Taking the Kids™
And Following Their Sports Around the Country
The Hermans travel all over the country with their kids. But they’re always too busy to do much sightseeing.
In the winter, the Burlington, Ill., family is at snowboarding competitions: In summer, it’s bike racing. “We haven’t had a family vacation in four years that doesn’t revolve around a sporting event,” said Barb Herman, who, this spring was at the United States of America Snowboard Association’s (www.usasa.org) national competition at Northstar-at-Tahoe Resort in Lake Tahoe, Calif., with her sons. The event drew nearly 1,500 competitors, more than 1,000 of which were under 18, accompanied by their families. “Sure it’s expensive,” Herman acknowledged. “But the kids love it and we support them.”
“At least they’re not in front of the TV all day,” adds Laurie Foerster, whose son Michael plays competitive soccer and whose daughter, Kat, is a snowboarder. Foerster had brought 16-year-old Kat from Minneapolis for the snowboard competition and expects to be following Michael’s soccer team this spring. “We’re going to be going to Chicago a lot,” she said. “You don’t sign up to do this,” she added. “It just happens.”
Many of you reading this are nodding your heads because you have an ace swimmer, tennis player, soccer goalie, basketball star, third baseman, skater, gymnast or snowboarder in your gang. You spend weekends driving to tournaments and matches, spending way too much on equipment, gas, hotel rooms and plane tickets.
Your vacations are dictated by where the kids are competing — whether its Florida, Hawaii, Vermont or Indianapolis. “Be prepared to have your life revolve around the sport,” says Chicagoan Karl Keller who estimates that, since his 18-year-old son, Nat, started playing nine years ago, he has watched more than 700 youth soccer games around the country. “You better love it or learn how to love it!” (END OPTIONAL TRIM)
I was at Northstar with my 16-year-old daughter, Melanie, a freestyle skier, joining thousands of family members who had traveled across the country to cheer on the young competitors. Northstar sold more than 2,000 discounted friends and family lift tickets, a spokesman said, and that doesn’t count the numbers of spectators on hand who weren’t hitting the slopes themselves. “We’re here to pick up half the cost,” joked Lynne Gray whose two grandchildren had come from New Hampshire to compete. “It’s a lot of fun for all of us.”
And, whether they like it or not, siblings get pulled along for the ride, observes Family Travel author Laura Sutherland who has traveled as far as Hawaii with her son Walker’s Santa Cruz, Calif., soccer team. “Many parents use all of their vacation time from work,” she said.
They’re working on the sidelines, too. Parents at the California ski resort sat in the sun, BlackBerrys in hand, balancing a laptop on their knees, as they waited for their children’s events, the kids wandering by for money to buy drinks and snacks. “I’ve been out of the office an entire month this winter,” said Robert Udolf, a business owner from Hartford, Conn.
“It’s a lot of sacrifice,” added fellow Connecticut mom Arlene Drimal, whose 9 year old was competing. “You had better make sure your kid wants this.”
And, apparently, more kids than ever do.
“Parents increasingly are planning vacations around activities that include their children, and sporting events are among the most popular,” says Peter Yesawich, who oversees the National Travel Monitor that tracks such travel trends. “Research suggests that more families travel with their children to attend a sporting event — whether a professional or a youth competition — than took a cruise last year.” And that’s no small number, with cruises attracting more than a million children and their families each year.
Cruises could well be cheaper, too. One mom offered that her family had spent more than $8,000 on airfare, hotel, rental car and entrance fees for the week in California, not to mention letting the kids skip school. “It’s worth it for the experience of a lifetime,” she said.
Certainly some parents are hoping for college scholarships. Others are living vicariously through their kids’ achievements. Some can easily afford these trips; others scrimp and save to pay for them, like the single mom I met who had put her budgeted amount on a prepaid debit card. “I can’t go over that amount,” she said.
To cut costs, Sutherland suggests picnicking whenever you can — in the hotel lobby, in a nearby park. “The dads get into having a barbecue. We Google Costco and buy stuff once we get there,” she says. “It’s actually more fun than dinners out, which were hard to orchestrate and too expensive for some of the families.”
Some parents make fast friends on these trips. Laurie Foerster notes that her daughter, Kat, has met other young competitors from around the country who she now keeps in touch with via e-mail. (END OPTIONAL TRIM)
“This gives them a unique experience,” says Karl Keller. And not incidentally, he hopes, gives the kids a focus that will keep them out of trouble.
Then there are the shared memories — that amazing home run, the goal in the last seconds of the championship game, the nearly flawless performance on the slopes. “I will remember some of these experiences for ever and Nat won’t ever forget that I was there,” he says.
But along with those few and far between memorable moments are all the tiresome hours in the car or on the plane, the pre-game or pre-event jitters, the boring afternoons spent waiting, the dinners after a disappointing performance when the young athletes will barely speak to you.
Still, Robert Udolf says it’s all worth it. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
By: Eileen Ogintz
