Family Series Part 6 – Travel & Other Fun Activities
While Parts 1-5 of this Family Series have focused on finances and other meaningful topics such as career paths & learning, we aren’t 100% serious all the time. Of course money is important and plays a big role, but there are so many other aspects of our lives. We want to provide the best possible existence for our kids and this consists of a variety of enjoyable things such as traveling, sports, fun activities, etc.
The Squire
My family is fortunate that we get along for the most part and we all enjoy time together… as long as we all get some independent time as well. We also make sure to prioritize activities and traveling, which can be great opportunities to create lasting memories.
Growing up
I grew up in a family that encouraged participation in activities, and enjoyed traveling. With cousins a few hours away, hiking and campgrounds not far away, and with parents that enjoyed traveling by car and plane, my family probably took more trips than the average family.
My wife’s family moved and traveled a lot when she grew up, and she even spent time abroad in high school and college. We started taking trips together right away, and didn’t stop when we had kids.
Before COVID
Even once our first kid was born, we took at least one plane trip a year. We traveled to visit relatives, and travelled with relatives to theme parks, and even Hawaii. I can’t say that our kids always travelled well, but if given enough activities to do in the airplane and car, we could usually keep them occupied enough.
Before everything shut down in March of 2020, our kids may not have been old enough to remember all of their trips, but we are so glad that we took the pictures and videos we did.
COVID
When COVID hit, we changed our priorities. We focused on time together as a family, and most communication with others was through web cameras and phone calls. Our kids missed out on valuable time physically playing with others, and we all became more reliant on technology to converse with others and learn about the world than ever before.
Making memories
When we finally started travelling again, we did it with more purpose and excitement than in the past. Now that our kids were older and could do and understand more, we weren’t just dragging them along to places we wanted to see. They now started to become involved in the planning, and helped decide what we would do for portions of days.
We found out that we still travelled well together. Don’t get me wrong, we didn’t start considering life in an RV at this point. However, we did start thinking about the times my wife and I had each travelled growing up, and how we wanted our kids to have some of the same opportunities.
When it came to spending money, we were determined now to focus on saving and investing as always, but also making sure that we’re setting aside more to spend on travel. The kids aren’t getting any younger, and we don’t know for sure how many more years they will be able to (or want to) travel with us. We’re starting to list locations we hope to travel going forward, and I think it brings out excitement when we discuss itineraries as a family.
Kid Activities
My wife and I both really enjoyed playing sports growing up. For me at least, through sports I was able to stay fit, make friends, learn how to deal with adversity, and learn how to work hard to pull my weight on a team. Sure, many of those skills come through in school learning and activities, but it just wasn’t the same for me. Competing, winning, losing, and working with a team, were all important pieces of my childhood.
Our kids are not the same as me or my wife. They enjoy different activities, and it will be interesting to see what they stick with over the years. We are strongly encouraging them to try different sports, clubs, and other extra activities when opportunities pop up.
Scout
Beyond financial literacy, my wife & I want our kids to grow up exploring new things, learning, and having many different experiences, both together with us as a family and on their own. While some of this will be driven by each child’s self-interest, we also want to have a hand in shaping things, especially when it comes to traveling and spending time together.
Reading “Die With Zero” has also had a huge impact in our lives. We’ve taken the book’s message to heart, acknowledging that time is precious and that nothing lasts forever, especially the time we have with our children (before they leave the house). Our goal ever since has been to constantly focus on creating “memory dividends” that will stay with us throughout the rest of our lives. A couple areas where we’ve chosen to create these memories are travel and attending concerts.
Travel
Growing up, I would say that my family did a modest amount of travel and it was all domestic within the United States except for 1 trip to Mexico, 1 Caribbean cruise, and many trips to Canada (since we lived relatively close). Other friends & classmates traveled internationally to places like Europe & Japan and these locations sounded so exotic and so far out of reach for us. While it was fun to get away and try new things, I honestly can’t recall too many particularly memorable experiences.
