We went to the Cape and what fond memories I have. When I married, we took our children to Maine and we still go there for summers.

Ah, New England! I love it too.

We never took vacations, per se, other than going camping over a weekend at a nearby lake a couple times with another family. We had farm animals who required care 365-days a year making vacations something other people did.

Both my mothers and my fathers families had relocated from Kansas to California and we drove once each year to see them in their respective cities. My dad did the driving and often straight through from coastal Washington. Besides the visiting with grandparents, we would have a day for Disneyland, Knotts Berry farm, a warm beach, something appealing to kids tied into the family trips ;-)

Other than that, it was camping. Canada, Washington, Oregon. My dad liked it more rustic and there were times we didn't stay in campgrounds, instead pitched a tent in whatever wild and private area that appealed to him....which would probably be trespassing today and not particularly safe for a young family.

Great pix Karen.

My father graduated university with a degree in Geography. What do you with that? Not much. He tried to enlist in the military but he had ear problems and they denied him.

So, time to start a family during WWII. Two sons and a daughter later, my father thought that it would be good to have us learn a lot about our country. We did road trips every year. We never passed a historic marker without stopping and learning stuff that 99% of the population never cared about.

We covered a lot states during that time, until I was getting into my teens. Then, finances kept us from even doing small road trips. My father still had the desire to go places and eventually, after retirement, he and my mother made it the all 50 state capitols (I have the photos).

So, being the son of a geography nut had us on the road a lot. Long road trip from Ohio to California and back, never once having a motel plan, just seeing what was available.

Personally, I have only 5 more U.S. states to complete all 50.

Was just my mom and us three kids. No money for vacations when we were young. Mom would fill up the trunk of the car with camping supplies and we headed to the beach. In those days, we just built a big bonfire and slept in front of it on the beach. Usually accompanied by mom's best friend, her three daughters and, sometimes, different guys either of them were dating at the time.

Fontana Village, North Carolina

Fond fond memories!

Sometimes, dad would drive us, spend the weekend, then he'd catch the bus back home to work and let us stay a week or two.

Every once in a while, my sister and I, each, would take a friend with us.

Lamar and Jay Orr were the "boys" whose parents worked at Fontana and I had a horrible crush on Jay.

I even spent my honeymoon there, and Jay and I spied eachother while square dancing.

Memories are everlasting of that wonderful place.

A trip to Florida when I was six, trip to Canada when I was eight, and then every summer a week in Wildwood, NJ or Ocean City ,New Jersey which is the place I took my kids every summer. Grandkids love it too. After they left, Cape Cod and Nantucket.

Same as grainlady....no vacations. Had a milk cow and I had a horse, plus chickens, rabbits, and usual dogs and cats and always a pet goat or sheep.

We didn't have much money so any and all of our vacations were car trips that usually involved camping in campgrounds. But then Dad would get bored and cut the trip short because he wasn't into hiking, so we'd sometimes leave early. Poor Mom. Poor Mom too in that she had all the work to do, apart from making the fire and cooking bacon, which my did liked to do. We went from Washington state to Disneyland once when we were younger kids and that was a really big deal. (We went one more time when we were older and Dad knew he wouldn't be here much longer--so nice of him since he was in pain.) I also remember going to Vancouver B.C. and staying in a hotel---my sister and I giggled every time we heard someone pronounce "out". There were also visits to an aunt and uncle that were fun.

Jim, I also recall having no reservations for a hotel we knew we'd need on our way to CA. I vividly remember stopping at one, having Mom run in to check out the price, then the decision made by my parents: $30 a night was too much but $25 was ok.

Though we lived only a half hour from a popular beach, summer vacations were the same, usually several weeks at a rented beach house (or at a friend's house) ranging from Long Beach to Laguna Beach. Sometimes coordinated with other families, sometimes not. I also got to go to a Y camp on Catalina Island for a few weeks each summer for 6 or 7 years running, starting as a camper and finished off with a staff job the last few years. That was my favorite place to go and favorite time of the year.

