Growing up, my parents loved a good educational vacation. We didn't frequent the amusement parks, we rarely went to anything that would require me to be above a pirate's hand to be on, but museums and natural landmarks were prime targets for us. Any place we went we had to find a museum about whatever we could find, even if no one had any interests in it, and suffer our way through the exhibits and learn something new.
Even while staying at home and not traveling for vacations, my summer vacations were educational. While most kids were out playing with their friends, or sleeping in, or doing anything that you would expect from kids, my family had theme weeks that we would do research on.
For example, one week was a solar system theme. On Monday we each picked out a planet that we would research from our solar system, and then we headed off to the local library to get books on our planets. By Wednesday we'd have a few facts about our planet on 3x5 cards taped to our door, and by Friday our bedroom doors would be full on science fair project complete with pictures of our planet, and details about it that we had learned from our books, and usually on Friday afternoon we would do some activity that a normal family might do during a summer break like go to a planetarium.
Every week while growing up it was like this, luckily it stopped as I got older and was in middle school, but I can only imagine what my oldest sister was thinking, who is 8 years older than me, while I was 8 years old and doing bedroom door research projects on the Boston tea party. They were great times, and I'm sure that I learned something from the entire thing, but that's just how vacations were, and still are, with my family. You never go someplace just for fun, there has to be an activity involved with it. You would never just go camping, you have to go camping with at least three books, one of which teaches you which plants are edible and how to identify 40 different types of trees. You don't just go to the beach, you go with a bucket and shovel and try to identify as many shells as possible with the book of mollusks that you brought with you. You never just traveled and visited someone, you always, ALWAYS had to find the closest museum and make sure that you read every single plaque that was hanging.
Now that I'm older, have a family of my own, and have the power to plan my own vacations, I don't know how to do it. In my mind, vacations always have to be educational. Any time that I'm on vacation with my wife and we're sitting and doing nothing (what most people I hear call vacationing) I get antsy and think that I could be doing something more like writing or reading, or finding some off the beaten path museum that specializes in salt and pepper shakers. If I'm going to sit around and do nothing, I'm not going to pay money to sit around and do nothing, I'm just going to stay at home and binge watch Netflix.
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