Grand Travel

Grandchildren Like the Idea of Grand Travel
It’s not just the adults who want more intergenerational travel experiences. A 2003 survey conducted by Yesawich, Pepperdine, Brown & Russell, a marketing agency in Orlando, Florida, revealed that 56 percent of kids aged 6 to 17 would "really like to" vacation with their grandparents.

Cari Gray, marketing director for Toronto-based Butterfield & Robinson, says her company saw the growing trend in grand travel a few years ago and started creating programs specifically for families, including grandparents who want to travel with their grandchildren.

"The money that generation has, and the way they want to spend it, is geared toward sharing experiences instead of buying a bigger house,” Gray says. “They want spiritual bonding."

How to Get Started with Grand Travel
If you would like to try traveling with your grandchildren, but feel uneasy about trying to plan a trip that will match the abilities and interests of everyone involved, there are a number of different organizations that offer packages and tours designed for grandparents and grandchildren. Here are three of the best:

Elderhostel Intergenerational Tours

Elderhostel, which provides outstanding educational travel experiences for seniors 55 and older, also offers hundreds of intergenerational tours to domestic and international locations throughout the year. Packages range from short trips in the U.S. that cost less than $500 per person to costly multi-week international vacations.

Packages include accommodations; most meals; transportation during the program; field trips, cultural events, and lectures; and gratuities and taxes. International programs also include airfare.

Grandparents and grandkids can retrace the path of Lewis and Clark, explore the Everglades by canoe, learn about Irish mythology firsthand, bicycle through Germany and Austria, or choose from many other options. Rates are the same for all ages.

Familyhostel Tours

The same people who run Interhostel tours for travelers over 50 also offer several Familyhostel tours for grandparents or parents traveling with kids ages 8 to 16. The tours are all-inclusive and combine educational activities with recreational, cultural, and social activities.

Rates for domestic packages start at $895 for adults, $795 for kids ages 12 to 16, and $695 for kids 8 to 11. International packages tend to run much higher.

Packages include round-trip airfare from a designated departure city, air transfers on international trips, lodging in three- and four-star hotels, three meals daily, educational activities, fees for tours and attractions, and ground transportation.

Familyhostel offers an 11-day tour of "Harry Potter's England & Wales" and a Tolkien-inspired 17-day journey through "New Zealand: Land of Middle Earth," where the “Lord of the Rings” movies were filmed.

Grandtravel

For seniors who want a deluxe travel experience, Grandtravel offers first-class vacations to destinations around the world, all designed specifically for grandparents traveling with their grandchildren.

Most tours cost more than $5,000 per person, but feature deluxe lodgings, extraordinary menus, and many unique tours and activities such as a backstage tour of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in England or an opportunity to feed giraffes in Kenya.