September 2008 Archives

I recently had a very interesting conversation with a man who has lived all around the globe, currently residing in New Jersey. He told me that he feels passionately about travel because he thinks that it changes who you are and how you see the world every time that you experience a new place and the people that live there.

I love that in working for a travel company, I may be playing a small part in bringing people together and teaching them something new about the world. How awesome is that?!

Many parents are now using travel to teach their children about history, geography, art and environmental issues. Recently, the Taylor family was in the news for renting an RV and touring the United States for the year in an effort to teach their two homeschooled boys about American history. What an amazing opportunity! A learning experience, family time and lots of things to talk about when writing September's "What I did over my summer vacation" essay.

I love the summer. The weather, sitting on the back porch at dusk, hearing the crickets at night, playing outside and the look of sun-kissed skin. Now before you freak out and start sending me irate emails, hear me out.

I've always been a sun worshiper and so it's been a big adjustment for me to go from pouring on the baby oil at the beach and pool to thinking about sun damage, sunscreen and skin cancer. But, I have. I want to take care of myself and certainly, my family. I've found a lot of great products that work for me but I'm still searching for that great SPF product that works on my kid. So far we've nixed one lotion that always seems to find it's way into my son's eyes, a  thick cream that tends to ball up into little bits of sunscreen that rub off of his skin, and one that seemed to work well but the next day the wee one's back had a pinkish-hue to it. None of the above is acceptable to me.

Did you know that over the past 40 years, fathers have tripled the amount of time that they spend with their kids. Almost all of the parenting magazines that I read have columns written by dads, for dads (I, of course, tear these nibbles of great parenting info out to leave on my hubby's pillow); and on this month's cover of "The Best Life" Magazine, there were FOUR different headlines that spoke specifically to raising a family, spending more time with your kids and being a good dad and husband?

Wow! Let's hear it for the boys!

Call it an "almost-recession", a down-turn, whatever floats your boat. We all know that gas prices are rising and people are cutting back on expenses but what impact will that have on your family vacation? Chances are, not much. According to everything that I've read online and seen in the news, people are changing the way that they travel - not canceling their trips.

So, here I am, ready to help. I've racked the brains of our travel experts here at Wyndham to figure out the best way to save on traveling and to really stretch my dollars when planning my next trip.