National Grandparents Day: Take the Grandkids!

You can bicycle along this canal with VBT. Photo from VBT Bicycling and Walking Vacations.

It was news to me, but National Grandparents Day is on Sunday, September 13^th. 

According to Family Travel Association:

• 50 million U.S. households are now led by grandparents, forecasting a continued travel boom by this large group of baby boomers.
• Today’s grandparents are far more active than their parents were, spending lots of time planning trips around specific activities.
• As a result, multi-generational adventure travel is up 30% year after year. (Multi-generational travel is the fastest growing segment of the travel industry and tops the list of travel trends, according to the Virtuoso Luxe Report.) 
• More grandparents are traveling with just the grandchildren, leaving the greandkids’ parents’ behind.  
• 22% of all grandparents traveled with just their grandchildren in the past year.

Here are a few suggestions for multi-generational travel, whether it’s on National Grandparents Day or any other day of the year:

• VBT Bicycling and Walking Vacations— Vermont-based VBT offers active tours, adventure trips and celebration travel, with multi-generational group bookings increasing by 76 percent for 2016 immersive bike tours. VBT’s average traveler age is 64, but ages 16+ can join in for multi-generational biking vacations.

• Hilton Hawaiian Village— Waikiki’s only beachfront resort has received numerous awards for being the most family-friendly resort in Waikiki. The 22-acre playground boasts an array of multi-generational activities from Waikiki’s longest water slide and surfing lessons at the Duke Kahanamoku Lagoon to cultural activities such as hula lessons and lei making. The resort features Friday Night Fireworks, Waikiki Starlight Luau and movie night under the stars. (I stayed here once and enjoyed it.)

• New York’s Finger Lakes — Located among eleven pristine lakes in Central New York, the Finger Lakes region offers visitors the opportunity to explore a variety of activities and attractions that appeal to all generations:

Letchworth State Park in New York’s Finger Lakes is one of the nation’s most beautiful. Photo from NY State Parks.

• Rochester’s Strong National Museum of Play is unveiling a new $4 million exhibit this September that will feature classic toys that awaken baby boomer nostalgia alongside state-of-the-art interactives that will excite children.
• Recreation: Acres of enchanted waterfalls, awe-inspiring caverns and caves await hiking, biking, waterfall spotting, kayaking, bird watching, picnics and more. The area is also known to have some of the best water activities, state parks and stunning scenery displays in the U.S. Enjoy nature at Genessee Falls, New York’s, Letchworth State Park (known as “The Grand Canyon of the East”),  Watkins Glen State Park in Watkins Glen, or Ithaca’s Taughannock Falls (a longer drop than Niagara Falls) . 
•  Mark Twain Country: When he sought refuge to live out his private life and write, Mark Twain traveled to Elmira, NY. You can see the office where he worked, located in a public park there. Chemung County (home of Elmira) features a new Twain-themed putt-putt golf course and a “Twain Trail,” featuring Twain quotes sprinkled along the path for literary-minded families.

I’ve spent lots of time in the Finger Lakes region and can whole-heartedly recommend it; lot of wineries there, too, if you can give the grandkids the slip.

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