Travel Is Cheaper Than Divorce

Maximizing Family Bonds with Budget-Friendly Educational Trips

• David Packer • Season 1 • Episode 6

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Have you ever wondered how to transform family vacations into unforgettable educational experiences? This episode promises to unveil the secrets of family travel that not only strengthen bonds but also provide rich, real-world learning beyond the classroom. 

I'll share heartwarming personal stories of journeys to historical sites like the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC and Mount Vernon, showcasing how these trips can be more impactful than any textbook. Discover how to seamlessly integrate these educational adventures into the school year without compromising academic progress by coordinating with teachers and taking advantage of off-peak travel seasons to avoid crowds and high costs.

Unlock the luxury of travel without breaking the bank by mastering the art of leveraging points and miles. I provide step-by-step guidance on how to earn and utilize these travel incentives to turn dream vacations into affordable realities. From practical tips on setting travel dates and booking trips, to maximizing your experiences through smart planning strategies, this episode is packed with actionable advice.

Don’t forget to connect with us on our YouTube channel, Travel Point Pros, for more insider tips on making the most of your points and miles. Get ready to redefine what family travel can accomplish!

Speaker 1:

You are listening to, travel is Cheaper than Divorce. This podcast for all those who may be struggling with their spouse or their children and the relationship with them. We help give you tips and tricks by using travel as the means to be able to help your relationships with your family. I'll provide those tricks and other ways to help travel with little or no cost. So let's get into it. One of the things that travel has helped me do for my family, that travel has helped me do for my family, is it's really helped my family to get a better education my kids and even my spouse and I.

Speaker 1:

There is a real problem. Most people would agree with the education system in this in the United States and in this country and, um, everybody says it but nobody ever really wants to do anything about it. Really, it's hard to get a solution that is to the liking of everyone, but they keep using it. They keep thinking that right, there is. The goal Is to get them through school and they can't miss a day of school. Heaven forbid they miss a week of school. Heaven forbid they miss a week of school. Heaven forbid they miss 10 days of school.

Speaker 1:

My friends, one of the things that I have learned over the years and it's not hard, you can do a simple Google search and know this that the most expensive travel times of the year is during the summer. Why? Why? Because it's warm. Sure, I guess San Diego is warm all year, so in Florida I mean what warm. You can go a lot of places that are warm. Some of the places that are really beautiful are really beautiful during the winter. It's not about the warmth, it's about the education schedule of your children. That's why it's more expensive during the summer. That's why it's more expensive during the weeks between Christmas and New Year's. That's why it's more expensive during spring break. It's everything. Everybody's travel schedule seems to rotate around their kids' school schedule. I'm telling you that that's not the way to travel right now. That is not the way to travel. There are exceptions to this rule, of course, but let me tell you a little bit.

Speaker 1:

Let me tell you a story about something that our family did. First of all, almost all of our family travel is not in the summer. It's not. I don't worry about taking my kids out of school for three days, four days, seven days, ten days. Some people might think that's crazy. That's fine. That's just how I feel how we feel as a family, because we believe they get a better education with us on a vacation, even if it's on the beach, than they do inside the classroom. Because, if we go back to what's really important right, we talked about in an earlier in earlier episodes, about how memories are more important than stuff. Love is the most important thing in the world. I've said that a lot. What are they going to get in the class? Are they going to get love in the classroom? Guys, really, it's important for your family to stay together. That's the point of this podcast. Really, I'm just teaching an alternative way to do it. So here's what we did.

Speaker 1:

One of our Christmas vacations I talked about was our vacation to Washington DC. My kids learned more on that trip than they would have in a history classroom during those same 10 days, and they developed a love, a love for the country. But they learned more than that Because we took these kids to a bunch of places in Washington DC, but one of the places we took them was the Holocaust Museum. For those who haven't been there, there is a room inside the Holocaust Museum where it's just full of shoes. This room, these shoes, were worn by the people that were killed in Auschwitz. I believe it was Auschwitz, or it might be all of them, but it's a room full of shoes of victims.

