The Value of a Trip with a Child 
Benefits of One Parent, One Child Travel
Consider it in the Entire Budget


Here:  No Western White House saves taxpayers a bundle

How to justify the expense of taking one child on a trip.  Isn't that a bit much?  Not if you think about it, do more than react without careful thought.  Consider the Spain Trip 2010. Sasha and Michelle. One on One, even with Friends. Looking at budgets, pro's and cons, as any family must. Conclusion: Well done.  Cheer the timing, place, manner and means.

  • Their family:  Context:  Michelle Obama is in Spain with Sasha. Some disapprove and say that is too much a luxury for a wife and one child. However, consider: This is a bargain vacation compared to a Western White House. And the elder daughter is already at sleep-away camp, and the President is busy. Put the trip in perspective, as you would with your own family. What other expenses can you forego, or have your foregone, in order to make this possible.
  • For American taxpayers, it  cost taxpayers $225,000 per trip to Crawford, and how many trips were there a year? See ://voices.washingtonpost.com/reliable-source/2010/07/rs-_obama_spain.htm/  

Think what we save because the Obama's do not compel us to support a Chicago White House. See ://www.westernwhitehouse.org/.  "Armed to the teeth?"  And $225,000 per trip - lovely Crawford TX? See ://voices.washingtonpost.com/reliable-source/2010/07/rs-_obama_spain.html/

  • Michelle and Sasha with friends, and the friends are all paying their own way, in Spain. Even with friends around, the focus for Michelle is on one child instead of two, and it is often appropriate to do things separately. Then do something next time with the other child.  One parent, one child.  Good idea. And an exciting location.





Going with one child, and not taking even the spouse, is a new idea for many.  Try it. See ://www.takingthekids.com/Blogs/EileensBlog/The-Obamas-and-mother-daughter-trips.aspx/; and ://community.todaymoms.com/_news/2010/07/28/4770552-michelle-obama-is-right-take-kids-on-individual-vacations/

1.  Time your trip when they are well mobile, and curious.
2.  Place.  Perfect. 
  • Spain's places and history and variety - wonderful. And its issues are our own - economics, the place for minority populations, multiple traditions, cultures.  And the fun.  Don Quixote and Carmen and Sultans and Basques and Pilgrimage sites. If you choose one country in Europe to see, see Spain  .  Hope you get to try the braised pigs' ears.  A benefit of one parent one child travel is freedom in eating. Free to try without a predictable Ew-w-w-w-w-w from too many other people. Bring home some recipes.
3.  We spend our money better on memories than things, once there is enough to keep you going at home.

Comparing alternate choices for spending:
Taxpayer Perspective on Costs: Prefer a Spain and other vacations vs. other presidents' duplicative and egotistical insanity of a second White HouseThis is not a new idea - just an under-covered one - see ://www.sodahead.com/united-states/bush-spends-millions-of-taxpayer-money-to-go-to-texa-camp-david-kennebuckport/blog-342631/  All that wiring.
  • Why not recoup Crawford for use as the New Guantanamo? There are always ways. 
  • Critics of this trip? Maureen, you know nothing this time of what you speak. And that hair is so yesterday. That's a joke, Maureen. You look lovely, as do I.


4.  Who go "foreign"?
  • The best way to vet your own perspective, if it interests you to check things out, is by changing your looking post. And you as a parent may well be able to do it, too. Even if you are of moderate means. If you are wealthier, don't gripe when you choose to put your own priorities elsewhere than in being actually with a child on your own, say you choose a McHouse or a McCar.  Michelle has the right idea.
  • Foreign can be cheaper than at home, except for the airfare perhaps. Go by budget allocation, if you can.  Of course, any trip is discretionary and other expenses may have to come first.  But many parents who tut-tut at the cost of a president's family going to a foreign country could allocate their own budgets to have one parent take one child abroad. Go! Just to see it, and feel part of the bigger world, and have a ball. Just trade off the bigger car, the overnight camp, whatever - going to a foreign country is manageable, barely - depends on family priorities - with belt-tightening elsewhere.
5.  American Values - weigh, balance, consider, decide

  • Give a child a sense of Freedom
  • Freedom from other people's roles and their views of ours being imposed upon us.
  • Freedom to take a child and relate on our own: even with a horde of photographers, there is alone time
  • Could you do it? Michelle's idea may work for some. Just look at your choices, and see what choices you really have. FN 2
Contemplative time abroad puts issues at home in perspective.  Do we really need to get into others' personal lives? Offer a child contact with real other people, regular residents in other countries, other population groups, religions, communities; free of one's own group's pressures.  Start travel early? That's when kids learn. Start kids in global cultures as early as the gun people start guns early.
    Time passes.