My wife’s travel experience growing up was similar to mine, she stayed mostly domestic except for trips every couple years to Mexico since her mom owned a timeshare. But nothing particularly memorable and she too felt that traveling internationally was a huge deal, but only for “other people”.
I think mostly due to our own lack of foreign travel and exposure to other cultures, my wife & I had a strong desire to do this as adults while also wanting to expose our own kids to this at a young age. I’ve met many people over the years who had traveled internationally a fair amount when they were young and in most cases it sparked a lifelong love of travel and appreciation for other cultures – this is exactly what we wanted for our kids.
Unfortunately we didn’t get around to implementing this aspiration right away. We didn’t travel much when our kids were young – partly due to my busy work schedule, but mostly because I felt that traveling with little kids was a waste of money since they would be too young to remember anything. Because of this, on the rare occasion we did travel it was mostly within our own region of the country in the Pacific Northwest.
As the kids started to get older we began trying out bigger and bigger trips like going to Disneyland and Hawaii. Each of these turned out well and we definitely created many great memories along the way. These trips were also a good precursor to ramping things up even more in the future.
My retirement in 2023 happened to coincide with my kids’ summer vacation, so we decided to take our first big international trip as a family not only to celebrate this milestone, but to also FINALLY implement our idea of exposing our kids to these sorts of travel experiences at an early age. We ended up going to Europe and had such a blast trying new things, experiencing new cultures, and most importantly racking up those “memory dividends” along the way.
Our plan is to continue taking these big trips indefinitely, creating more and more experiences and memories along the way.
Concerts
My wife & I have been attending concerts ever since we’ve been together in highschool, from local bands (MXPX, Goodness, Super Deluxe, Alien Crime Syndicate) to major headliners (Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Weezer) to music festivals (Warped Tour, Bumbershoot). We’ve always enjoyed music and the experience of a live concert isn’t something that’s easy to replicate at home or anywhere else.
Unfortunately when kids came around, we thought that our concert-going days were over – this was true, but little did we know it would be just a temporary pause instead of a permanent one…
We recently began attending concerts again and thought it would be fun to take the kids – it didn’t hurt that my son’s first concert was Taylor Swift and his second concert was seeing Imagine Dragons in Paris. We were pleasantly surprised that both kids started listening to more music on their own and we’ve been lucky that some of their favorite bands (Imagine Dragons, AJR, Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter) have been touring recently.
It’s always a joy to see how much fun my kids have at concerts and even better when they ask “when is the next one?” It’s also cool to see that love of music instilled within them, since it’s something that they’ll continue to enjoy throughout their lifetime. Similar to travel, attending concerts is something we plan to continue doing indefinitely and something we always look forward to.
After School Activities
My kids receive a lot of structured learning at school and a majority of what they are taught is mandatory. Beyond this type of learning, I’d also like my kids to learn on their own in areas that are particularly interesting to them. For my daughter this has been through a variety of activities such as dance, sewing, Girl Scouts, and most recently volleyball. My son has always been interested in sports and has played soccer, basketball, and flag football.
Whether or not they become professionals in any of these areas, even become highly proficient, or just do it for fun, my goal has been to encourage my kids to try new things and find something they enjoy. I also don’t want them to be afraid to fail, like so many of us are.
Because this is one of those areas that’s highly personal, my wife & I want our kids to lead the way based on their own interests. We want to offer encouragement and perhaps guidance, but also want to be careful not to dictate anything. Whatever our kids choose, we’ll be there to support them both financially and emotionally.
The Big Payoff
From a financial perspective, I’m not going to lie… All of these activities cost a LOT of money, however I don’t regret it one bit because the experiences also add up to a LOT of memories for myself, my wife, and most importantly, my kids. We’ve happily seen many positive returns of these accumulated memory dividends over the years – at the dinner table someone will randomly talk about a past trip or when we’re out & about it’ll trigger a good memory. These recollections are priceless and undoubtedly worth any monetary value we’ve paid to create them.
Links/Resources
Reader Questions
- What activities do you enjoy doing as a family? Have these activities always been the same or have things changed at all over the years?
Leave your answers or comments below – or email us directly at info@epicfinancialjourney.com