds me Big Sur and Henry Cowell are also really awesome. Some of the last living old growth forest in California.
And yeah that's why I recommend Yosemite in the winter. The outdoor ice skating rink is also really cool.
Oh yeah great idea, that's like a double beach and nature vacation
lmao I forgot about the Boardwalk and I grew up there. Definitely a great place for a well rounded vacation. Also up in the valley there's a place called Fall Creek where you can see old ruins of logging operations and lime kilns.
Huge +1 from me, I'd add red rock canyon to the list too. IIRC some of those places have things like horse or mule tours that are really fun too, and ok for kids unless they're super young.
I had a semi bougie childhood but the nature-y vacations we went on still stand out as being the best and most memorable (better than theme parks for sure)
For sure nature stuff is great for kids. Inspires a want for conservation, great excercise, they learn to appreciate the beauty of the natural world. Also, very little lines
horse or mule tours that are really fun too, and ok for kids unless they’re super young
In Baja you can rent horses and just ride them on the beach and that was fun as hell.
If it's a longer trip where you're hitting multiple places, national parks also give you the ability to save money by alternating between nicer accommodations and whatever level of roughing it you're comfortable with. Do something pretty spare and cheap for a day or two, then do something a bit nicer.
Yeah Pinnacles is great for day trips, Yosemite is better enjoyed in longer stretches since there's so much amazing shit to see.
I want to save enough money one day so I can go to Yosemite, it looks amazing.
Also lots of great climbing
Yeah I definitely feel privileged to have grown up in central California. I really want to visit Africa some day though, my grandfather went there during is time in the military in WWII and he said Kenya was the most beautiful place he had ever seen.
Yeah it really is amazing. Lots of beautiful places in Africa for sure.
This is just South Africa, but the Kruger national park, Pilanesberg, etc are beautiful and you can see the big 5. The Pilanesberg is basically one massive old volcano that's a wildlife park with some lakes inside it. Then there's all the mountains in the Drakensberg, the South Coast and East Coast. And the valleys and forests in Mpumalanga. That's just what I've seen, I haven't even been to the west of South Africa.
I want to visit Cape Town (lol I know super basic), just because apparently it's cool and table mountain of course. And the Karoo in the Northern Cape along with the cost, sand dunes right up to the beach. I think the Grand tour Amazon show with the top gear people did a special in that area of Namibia and South Africa.
And if you go to Zion, Capitol Reef is nearby and IMO is kind of a hidden gem. Not crowded at all and very cool sites to see.
I'm not sure how common these are so I hope I'm not doxxing myself, but like a children's science museum can be super fun for young kids. Exhibits that the kids get to play with rule, my kid is a bit young but I can't wait to take him to the one near here when he's a little older.
I can empathize, as I have a partner who likes doing those things like go to Disney or take your otherwise typical "middle class" vacations. As much as you and I both find it repulsive, for your normal American a trip to Disney is pretty... normal. And once you get to that strata just above "middle class" vacations to Hawaii or Europe are seen as "the norm". It's gross.
BUT... relationships are made of compromises. Sure you could insist on a vacation in a cabin in the woods or whatever, but you're gonna end up with a resentful partner. And understandably so. To her, she just wants something that is considered "normal" and this is reinforced by the society around this. Since she struggled growing up getting to go to Disney, for her, could feel like a small and reasonable luxury. You can try and buck this but I think unless she sees the world as you do, it will only build resentment.
So, my 2 cents would be to go to Disney for a day (and try and enjoy it as best you can since people can pick up on that and that could be a real buzzkill for your partner). But then include a day at the beach, or out at places like Mammoth or Big Bear. You could even "stack the deck" a bit by planning out some real fun stuff to do there so the kids will want to do nature stuff again in the future. Your partner is happy, kids are happy, and while the compromise isn't what you wanted you would still get some quality vacation time with stuff you want.