    ...........................
    FN 1 In our family, we didn't think of trips like this until our son was grown. But our son has special needs, and going abroad with him is like going abroad with a far younger person than his years, every year. And is it fun?

    Need you ask?

    Are we jeopardizing our own financial future?  Sure, if you think that "jeopardy" means not being able to maintain what we used to do without thinking when I was working. We just can't now, and so we don't. Some doing without is not jeopardy. We'll get along. Fine. Drive that car until it dies. Great. When jeopardy does knock, as with people who already are in real jeopardy, we will recompute.

    Meanwhile, we favor every tax or other break possible for people in marginal or middle situations, a special tax deduction every time they do something directly with, or provide a talent or cultural enrichment for, their children.  You figure out how to draft it.  If you ain't marginal and are something at middle or a little over, don't complain, and pay up so others can keep their children above the margin. Their kids are our kids.

    FN 2 You have choices in how to get somewhere, if you decide you can possibly go and be reasonably responsible on all fronts. The Misery Index is too high for so many that this idea of travel is not intended to diminish that, see ://www.walletpop.com/blog/2010/08/05/10-worst-places-to-live/ So, if you can, and prioritize for it, go this way: Cheap. Economy, compact rental car, no reservations for hotels or ferries, stay where you find and that may be a pensione or small place. A big hotel is but not by choice. We stay there because it is 7PM and we are tired and this one is right by the big square, or the flight out is 6AM and we need to be near the airport. Eat street food at the vendor carts, or pub food (huge portions), or smaller bistros, sometimes places with tablecloths, but that is to do fancy for fun.
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    Our purpose in trips includes ongoing education for our son  -- for a fabulously inquisitive, street-smart, Down Syndrome adult who deserves, as anyone, every feasible opportunity to be a rounded, informed person. Public schooling -- he still sees his favorite teachers -- did well, but stopped. Job: he is a fine employee. But there is more to life. There is the brain.  He as anyone needs to see the world. Everyone is out to pick a pocket or two.

    Russia by train, air and bus, for two major cities.

    See two sites:

    1.   Russia Road Ways. Moscow; and

    2.   Russia Road Ways St. Petersburg.

    Overview.

    Kremlin Regiment, changing of the guard, Moscow

    Our years of improvised road trips through much of Europe did not provide enough confidence for me to drive where Cyrillic rules, and without much in the way of English backup.  Dan and I, then, went by small tour -- Moscow and St.

    The Latest Europe Road Ways

    Road Trip Return:

    Pyrenees, Northern Spain, South of France.

    Planning changes with the times.

    With some fourteen years of road trips with my adult son, we are modifying some earlier how-to's to accommodate 1. Rental car size;  2. Trips technology; 3. Homeland Security assists; 4. Luggage limits; 5. Playing the theft odds.

    Figueres, Spain. Salvador Dali Museum. Big car.  Do you really need that for a simple road trip.

    1.  Rental car size. Class C for ease.

    Getting the Idea Across Fast

    With this online, we can translate the basics in a flash, go anywhere, and not reinvent the wheel each time. We are heading off to Barcelona, Pyrenees and South of France.  French I know, enough.  Spanish:  need more help. 

    Conversation, getting and giving information, requires fast reference. Language glossaries in guide books are useless for day-to-day use, inconvenient, too too.

    The Great Travel Focus

    The Flaneur

    How and Where the Most Important Experiences Happen. 

    Is that so?

    Flan, the great key: Flan.

    I flan, you flan, he-she-or-it flans,

    We flan, you (pl) flan, they flan.

