Travel

/

Home & Leisure

Taking the Kids: A once in a lifetime adventure

By Eileen Ogintz, Tribune Content Agency on

Way to go, millennials! Kudos to your parents for passing on their love for travel. Now, though, you aren't waiting to take your kids on adventures -- even to places like Antarctica, once the purview of senior citizens.

"Antarctica is at the top of their list," said Todd Smith, CEO of AdventureSmith Explorations, who is seeing growing numbers of millennials and millennial families opting for those bucket list trips.

Millennial families, according to the new 2016 MMGY Portrait of American Travelers, are more likely than millennial couples or singles, to travel internationally, said Steve Cohen, who oversees the agency's industry research, including the Portrait of the American Travelers. Cohen detailed the new findings at the recent TMS Family Travel Summit, which I co-chair, the focus of which is Millennial Family Travel.

An astounding 64 percent of millennial families polled took an international vacation in the last year, Cohen said, and they are more likely to visit a new destination. "They want bragging rights."

That could be why, according to the Adventure Travel Trade Association, most tour operators (72 percent) say they are addressing more itineraries to meet the needs of families, especially as the average age of adventure travelers is 36. National Geographic Expeditions, for example, touts a Kid-to-Kid Connection, which links every young traveler with a pen pal of similar age. They have the chance to meet during the trip.

That includes Antarctica. Abercrombie and Kent, and others, has initiated a family trip to Antarctica and to the Galapagos Islands. They certainly don't come cheap. The Abercrombie and Kent family Antarctica trip this December starts at more than $13,000 per person (half off for kids up to 18), though many other international trips can be had for a third of that price.

 

But if you have the bucks (or grandma and grandpa do) such trips can be life-changing for children, tour operators say. "I'm living proof of that," said Eric Andrews, 42, who works for Quasarex in Quito, Ecuador. He said it was a trip to the Galapagos with his family when he was a teen that started him on the road to becoming a biologist, a dive master and cruise director there. "Especially as a cruise director, I saw first-hand so many other examples of the amazing and positive impact and influence that the Galapagos has on families and especially children. It is safe, it is the definition of unique, it is immersive, it is active, it is educational, it is a bonding experience."

It's key to choose the right trip for your family, Todd Smith said. Does anyone in your group have mobility issues? Food allergies?

The Galapagos, for example, really isn't suitable for kids younger than eight. He noted they turned down a couple who wanted to book an Antarctica trip with their baby, because the trip wasn't designed for young children. Choose a trip designed for families with special activities and guides, if possible. It also helps if you know there will be other kids on the trip around the same ages as your children.

For all of you millennial families out there who are anxious to take your kids to far-flung destinations, here are five ideas you might not have considered:

...continued

swipe to next page

(c) 2016 DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

 

 

Comics

Mallard Fillmore Bart van Leeuwen Andy Marlette Boondocks Dana Summers Christopher Weyant