We had a travel trailer and toured the mid-west a lot. Also, living in WI, we went to FL for Easter and Christmas vacations. Loved swimming in winter!

We spent two weeks at was once called Camp Pine Knot, on Raquette Lake in the Adirondacks, two weeks every year from the time I was an infant until I was 16.

My Dad was associated with the college that owned it and spent six weeks there, while the family was allowed to join him for those two glorious weeks.

My playpen was an old canvas WWII life raft! Dad stopped my vacations there when the college boys he was teaching began to spend too much time hanging around me every spare second they could find.

Those two weeks were spent fishing, swimming, hiking, canoeing, and boating. It's impossible to describe how incredibly beautiful those buildings were (still are). All four of us kids agree that those times were the best of our lives.

Most summers, spent a week or 2 at the Jersey shore... Wildwood and eventually Ocean City. It was usually Dad's parents, his sister and 6 kids... us 3 and 3 cousins, Dad and uncle had to WORK, so only got weekends. Actually, might have been a "vacation" for them having house all to selves?!?

I DO pretty vividly remember a "road trip" vacation. From extreme SE PA to Florida... in early 60's, in a "Clark Griswold" green station wagon with NO AC, in late June. AND before there were any of the "attractions" or theme parks. I-95 was only SMALL bits and pieces down the east coast. We sorta trail blazed our way home up thru the Smoky Mountains.

Kinda funny how parents were NOT really responsible for "entertaining" kids?? We had books, coloring books, games and KNOW that none of us ever said we were "bored"!!

My dad wanted to escape the humid August heat of our central Illinois river valley, and Wisconsin lakes were the destination for a few summers after our beloved Mother died. I remember one nice cabin on Long Lake and the owner sharing her crop of tomatoes with us. Dad would listen to the political conventions on the radio, and we would busy ourselves fixing meals or rowing and swimming in the lake right in front of our cabin. Rustic but cool.

We had the worst vacations, like visiting Mount Rushmore in July (entailing driving through the Black Hills area in 100+ degree heat in an un-air conditioned vehicle). Another time we went to a lake that was all scummed over with algae. The camping vacations were the "best" when we would sleep in tents that weren't water proofed and would get drenched during the summer storms. Thanks for those good times, Mom and Dad.

We did not take vacations growing up. Once we visited the St. Louis zoo while visiting family in western part of Illinois. That is the only vacation we had.

Sue

LOL, Jewel.

My own kids didn't have many vacations. When they were small we visited my parents in Florida every year, and my in-laws in Arizona. But by the time they became adolescents we had a lot of horses and a multitude of pets to keep us at home. We live in an area where other people come for vacations, so I never felt bad about it.

We never took vacations when I was a kid. When I was in my teens, I would go to Jones Beach with friends. My first "trip" was my honeymoon.....Williamsburg, Va. Began my married life with a visit here and am ending life here.

There is a lake about 2 hours nw of Calgary that we used to go to most weekends in the summer. We also camped a lot near lakes in British Columbia and took several trips by car all the way down to California, even going into Tijuana once. :) I can say I've been to Mexico. hahhaa! We went to Disneyland twice and Las Vegas, Los Angeles. Those are the vacations I remember most.

We didn't go on vacations, but we did take day trips. I grew up in Brooklyn. We went to Coney Island, The Aquarium, The Botanical Gardens. Sometimes we would take a bus tour for the day. I remember visiting Museum Village in Monroe, NY.

I grew up on a small farm in southern Illinois. We did not have the luxury of taking vacations. We had a few milking cows and about 50 egg laying hens. A large portion of the year was taken up by school and there were no plans to travel during the school year. Travel time was for summer. In summer as farmers, we were tied to the farm tending the farm stock, raising crops, caring for a large garden, picking berries, and canning food for the coming winter. Our entertainment during free time was going to the nearby river to swim or fish.

