When we go on vacation, what is the first thing that we usually think about? For most people, the first thing that they think about is their car. What are they going to pack to bring with them on their trip? What are they going to do to keep their kids occupied throughout the 12+ hour trip on the sometimes crowded roadways?
While vacations are supposed to be all about relaxing, they seldom get off to that kind of a start. After all, there are so many things that you have to make sure are in place before you can finally set out on your cross country adventure. Due to the nature of the current economic climate, there are many people who are leaving their cars parked in their driveways, and who are instead opting to fly to their vacation destination with kids in tow OR, they are coming up with more sorts of creative ways to spend vacation time at home with their loved ones. For instance, instead of heading out the door to go to Disney World in Florida when you live somewhere like New York, people are looking up different sorts of theme parks and other types of sight seeing attractions in their local area.
I remember going on several short road trips with my family when I was growing up in New York. One of the places that we went as a family was to Six Flags Great Adventure. My little brother and I loved roller coasters (and still do), and Six Flags was where it was at back then. While New York didn’t have a Six Flags theme park, New Jersey did; and so we made the two hour drive from the Long Island suburbs to the theme park. We loved it so much that we actually wound up going back several times over the course of the next couple of years. There was also another theme park called Splish Splash. Splish Splash was actually located (and still is) on Long Island all the way out east in a town called Riverhead. Like the name suggests, Splish Splash was a water theme park with nothing but the very best water rides.
If all else failed, there were still plenty of museums and other sorts of historical things to do on Long Island as well as in Manhattan. I guess that is the beauty of living on Long Island as a kid; there’s never really a dull moment when it comes to finding fun and interesting things to do. Regarding vacations, however, it is imperative that we find a way to be more creative with our time. You don’t always have to spend upwards of hundreds or thousands of dollars in order to show your family a good time. Even if it is something as simple as going strawberry picking or taking a nature hike or even planning a picnic outing where you play a fun game of soccer or softball, you can still have a nice, relaxing vacation without all of the frills and the astronomical bills.