    They what?  They flan. FLAN.  They peruse. Saunter. Whenever requirements and schedules loom, quashing the moment, go flan. Enrich thyself.

    Say the flan starts, when it begins to rain during a planned route to The Required Cathedral. The Flan says:  Wonderful  What happens next.

    Wonderful.

    Boost Understanding. Start travel at home.

    A.  Travel:  Give travel to Others. 

    B.  Do It In Place for Yourself. Give travel to yourself, locally in unfamiliar neighborhoods.

    What can you learn by going for coffee in another's neighborhood.

    See How.

    A. Travel as a Gift

    Give to the child, the grandchild, the graduate.  

    Give the gift of independence, trying something out.

    EYKVW7HRE5VM

    Traveler's Guide to The Axe.

    Reduce the Bulk of the Guidebooks

    Guidebooks are heavy.  Too heavy.  Regional travel, going to multiple countries, adds to the carry-on.  Solution:  The Great Chop.  The Axe. And plastic bags with zippers and rubber bands inside..

    .

    Axe, Aigen, near Rohrbach, Austria,  Axe thrown by St. Stephen (not this one) to locate a church site

    Step one. Cut up the books.

    The Value of a Trip with a Child 

    Benefits of One Parent, One Child Travel

    Consider it in the Entire Budget

    Here:  No Western White House saves taxpayers a bundle

    How to justify the expense of taking one child on a trip.  Isn't that a bit much?  Not if you think about it, do more than react without careful thought.  Consider the Spain Trip 2010. Sasha and Michelle. One on One, even with Friends. Looking at budgets, pro's and cons, as any family must. Conclusion: Well done.
    TRIPS INDEX- The Ad Hoc Ersatz Car-Dan Tour Company
    TRIPS INDEX- The Ad Hoc Ersatz Car-Dan Tour Company
    TOP PHOTO. Kalmar Castle, Sweden.
    TOP PHOTO. Kalmar Castle, Sweden.
    Visit first, read about it later. Too much advance information is overwhelming.
    Chablis France
    Chablis France
    Chablis France
    Dan and Vintner; farmhouse tasting
    Welcome to Europe Road Ways, our own trips. Find a map and a guidebook and go.
    Welcome to Europe Road Ways, our own trips. Find a map and a guidebook and go.
    We began the easy way: We chose Ireland several years ago, with its similar language and food, its small geographical area comparatively, some family roots, and we had only to cope with driving on the left.

    From that, we branched out to see other countries and regions in Europe, each trip some two weeks. We eat and sleep wherever, and have so far found consistently safe and clean places. We cross borders freely (no itinerary). How to find us if we disappear? We carry lots of ID, register at consulates or embassies sometimes, and email home our plans as we make them.

    Side benefits: For parent-child travel, the child becomes adult, a full participant in decisions. Whether related to the trips or just Himself, Dan has developed substantial street-smarts, and is a history buff. He is an inquisitive, responsible citizen of a larger world.

    See also Europe Road Ways on the Web
    About Me
    About Me
    1. Travel, improvised road trips. Two on the Loose: EUROPE ROAD WAYS. How we do it; (click) Europe Road Ways, How We Do It; and Europe Road Ways on the Web. Blogs for countries visited: Andorra Road Ways, Austria Road Ways, Belgium Road Ways, Bosnia Road Ways, China Road Ways (Jon's trip), Croatia Road Ways, Czech Republic Road Ways, Denmark Road Ways, England Road Ways, France Road Ways, Germany Road Ways, Greece Road Ways (Carol and Jon), Hebrides Road Ways, Hungary Road Ways, Ireland Road Ways, Italy Road Ways, Liechtenstein Road Ways, Luxembourg Road Ways, Montenegro Road Ways, Netherlands Road Ways, Norway Road Ways, Orkney Road Ways, Poland Road Ways, Romania Road Ways, Russia Road Ways Moscow, Russia Road Ways St.Petersburg, Scotland Road Ways, Sicily Road Ways, Slovakia, Slovenia Road Ways, Spain Road Ways, including Gibraltar, Sweden Road Ways, Switzerland Road Ways, Trieste Road Ways, Wales Road Ways;
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