During high school, my band teacher loaned me a baritone horn during the summer so that I could practice playing. Its too bad that I did not practice enough to improve by much.

Once during our grade school years, my dad took my sister and me to see his relatives in Ottawa, IL. He took us out of school during Halloween week. That trip was made during the war years. I do not recall the reason other than to see our cousins, uncles, and aunts. It may have been that one my aunts was deathly ill and was not expected to survive long and grandmother was elderly. Whatever the reason, I remember some details of that trip. It was the only time my dad ever took my sister and me anywhere. We traveled by Greyhound bus, stayed overnight in an old hotel in Bloomington, IL and completed the trip to Ottawa, IL next day. I have a set of photos my aunt took that week. While at Ottawa, I spent my free time learning to ride my cousin's bicycle. Oddly enough, I do not remember anything about the return trip. That was the one "vacation" I had during my youth.

We did not travel much. Most of my "travel" during high school days was herding an old Model A Ford exploring the country roads with my sister and a couple of friends on Sunday afternoons.

After working my way through college, getting a degree, getting a job, and getting married in 1960, I have taken a vacation trip every year since then. Right now, we are planning to go see our daughter and grand daughter this summer. We will be driving to Maryland. While there, I may take a side trip to King William county in Virginia; I am chasing my roots. I discovered last year that my ancestor lived in King William county, VA before he went to Pittsylvania county, VA in about 1760. The trail is getting mighty cold and data sparse this far back in history. I have indication that my forbear came from Wales to the Virginia colony.

We were too poor to take vacations when I was growing up. We were also needed at home to tend animals and to preserve food from the kitchen garden and orchards. I learned to take vacations after I married but I much prefer to be at home playing with all of my hobbies.

We had a vacation every single year. Sometimes it was visiting my great aunt and uncle in Oklahoma near Tahlequah and floating the river in their canoes.

All the rest were in national forests and campgrounds throughout Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Colorado, staying in our trusty Coleman pop up camper.

My parents have always been the outdoorsy type, their honeymoon was spent backpacking through Colorado; but it wasn't until I was a teenager that I realized that the main reason our trips were always to some campground in our pop up trailer was because my parents couldn't afford nice trips.

They figured a trip was better than none at all. I do appreciate seeing everything I did, lakes, forests, Month Rushmore, 7 falls, jewel caverns, Yellowstone, Carlsbad etc BUT I'm just not an outdoorsy person. I HATED waking up freezing cold in the trailer, grabbing my clothes and putting them in my sleeping bag to warm up before I put them on to walk to the campgrounds outhouse in the morning.

I haven't gone camping since then. Interestingly enough, while they still prefer to stay at campgrounds and be surrounded by nature, my mom won't do it anymore unless they are in their airstream with heat and a/c and a bathroom.

She confessed to me a few years ago that all those trips were no vacation for her either.

not often that we went on vacation, but we did twice in Austria.

Most of my vacations as a child were in Rhode Island, It had been my mother's home before she married my father and moved to the Chicago area. They separated when I was 2 1/2. My maternal grandmother came to live with us so that my mother could work to support us. Almost all of my 'vacations' were dependent on the kindness of my mother's friends. My mother would drive to the East Coast most summers, where we would stay with some of her lifelong friends and their families.

Mother's best friend and her husband became my much loved honorary aunt and uncle. I was about three when we stayed with them at a summer rental in Little Compton, RI. I remember waking and going to sleep to the sound of a cow bell as 'the cow lady' escorted her herd to and from pasture.

We lived in a house in Coral Gables one winter when I was about four. There was a little playhouse where I pretended to be a nurse to dollies. My mother volunteered as a "Grey Lady" in a veterans hospital. When we returned to Chicago, our house had been wrecked by a couple my father had let use it. We lived in an apartment on Erie Street while the house was refurbished. The Palmolive Beacon swept my bedroom, and I played on the swings in a little park behind some huge billboards that fronted Michigan Avenue. I attended Sunday School at the First Presbyterian Church and visited my father's office on the avenue. He would take me to the Drake for ice cream. My mother and I once encountered President Truman, who was walking along the street by himself. He stopped to admire my hat and gloves and said he missed his daughter. (Any security was invisible. Different times, eh?)

