What were your favorite vacations as a child?

seadoug

seadoug

Well-known Member
Location
Texas
My father had a business associate that had homes in Blowing Rock, NC and Myrtle Beach, SC. We would stay in those homes some years for vacation. The home in Blowing Rock was so large that we would take other families/friends along. It was lots of fun having kids my age join us.

We would also drive during the summer to a small town outside of Asheville, NC to visit both sets of grandparents and my favorite aunt. We always visited Howard Johnsons along the way. I can still taste their clam rolls!

We also went to Calloway Gardens one year for vacation. I still remember how beautiful it was.

My father was in sales, so he frequently attended conferences. He would sometimes take my mother and me with him, so it was like a vacation for me. My most memorable stay was at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC. It is a beautiful old hotel in a scenic setting.

We occasionally took flights, but not very often. We never left the US. It wasn't until I was 31 that I started taking flights frequently throughout the country, and later, throughout the world.

I still look back on those vacations with my parents with lots of fondness and appreciation.
 

I really loved summer vacation. My Dad had 2 weeks off from work in July. We went to Wildwood NJ. Most of my Aunts and Uncles and loads of cousins would all come down for the whole 2 weeks. There was family all around us. Oh, how I miss those days.
 
We never flew anywhere together.
I used to go camping in the summertime with them. Us kids would swim where the river met the lake. It was a big jump into the river but we couldn’t wait to jump in.

We’d go into the lake and swim for a while and then we’d walk to this little ice cream store that sold dollar candy and buy a little bag of black balls, marshmallowie strawberries, caramels, jelly candies, bubble gum etc., Of course we’d get ice cream before we left.

Then we’d get to the camp site and help make dinner. We’d often have hot dogs and hamburgers and then roasted marshmallows with cocoa. It was a lot of fun.
 

We would rent a cottage at Ocean View, Virginia every other summer, down the beach from the amusement park. Being able to swim all day and see the lights and hear the sounds from the park at night was divine.

I'd go sifting through the sand at the public beach for coins that people had lost out of their pockets and would spend the money on rides at the park.

Cousins would come to visit and we'd just be wild monkeys.
 
When I was a kid, we had a lease on a lighthouse in French River PEI. It was called 'The New London Lighthouse' as it was close to the town of New London but the closer community was the tiny village of French River.
We went there every summer for a couple of weeks. A few years us kids were down there all summer with our mother while dad worked back home. It was a perfect summer place right on the beach. A little rustic but quite livable and tons of stuff to do, except for rainy days. Think we had that lease from the early 1960's until late 1980's or early 1990's when the government decided to cancel all the leased lighthouse properties :confused:
It was fun while it lasted!

There's an article about it here:
https://www.historicplaces.ca/en/rep-reg/place-lieu.aspx?id=19731
 
Up until my parents died, we went away some place different every summer. After they died, I was 9 and lived on a farm with my grandparents. Back then, farmers didn't take a vacation, but I got to go to church camp for a week. We would leave on Sunday afternoon and come back on Saturday afternoon. It was fun, but sad at the same time.
 
We often stayed in one of Mrs. Saylor's cabins at California's Clear Lake. Bass fishing and great swimming. As a kid that was a place I imagined retiring. Know better now, but it is, or was, a great place to spend a week.
 
couldn't afford every year ; I only remember three occasions in my whole younger days - 1. Chester in a caravan 2. Wales in lodgings and 3. summer school camp in dorms and dining halls - all sounds very sparse now but was fun at the time - this was all immediate post war
 
I loved visiting my grandparents in the country. We did this multiple times a year. The drive was exhausting for me, a kid. It took six hours on the road because my grandparents lived in another state but it was such fun to visit all of my dad's side of the family. There was so much more for a kid to do in the country and I had fifty cousins there to play with. Gran always cooked something wonderful for us. We had such fun there with the family. The pace of life was so much slower and relaxing. I loved it all and remain grateful for these memories to this day.
 