Speaker 1:

It is said that if you don't learn history, you're doomed to repeat it. This is only one of the history trips we've been on, in fact, one of the things you'll. Another thing we'd tell our kids, and much of the chagrin of them, is that every other Christmas trip, so every other year, we do a trip that is focused on education, because we do believe the education is extremely important. We just don't believe education in the way that is currently done is as important as education. Going out and seeing these things. There's another educational trip that our family went on that my son, my oldest son, my oldest child. Because of that trip he and it was an educational one. We've literally never been closer. I'm going to do a whole episode on that on a later date probably.

Speaker 1:

But when you're sitting around the actual sites, the places where things happened, when you're able to look behind the glass at the actual Constitution, the actual Declaration of Independence, when you're able to tour the halls of Congress before they closed that down after the January 7th event, then you get a better education there and that's what my kids got. That's what my kids have received in the couple of educational trips that we've taken them on. These aren't short. Generally speaking, we tried to give them as much of an education as we can going through these things. And you might think, oh, my kids will be bored of these things. Not really. I mean. They do have to be age appropriate. You're not bringing a three-year-old through the Holocaust Museum and expecting the three-year-old to get it. But that doesn't mean you can't educate your three-year-old in some other way.

Speaker 1:

Plus, as I've said earlier and I alluded to earlier, if you can travel in the quote off seasons which means not in the summer your prices are much better. In fact, I'm really trying to rack my brain while I'm sitting here and thinking about all the trips we've been on since we started traveling quite a bit, and I don't think many of them have been during the summer. It just doesn't make sense to me, money-wise or even points-wise, for me to take my family, or even my spouse, somewhere major during the summer. In fact, my next plan don't tell my wife is to take her to London, and I ain't doing that during the summer. First of all, it's hot there, but it's just more expensive, everything's more expensive, everything's more expensive.

Speaker 1:

So why do it? So there's two reasons. I'm sorry, let me go back up. There's actually only one reason to do that, and then it's just simply cost. But the other, actually there's two reasons. I was right the first time. The first is cost.

Speaker 1:

But the second thing is is you won't know this by this podcast maybe, but I'm an introvert. I don't really like to be. I'm not the one that ever strikes up a conversation with people. I can carry a conversation very well once somebody strikes up one with me, and if I get to know you pretty well, I can joke around pretty well with you. But by nature I'm an introvert. I'm the guy on the plane who will put on headphones pretty much right when he starts, right when I'm riding on the airplane. I'm not the one and there are I've seen this before where you have an extrovert and they want to talk to everybody. My dad was like that. It used to drive me insane. My dad would talk to literally everybody. Still does. Actually, that's a great skill to have. I don't have that skill, but he that, and so, being that way, you can imagine I don't like to be around crowds. So that's the second reason.

Speaker 1:

In my opinion being an introvert and maybe you are too of why I don't like to travel in the summer. There are crowds everywhere, everywhere. Again, there are exceptions to this rule. There are places like I want to visit in Canada, for example. I don't want to go to Canada in the winter. Who would really? Unless you're skiing, I suppose I would rather. I'd rather go there in the summer. So there are exceptions to every rule. Everything I've said there's an exception to a rule somewhere. This is generally what I have had in my experience. I don't like crowds and it's cheaper. That's the two major reasons why I do not travel in the summer.

Speaker 1:

But I was talking about the kids' education earlier. Because people get hung up so much on the fact that, oh, my kids are in school, I can't take them out of school. Bull. And in fact, let me tell you another story, because it's not that hard, guys, because let me, let me tell you the truth. I I had this trip planned for my kids. It's like it was a christmas trip. They didn't know what the trip was and I emailed and talked to and again, you gotta realize my kids are in, you know, high school and junior high and such, and so I had to email and talk to probably 14 to 16 teachers and I called or emailed every single one of them to get work for them or would they be okay, or what do they need to do to be okay as far as grade wise? Because I know there are some people out there who are just stressed out as all get out if their kid doesn't get an A in that class, then talk to the teachers. Your dollar stretches way farther with your kids and you have a better experience, frankly, because there's not as many crowds. Even if you are an extrovert, you may not want to be around that many crowds, or maybe your spouse doesn't, or maybe your kids don't.

Speaker 1:

Get with the teachers. Then Plan the trip. Get with the teachers. What can we do? What can we do? What can we do Now?

