Would you travel more if you didn't have kids?
 

We recently had a dinner party, one couple, and four guests who were single.
After the party, one of my husband's comments was how much everyone there
travels. One of the guests left the party early because she was flying out
to Hawaii early the next morning. People talked about diving in the Red Sea,
a recent trip to Indonesia, the list went on and on. I said to DH that none
of those people had kids full-time. Even the couple only had one kid from a
previous marriage who they don't have custody of. It's a lot easier to go
places and have the money to travel if you're not raising kids.

Comments?

--
Warm Regards,

Claire Petersky
http://www.bicyclemeditations.org/
Personal page: http://www.geocities.com/cpetersky/
See the books I've set free at:
http://bookcrossing.com/referral/Cpetersky

Would you travel more if you didn't have kids?
 

In article . net,
"Claire Petersky" wrote:

We recently had a dinner party, one couple, and four guests who were single.
After the party, one of my husband's comments was how much everyone there
travels. One of the guests left the party early because she was flying out
to Hawaii early the next morning. People talked about diving in the Red Sea,
a recent trip to Indonesia, the list went on and on. I said to DH that none
of those people had kids full-time. Even the couple only had one kid from a
previous marriage who they don't have custody of. It's a lot easier to go
places and have the money to travel if you're not raising kids.

Comments?

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.
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

Would you travel more if you didn't have kids?
 

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.

Would you travel more if you didn't have kids?
 

In article . net, Claire
Petersky says...

We recently had a dinner party, one couple, and four guests who were single.
After the party, one of my husband's comments was how much everyone there
travels. One of the guests left the party early because she was flying out
to Hawaii early the next morning. People talked about diving in the Red Sea,
a recent trip to Indonesia, the list went on and on. I said to DH that none
of those people had kids full-time. Even the couple only had one kid from a
previous marriage who they don't have custody of. It's a lot easier to go
places and have the money to travel if you're not raising kids.

Comments?


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

Would you travel more if you didn't have kids?
 

Claire Petersky wrote:
We recently had a dinner party, one couple, and four guests who were single.
After the party, one of my husband's comments was how much everyone there
travels. One of the guests left the party early because she was flying out
to Hawaii early the next morning. People talked about diving in the Red Sea,
a recent trip to Indonesia, the list went on and on. I said to DH that none
of those people had kids full-time. Even the couple only had one kid from a
previous marriage who they don't have custody of. It's a lot easier to go
places and have the money to travel if you're not raising kids.

Comments?


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

Would you travel more if you didn't have kids?
 

On 2006-01-10, Claire Petersky wrote:
We recently had a dinner party, one couple, and four guests who were single.
After the party, one of my husband's comments was how much everyone there
travels. One of the guests left the party early because she was flying out
to Hawaii early the next morning. People talked about diving in the Red Sea,
a recent trip to Indonesia, the list went on and on. I said to DH that none
of those people had kids full-time. Even the couple only had one kid from a
previous marriage who they don't have custody of. It's a lot easier to go
places and have the money to travel if you're not raising kids.

Comments?

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 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.

Would you travel more if you didn't have kids?
 

Claire Petersky wrote:
We recently had a dinner party, one couple, and four guests who were single.
After the party, one of my husband's comments was how much everyone there
travels. One of the guests left the party early because she was flying out
to Hawaii early the next morning. People talked about diving in the Red Sea,
a recent trip to Indonesia, the list went on and on. I said to DH that none
of those people had kids full-time. Even the couple only had one kid from a
previous marriage who they don't have custody of. It's a lot easier to go
places and have the money to travel if you're not raising kids.

Comments?

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

Would you travel more if you didn't have kids?
 

"Claire Petersky" wrote in message
ink.net...
We recently had a dinner party, one couple, and four guests who were
single. After the party, one of my husband's comments was how much
everyone there travels. One of the guests left the party early because she
was flying out to Hawaii early the next morning. People talked about
diving in the Red Sea, a recent trip to Indonesia, the list went on and
on. I said to DH that none of those people had kids full-time. Even the
couple only had one kid from a previous marriage who they don't have
custody of. It's a lot easier to go places and have the money to travel if
you're not raising kids.

Comments?


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)

Would you travel more if you didn't have kids?
 

On 1/10/06 4:15 PM, in article , "Banty"
wrote:

In article . net, Claire
Petersky says...

We recently had a dinner party, one couple, and four guests who were single.
After the party, one of my husband's comments was how much everyone there
travels. One of the guests left the party early because she was flying out
to Hawaii early the next morning. People talked about diving in the Red Sea,
a recent trip to Indonesia, the list went on and on. I said to DH that none
of those people had kids full-time. Even the couple only had one kid from a
previous marriage who they don't have custody of. It's a lot easier to go
places and have the money to travel if you're not raising kids.

Comments?


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.

[....]

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?

Well, perhaps part of it is your pre-child travel inclinations. I have
siblings without children who have never been outside the U.S. and just
don't seem to enjoy traveling:) So for them, the answer would probably be
no.

My travel plans have changed, and been enriched by being a mother. There is
so much that I want to share with them!

And it was great having a daughter who is fluent in French (a certified
interpreter nowadays, in fact) for our trip to France.

I would probably never have gone to Washington D.C. if I hadn't had
kids--but once there, I discovered so many things that I wanted to do on my
own, so that thereafter whenever I had a business trip I would schedule a
day or so for sightseeing.

If we didn't have children, I would probably be immersed in my career, and
not take the time to travel with my husband. As a mother at home, and then
a part-time professional, I've had the flexibility to take off when I
wanted, and the time to do the legwork and planning.

So for us, our travel may be more than if we didn't have children.

Which is DIFFERENT, as you point out, but not LESS, as Claire asked.

But I'm also fortunate to have in-laws 3 blocks away and a married child in
town, so that we can leave our children at home (youngest is 12). This past
weekend, we did a 4-night cruise to the Bahamas, just the two of us.

Colleen Kay Porter

Would you travel more if you didn't have kids?
 

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.

--
Penny Gaines
UK mum to three