Traveling with Grandparents

The Newest Trend: Traveling with Grandparents

Barbara Pash

London was in the grip of the coldest winter on record. Paris, too. Judy Pachino didn’t mind. She was on a week-long trip with her daughter and granddaughter and they were having a great time.

“There were planned activities — museums, the Changing of the Guard — and also free time. We did things together and then we each did what we wanted,” said Mrs. Pachino, a Pikesville resident and Beth El congregant, who was accompanied by daughter Cary Becker of Stevenson and granddaughter Chelsea, a 9th grader at Garrison Forest School for Girls.

The threesome went on a trip specifically designed for families. Others on the trip included a set of grandparents traveling with their two grandsons, one in high school and the other in college; and two couples, each with their preteen daughters.

Family vacations aren’t new. For years, people have packed their bags, loaded up their cars and driven to the beach or mountains. They rent a condo or cabin, or a suite of rooms in a hotel, and are joined by grandma and grandpa, aunts and uncles, and/or adult siblings and their children.

Now, though, there is a new wrinkle to that scenario. The industry calls it intergenerational travel, and business is booming. Mrs. Pachino, for instance, went on a Bridges tour, a division of Tauck World Discovery. Since its formation in 2003, said Tauck spokesman Tom Armstrong, Bridges has consistently ranked as either the first or second fastest-growing segment of the company.

Bridges was created because after 9/11, the Norwalk, Conn.-based company noticed that more families were traveling on its regular Tauck itineraries. “We thought we could create a better product geared to that demographic,” said Mr. Armstrong.

Bridges has grown from one trip to 13 different itineraries, ranging from the U.S. national parks to African safaris, from European cities to Galapagos Island cruises.

“We thought it would be only moms and dads with their kids,” said Mr. Armstrong. “But as it has turned out, that is only one-third of the overall Bridges business. Grandparents and grandkids account for another one-third; multi-generational groups, the rest.”

Last winter, Selma Woolf, a Pikesville resident and Suburban OrthodoxCongregation member, took her granddaughter, Elisa Davis, on a two-week trip to Thailand. Mrs. Woolf has traveled with her grandchildren on family vacations but this was her first trip alone with Ms. Davis, a 23-year old modern dancer and Pikesville native who lives in Manhattan.

They went on a tour organized by Overseas Adventure Travel. Their travel companions were mostly retired seniors. Mrs. Woolf has another granddaughter, Lila Ahronowitz, who has been teaching English in a school in a Bangkok suburb for the past several months.

“This was an opportunity to visit her. She joined us for part of the tour and sometimes we left the tour and went with her,” said Mrs. Woolf, who loved the experience of traveling with her granddaughter.

“It nourished our already close relationship,” said Mrs. Woolf, who only wishes she could take each of her five grandchildren on separate trips.

Helen Koenig founded Grandtravel, a Washington, D.C. company, in 1986. She believes it was the first to focus exclusively on grandparent-grandchildren travel and, as far as she knows, it may still be the only one to do so. “Others do it as part of a family package,” said Mrs. Koenig, a long-time travel agent who got the inspiration for the company when she became a grandmother herself.

“Grandparents are healthier, they’re living longer and they want to share these experiences with their grandchildren,” said Mrs. Koenig, whose company offers land tours from Alaska to Africa for small groups of about 20, accompanied by a tour leader and a teacher-escort.

Mrs. Pachino likes the structure of a planned trip. “I don’t know if we three women would have gone on our own,” she said of London and Paris.

Said Cary Becker, Mrs. Pachino’s daughter, “I went to Paris on my honeymoon. I’d never been to London. We were busy pretty much the whole day and I loved that. We all got along well. We had a great time.”

“I’d never traveled with my grandmother before. We got to know the other people on the trip…a mix of older couples and grandparents traveling with their kids and grandkids. There were kids my age — four or five of us. We had the best time,” said Chelsea Becker.

Of course, not every intergenerational trip turns out so well. Children get sick.

The food doesn’t agree. It’s pouring rain at the resort. The amenities aren’t nearly as nice as advertised.

Then there is the grandmother who took her two 13-year-old granddaughters, who are first cousins living in different cities, on a Disney cruise. “I never saw so many children in one place at one time,” said the grandmother, who claims the noise and tumult gave her a headache the entire time.

Besides London-Paris, Mrs. Pachino has gone on two other intergenerational trips — to Disneyworld in Florida and to Club Med in Florida.

“Each time I planned one of these trips, my intention was to have a shared time with my children and grandchildren that would remain in their memories,” she said.

June 13, 2008