My father took me on a train to visit his parents in Tucson when I was nearly six. It was fun sleeping in a berth and going to the dining car, stepping between carriages where you could see the tracks slipping by underneath you and smell the hot oil. Grandpa had a new Cadillac and wanted to drive to Denver. I was trapped in the middle of the back seat between my grandmother and an aunt while my father and grandfather sat in front, smoking cigars! We stopped at a farm owned by a former School of Mines classmate of my grandfather's, called "Foxey". I learned how to snap beans, helping the women prepare a huge midday dinner for the farmhands. In Denver we visited the graves of my grandmother's family.

My mother and I took the train, The "400" to visit my aunt and uncle in Minneapolis. My uncle taught me to play gin rummy and to swim off their pier at Lake Harriet. I remember the slimy reeds! I took my first plane trip from Midway to Minneapolis for another visit one Easter. It was the only time I have ever been 'air sick'; turned out I had the flu.

My vacations mostly involved travel from San Francisco to Cleveland, Ohio and the farming communities nearby. First ones by car..then gas rationing during WWII and we went by train along with thousands of soldiers heading for either coast and in some of the most ancient train cars pulled back into service for the war effort. We stayed on our families farms for some summers and we also were sent out of the city, living with families in Northern California, while SF was a hub of the Pacific war effort. At the end of WWII, as soon as I was old enough to travel alone (11-12) my sister and I flew in DC3 with stops in Denver and Chicago, to stay with family in Cleveland again. Those trips continued thru my High School years, altho many of those years we visited relatives in many of the cities, saw museums, art galleries, and all kinds of points of interest.

Husband to be, joined the USMC after a year of college, and I began working before graduation; after we married the travel became up and down the coast of California via train, staying with DH grandmother and getting to know the wonders of LA and a glimpse of Military life at Camp Pendleton before really embarking on our 24 year adventure with the Marine Corps.

my parents bought a home in CapeMay, NJ and my sisters and I spent our summers there till we were teenagers and started working. although my oldest sister worked down there for a few summers. those were the best summers ever and some of my fondest memories... both parents are gone now and the house is up for sale...heartbreaking.

but we were so lucky and our children spent so much time there and all my children love the shore and the beach because of it. THANK YOU so much Mom and Dad!!!!

Such a fun thread! Up until I was about 7 or 8, Mom, Dad and my 2 older brothers spent a week in a cabin on Sugar Camp Lake in northern Wisconsin with a few other families of relatives and friends. I can still remember the smell of all the pine trees surrounding the lake along with caching my first fish.

After that I fondly remember camping trips to Niagara Falls and the Badlands / Mt. Rushmore (in July, in 100+ temp and NO shade). After that trip, Mom wasn't really into camping so our next few vacations included staying at motels. No reservations - we would just pull into a motel, Mom would hop out of the car to check the price and a decision was made whether to stay or look for other lodging at a lower cost. We visited Colorado, Jekyll Island GA and Mackinac Island.

My dad loved to travel although we didn't have much money and he would eagerly send away for travel brochures and spend months planning our trips. He is the source of my love of traveling and it is a wonderful gift.

I travelled extensively for my job for over 25 years in the US, Asia and Europe. Because I racked up so many frequent flyer miles, my husband and I were able to take our son on many vacations. My now 24 year old son recently told me how much he appreciates his travels. We are very fortunate to have many great vacation memories.

