Although many of us enjoy family vacations when our children are young, traveling with teenagers is notoriously difficult, with many people assuming it’s impossible to find a way of doing it that will be interesting to all involved. More often than not, that’s simply because they’re going about it the wrong way. Taking teenagers traveling isn’t about keeping them entertained – it’s about talking in advance about their interests and planning trips that will give them the opportunity to learn and grow. Let them take the lead and you might be surprised by how much you learn.
Real life learning
No matter how much time has been spent on study, there’s nothing like learning in real life. It’s particularly useful right before young people go away to college – giving them the chance to take the lead in organizing some parts of the trip will enhance the life skills they need to get by on their own and will show them that they are respected as capable individuals. Giving them the chance to see famous monuments and historic buildings with their own eyes will make the things these places represent much more real to them and help them to understand how they fit into the world.
Washington D.C.
To cultivate an understanding of American history, nothing is more valuable than a trip to Washington, D.C. – a chance to see (and perhaps tour) the White House, visit the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, and explore the Capitol Building and Library of Congress. The city has some magnificent museums, including the National Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum – great places to explore for someone about to commence a college career. Key historical documents can be found in the National Archives, and if there’s time left over, you can soak up some culture at the National Gallery of Art.
Philadelphia
Once the capital of the United States, Philadelphia is the place where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were signed, and you can still visit Independence Hall where it all happened. Just opposite, there’s the Liberty Bell Center, and the architecture you will see in the city’s older streets tells its own story about the early days of American history. The Philadelphia Museum of Art has far more to offer than just the cool set of steps where Rocky Balboa trained; hidden treasures like the Eastern State Penitentiary speak to the beginnings of a distinctively American value system, and when you want some downtime you can go check out the Philadelphia Flyers.
New Orleans
Perhaps the single most important site for French cultural influence in the early United States, New Orleans has a rich culture also influenced by the Spanish and by survivors of the slave trade. Despite the damage done by Hurricane Katrina, it still has many beautiful old examples of European-style architecture, and its old inhabitants are remembered in spectacular tombs. It has a wealth of museums to explore, from the Voodoo Museum to the Backstreet Cultural Museum, and it’s the site of Chalmette Battlefield, where you can learn about the Battle of New Orleans.