Day Tripping: Your Guide to Educational Family Adventures

Do you ever remember really boring driving trips with your parents when you were little? Did you ever ask, "How much longer?" What would you have given for the trip to have been fun for you? Well, if you are like me, the trip should have been a lot shorter and included something I wanted to do. I have always been fascinated by how human organizations work. I think that interest traces back in part to the many tours my Dad took me on in our hometown when I was very young. He would arrange for some friendly person he knew to show me the "inside" scoop at the ice cream factory, the tortilla factory, the lawn mower repair shop, the car repair shop, a dairy, the fire station, a butcher shop, a farm, a supermarket's warehouse, the local railroad station, and the police station. I could tell he loved those tours as much as I did, even though he learned nothing new. The driving part of the trip was never more than 20 minutes (and usually less than five), and all of the activities were ones that I enjoyed. That early interest led me into becoming a management consultant and expert on how to make organizations more effective and improve the quality of life for everyone. Hardly a month passes when I do not have yet another chance to make a similar adult-version tour. When my children were little, I adored taking them on the same kind of tours that my Dad did . . . as adjusted for their interests. It turned out that one of their favorite tours was of our office!!!! Imagine that. When I was young, I had a friend named Teri Brown who could make a lot out of a little like no one else I've ever met. When I saw that Day Tripping was about taking children on educational day trips, I was hooked. It turns out that this is a different Teri Brown (the age and husband's names are different), but the same talents seem to be present in both women. Most of us grasp very little from visiting something we haven't seen before. Even when I take knowledgeable adults who are properly briefed on a tour of a factory, I find that they have missed the significance of 95% of what they have seen . . . unless you take four hours to discuss what they have just seen for every hour they spent seeing it. Ms. Brown clearly understands that point and charts out her ideas to allow your family to find activities it will find stimulating and to fully explore that stimulation in ways that will make the experience more meaningful to them. I think that's an exceptional quality in a book aimed at helping parents become better at helping their children learn. She develops examples along a number of themes: historical, geological, meteorological, culinary, government, literary, naturalist, industrial production, botanical, communications, artistic and mathematical. Having done this sort of trip all of my life, I found my horizons being expanded by that list. I'm sure my grandchildren will benefit as a result. Culinary, communications and mathematical were all new dim

Remember Norman Rockwell's 1947 "Saturday Evening Post" cover entitled "Coming and Going?" That was the one where the top half shows a family heading off to vacation in their station wagon, the children all enthusiastic about the trip. The bottom half shows the car heading in the opposite direction with everybody looking completely frazzled (except for Grandma in the back seat with her expression unchanged). The goal of Teri J. Brown's "Day Tripping" is to reverse that process by providing a guide to educational family adventures that can bring innovative and fun ideas to the daunting task of dragging your family somewhere. "Day Tripping" is divided into two parts. "Part 1, Tripping Out" provides the philosophical values and practical principles of the family field trip. After illuminating the value of family field trips (family bonding, inspiration, love of the natural world, etc.), Brown details a specific list of DOs and DON'Ts for these field trips (e.g., check gas and weather, bring snacks). These things might be self-evident, but make one of these mistakes just once and see how quickly your planned trip explodes in your face. She also covers how to plan your adventure and even how to create field trip groups so that more people can get in on the fun. "Part 2, A Field Trip for Everyone!" covers a dozen types of field trips, defined by themes. Now, I like to go places and see things, especially if they have anything to do with history. On my honeymoon the route was planned not only to see everything on Prince Edward Island having to do with Lucy Maud Montgomery and Anne of Green Gables, but to take minor detours to see the graves of American presidents, patriots, and victims of the sinking of the "Titanic." So the first section of Brown's guide, "Blasting Through the Past: Field Trips with a Historical Theme" is preaching to the choir as far as I am concerned. "A Walk on the Wild Side: Field Trips with a Naturalist Theme" is also self-evident. Last month I took a trip to the Pacific Northwest and took trips to check out the waterfalls along the Columbia River Gorge and the devastation of Mount Saint Helens. Again, going to see things is an easy sell because we have all these National Parks and pretty pictures on postcards to convince us there are reasons millions of people go each year to see certain sights. That is why the sections where Brown expands the traditional field trip to include things you would not think of at first is the strength of the book. You fill find "Field Trip Plans" for caves (geologic theme), weather stations (meteorological theme), dairy (culinary theme), county courthouse (governmental theme), fish hatchery (naturalist theme), glass blowing studio (industrial theme), gardening center (botanical theme), television station (communication theme), art museum (artistic theme), and real estate agency (mathematical theme). If it is not obvious to you at this point it should be clear that this book is of va

Alright, I got to take educational road trips with my children. I found this book was a great guide to get out of the house for my family and take a road trip that was not only educational but family bonding as well. A must read and get out on the road!

I loved the practical advice and unique suggestions in "Day Tripping." The friendly tone and step-by-step instructions made me feel that educational family trips were something I could handle, while the many different suggestions made me excited to get out there! I think this resource is going to be a real boon to my kids' education.

Day Tripping by Teri J. Brown is an exciting field trip and family travel guide offering a variety of field trip themes that are as educational as they are fun. How-to tips for preparing and carrying out trips, as well as inspiring ideas for trips to gardening centers, art museums, dairies, construction sites, and more fill this guide from cover to cover. Day Tripping is not location-specific, nor does it contain the addresses of places to visit; rather it is a compendium of suggestions and advice especially useful for planning a fun and rewarding family vacation no matter where one happens to live.