My uncle had a beach house at Crystal Beach on the bolivar Peninsula in Texas. We enjoyed going there in the summer for a week or two. Dad and his brother would take the boat out and fish for red snapper and other fish in the Gulf. We would have big shrimp and crawfish boils there. I loved going there. We would occasionally also go to the Louisiana Gulf Coast at Holly Beach or Rutherford beach. We would go crabbing and have a feast of boiled crabs. They had some clubs with great live bands, we would go and dance the night away. Such fun times. Unfortunately all of those places were wiped off the face of the earth by Hurricanes. I miss them. Now we take the rv to an rv park very near where our family beach house used to be. It brings back memories.

I am enjoying these stories. I'm another who grew up vacationing at the Jersey shore. It was a magical place so many years ago, now it is too crowded. We would spend a month in Ocean City NJ. We spent the days on the beach and most evenings on the boardwalk. A real treat was the one night each summer when we went to Wildwood to go to the boardwalk and ride the rides. Later we switched to Stone Harbor, NJ.

We would also go to visit my parents' families in a little town in upstate PA and that was so much fun. There was a dairy farm nearby and we hung out there all the time. Every summer there was a carnival and we always went to that. That little town holds such great memories for me.

We stopped taking vacations when my parents built a big house with a swimming pool. It was so boring. It was too far away from anything to get there on bike or foot. I just remember being bored to death all summer. As soon as I was old enough to get away on my own, I went right back to the beach and got a job working on the boardwalk. What fun! Later we took the kids to Ocean City every summer.

When I was in grade school, we were stationed in Turkey, we spent a week tent camping on a beach on the Mediterranean with the ruins of a Roman castle at the back of us, and the expanse of water in front of us. There was a small island with another castle ruin on it. When I was a young teen, we spent a week at a campground in Barcelona, right on the beach.

Raven, I spent my childhood summers on Crystal Beach also. I LOVED the big water slide. Remember when they didn't even have a grocery store...boy howdy, when they built that it was great. Hurricane Ike was horrible! Our family beach house actually survived...mostly intact. Everything else around it was nothing left but a memory.

I don't know what we did before The Big Store lol! Of course Sweedes has been around forever. We would always stop there because our house was on that street. We have reservations for June at our RV spot at the beach but honestly I don't know that we will be able to go this year with all this craziness. It is my birthday and our anniversary June 20th and that's our routine. I am hopeful but prepared to have to cancel.

I commented on this the other day, but it apparently got lost. I remember few vacations as a child. There were 4 children in our central Illinois family, and wen our mom was alive, we visited her family in the Chicago suburbs. I was 12 when our mother died and Dad took us on vacations a few times to lakes in Wisconsin after that. I remember one vacation at a cabin on Long Lake, where we could row the boat out in the lake or swim while Dad stayed glued to the radio listening to the political conventions. The lady who owned the camp grew tomatoes and took pity on this man and his four kids and gave us lots of her tomatoes. I remember standing outside to eat big, juicy tomatoes with a salt shaker in one had and a huge tomato in the other. We played lots of hearts and canasta in the evenings.

I, too, grew up in Brooklyn. Until I was about 9 most summers were spent at either Brighton or Coney Island beaches, both reachable by bus or train, depending whether we were in Borough Park or Flatbush. Day trips were also taken to the Aquarium, Prospect Park, Botanical Gardens. A few years we even went up to bungalow colonies in the Catskills. After I was 10 or so, we spent our summers in rooming houses in Far Rockaway, sharing bathrooms with other families. Fond memories...

Ah, Rockaway! Growing up in Queens, my friends and I spent a lot of time at Rockaway Beach. We got there by hitchhiking. It was a fairly common practice then (around 1960). Fun times!

Alisande, I was there in the 60s, too. What magnificent beaches they were. Too bad NYC never used them to their advantage

No hitchhiking for me though I did ride my bike there. As I recall, it was about 19 miles from our apartment in Brooklyn.

Blubird, good for you! I loved riding my bike (and wish I'd kept it up), but I know I would have found 19 miles daunting. I can't remember what we told our parents about our transportation to Rockaway. Surely we didn't admit we hitchhiked! I'll have to ask a couple of my fellow hitchhikers and see if they remember.