Speaker 1:

Mine was a little bit. Mine was a little difficult, though, because I couldn't let the teachers, let my kids know that this was happening, because they didn't even know when the trip was. I not only did I plan the trip, they don't know where they're going, they didn't know when they were going. So in this case it was really hard for them, because normally they go hey, you're going on a trip in a week, so we're going to do a make-up now, but they couldn't even tell them that. I asked them not to and they were very accommodating. We'll call it. They were very accommodating. So all you have to do is really just get with those teachers and say, hey, this is what we're planning on doing. How can we work this out If you're really worried about that, and then give your kids a better education A better education, in my opinion, than sitting in a classroom learning about things.

Speaker 1:

Take them out of the classroom and show them things. That's what I did. My kids still talk about some of the things that they learned there and it makes your heart glad that they're able to learn all of those things. So you get a double opportunity right you get to build memories with your children and you also get to teach them something without actually having to teach them something. Nobody wants to listen to a lecture from mom and dad, but if they can see it, touch it. No-transcript.

Speaker 1:

Mount Vernon in Virginia was a wonderful experience for my children. If they could do all of these things and do without the crowds, because another thing about crowds is. They can't get as intimate of an experience if they're behind 500 other people rushing them to get along, go along, go along, get out of the way. There's so many people who want to see this get out of the way. What kind of an experience is that? And that has happened with a couple of my trips with my kids. Here and there, get along, move along, come on. There's other people there and we do want to be courteous to those people, so we do actually accommodate them. We don't want to be rude, but if you can, less crowds, then you don't have to worry about that. So here's what I would do.

Speaker 1:

Last episode I talked or one of the episodes earlier I talked a lot about scheduling that trip. Now, now, now, now, now, for your spouse and you. It's important 100%. Believe in that when you return from that trip, start looking at planning a trip with your children. And again, my recommendation to you again is that it's not done during the summer and it's not done during Christmas break and it's not done during spring break. It's just too busy. You think all these travel companies give you better deals on these weeks? Are you kidding me? It's just the exact opposite. They pump prices up because they know. They know there's too many parents in this country who believe that they can't take their kids out of school because it'll stunt them, maybe in the pandemic way, for like years, maybe stunt them. But a week, talk to their teachers. Talk to their teachers. So let me give you a step-by-step very briefly. I already said this, but let me just make it easy on you.

Speaker 1:

When you get back from your trip, you sit down with your spouse and you plan that family trip. Maybe it is a Christmas trip, like we do as a family, it doesn't matter. But plan a trip. Maybe it's just two or three days because you can't afford it. Fine, plan a trip with your kids this time.

Speaker 1:

Once you have that planned, and if it's during the school year, next step immediately start emailing or calling your teachers, their teachers. Unless it's in the middle of the summer, like if it's the summer break, at the time you can't get ahold of their teachers. But if it isn't, email or call their teachers immediately. And if it's during the summer, first thing, one of the first things that happens they say well, what can we do for your child? Is what I seem to get from all these kids. Well, there's a deal, we're going on a trip. I want to see what I can do for my child, make sure they're not falling behind. That's your second step.

Speaker 1:

Your third step is to book it, because so far I've said, get a date, talk to the teachers, then book it. The reason why I say don't book it after you I mean don't book it before you talk to the teachers is sometimes you talk to teachers to find out, have a final or at the end of the semester or whatever they might have to adjust your dates here or there. So pick a dates first, then talk to the teachers. If you're worried about that I say that if you're worried about that, because me personally I'm not worried about that I don't care as much. A long trip like a 10 day trip that's when I actually emailed them. But if it's like a two or three day trip, that doesn't bother me. If the kids are out two or three days, it doesn't bother me. I don't think they're going to be stunted. But talk to their teachers, then book that trip.

Speaker 1:

You can use some of the fundamentals I taught in the earlier episode when it was just a couple trip. And again, there's other ways of booking travel with points that's the system I keep talking about, the points and miles system to earn and spend properly. Those miles. Blow your mind. Blow your mind where you can travel in luxury as a family for little or no cost. So that's also another option. You start working on that as well. So that is my recommendation to you, or that's what I would do, because that's what I did do. You have been listening to. Travel is Cheaper Than Divorce with me, your host, david Packer. Please connect with us on our YouTube channel at Travel Point Pros. There you will learn many tips and tricks on how to use points and miles to travel in luxury for little to no cost. Remember to like and subscribe and comment on any of the videos that you find helpful to you. Thank you for listening.