I would recommend doing some glamping, especially if you haven't camped before. Stay in a cabin where you have to bring sleeping bags / pillows or at a campground with showers and bathrooms and water and picnic tables and a fire pit and a big ass tent and a nice camp stove.
Basically do the easy mode of camping where you can make food easily and still have fun with a fire (being safe, of course), like roasting marshmallows. Even with buying all the gear it's cheaper than Disney and you get to use it multiple times per year. Also since it's camping there's tons of time to just hang with each other, play games, sing songs, tell ghost stories, etc.
This is what I did as a kid with my family. We had a tent and rented a spot but there were bathrooms and showers.
We did it once the hard way out in the middle of nowhere and it wasn't as fun because some extended family didn't want to do that. Pooping in a hole while looking out for wild animals is not so glamorous.
Seconding everyone else, I always did camping as a kid and I miss it. Being in nature is great, but kids (depending on personality) are either going to get tired/bored easily if you don't keep tasks varied or they're going to single-mindedly run you ragged through as much of the park as they can convince you to go see. Some parks have ranger-guided events or holiday events, disk golf, fishing, swimming, "nature centers", little stores with supplies and souvenirs, boating/canoeing, horseriding and if they draw seasonal crowds they will be built near little tourist towns that try to cater to families with little walkable shopping areas, puttputt/gokarts, etc.
Most of this stuff is priced really cheap and the most expensive campsites with water hookups tend to cost about as much as a cheap motel. Basic tent sites run about $10-20 per night normally. You can bring your own food obv but not your own firewood due to invasive insect species. Cabins will be priced about the same as a hotel room and the most popular parks can have on-site hotels with restaurants.
Disney sounds good in theory but it's honestly a waiting-in-line simulator and the rides at your local fair are more exciting. The main thing they have going for them is expensive props/theming and branding. And like every theme park, they will try to nickel-and-dime you with overpriced goods once inside, so you have to budget for food and random items that cost too much. If you're trying to come up with a compromise, I'd go to a more local theme park. They will still have a section for small children and some of their older rides can be kid friendly due to historic engineering constraints, and the lines will be shorter.
We take our kids camping almost every year. It's cheap compared to other forms of vacationing and you are together in a much more relaxed way than usual. Kids love the lazy chill vibes of a campsite and love experiencing their family in a different setting than usual.
If you want to go somewhere and see something things with animals can bea great idea. I know there can be ethical concerns to keeping animals in captivity but zoos and aquariums offer some great experiences for all ages that are more authentic and educational than a theme park.
Open-air museums are great places to visit with kids as well. They get an experience of seeing something different while also being able to learn about history in a tactile hands-on way. Lots of museums do kid-friendly activities in the vacation season.
Or just keep it simple and spend a day swimming at the local beach/lake. Everybody loves that.
I hate theme parks as much as anyone. They're nasty fake-ass tourist traps scientifically engineered to bleed you dry of all your money. But being a parent isn't always about what you like. Most kids love the consumerist plastic experience of going to such a place and if you have the possibility to do it then why not go? You'll hate it but your kids will have a great time which was the point of it all to begin with.
You can do sightseeing with kids as well, kids love seeing things different from those are home just as much as adults. We had a great experience at a Dutch cathedral where the nice grandpa who volunteered as a tourist guide loved to see how much noise the kids could make with the church's "this is how a pipe organ works" model. When we went sightseeing in Copenhagen the ceremonial guards at the royal palace made a great impression on our three year old who talked about "old soldiers" for years and years afterwards. Just riding the subway was a huge experience for our kids who are only used to busses.
At the end of the day the important thing isn't what you do exactly but just that you're doing something together.
Zoos are cool and cheap and it’s fun to do road trips to go to new zoos and then check out the localities on the way. Family tradition dictated that every easter was spent at the zoo and if we got to travel to see a new zoo it was always a special treat
If the kids like roller coasters I think Six Flags would be cooler.
My dad would take us on family canoe trips down calm rivers. Two canoes for the four of us. Cooler full of drinks and pre-packed lunch. Great time.