At Easter time, we had two weeks of vacation. I spent that time with my mother and sister. They both loved to travel. My mother was an airline stewardess. We had either free tickets or reduced rate tickets available to us. Her budget was quite limited but she always managed to take us somewhere new. My favorite places were Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece.
During the summertime, I went camping with the girl scouts. I loved that!
A few times my mother rented a condo on the Belgian coast during the summer. We would go there with my grandparents. I have very good souvenirs of those times because that was what all the other kids did, so I fit right in and felt good! My mother was quite eccentric and "different". That didn't make me feel very comfortable through my youth. I never quite fit in. Life was "normal" with my grandparents!
Vacations at the Belgian coast were a lot of fun. Big firms organized games for kids on the boardwalk. We were building shops out of sand where we were selling paper flowers that we made. Money was seashells. So early morning, we had to quickly look for shells and gather them as the tide left us. Then there was the 4PM call when we would go to the tea room for a waffle and a "russian coffee" (little coffee with lots of milk). We were also able to ride horses or ponies. I used to go and pet them every day.
Sorry, it is quite lengthy.
 
We always had great summer vacations, most often driving from Florida to Louisiana to visit family. The one I enjoyed most was the drive from Florida to San Diego to visit my mother's sister and family, very exotic my first trip west. Mostly before I-10 existed so we had to take US 90 through lots of little towns. It was my first time seeing things like mountains and desert.

The one I remember best is the one that didn't happen. My father got reservations on the car ferry from Key West to Cuba, at the last minute he decided that the political situation in Cuba wasn't right. He promised we'd go as soon as things settled down... I'm still waiting.
 
I have great memories of family camping with my father's side of a large family, it was always on a river, the men would fish with nets which were legal then, and sometimes, if you were lucky, you'd get to go out in the boat to check the nets. Also there was an occasional trip to California to visit relatives that was always exciting for a little Texas girl.
 
Our family favorite vacation for yrs in the late 50's early 60's when my siblings&I were young was renting a cabin high on a big hill in Thetford ,VT. The views were awesome with the use of binoculars could see deer roaming. As we got older we rented a cottage on Lake Fairlee, VT not hearing the sounds of city life e.g sirens, planes over head,screeching tires, was peaceful
Another fav vacation was our 3 week trip out West in 1968,we visited Grand Canyon, stayed at a ranch in Jackson Hole,Wyoming, Disneyland, Universal Studio tour, San Francisco,to visit my mom's relatives
 
This may seem a bit odd, but other than a couple distinct recollections, I don't have any real memories of vacations. Things I think I'm remembering is just remembering stories that the family tells about the vacations. ie: My sister has mentioned a certain South Dakota vacation so many times that I think I remember it, but I'm only remembering her stories. I was only 7 at the time and my memory doesn't go back that far. Does that make sense?

Anyway, I wish I could remember the vacations, but at least I have the stories to remember!
 
We never stayed overnight any place, so it was always day trips. They all started the same- a road trip, but my dad said he knew a short cut and we always got lost. It was a tradition. I liked going to Rocky Point Amusement Park, in Rhode Island. We had favorite lakeside parks.
 
We never had any holidays .. we went on a day trip twice, once to the beach , .. and once to a park on the other side of the city, neither of those days were good memories ... but otherwise no holidays
 
When I was a child, we vacationed in a lot of places. Maine, Vermont, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, California, Canada... but my favorite vacations were at the Jersey Shore. My aunt and uncle each had homes there and boats. They'd take us fishing and crabbing, and we spent many days at various beaches. The Wildwood beach is enormous as it stretches for five miles along the Atlantic coast. In some areas the beach is a quarter of a mile wide and unlike most beaches it's actually growing in size each year. What's more, it's free, no beach tags required.

Then there's the Wildwood Boardwalk, a child's paradise, with a number of amusement piers that are chock-a-block with all sorts of games and rides and the food stands with fresh squeezed lemonade, curly fries, pizza, fudge, and soft serve ice cream. 😋 Several years ago, my husband and I were in the Bahamas on a boat ride and another couple was bad-mouthing the Jersey beaches. I jumped all over them, lol.
 
I enjoyed summer vacations when they happened, but that wasn't very often.

One fun trip was to Washington DC, and that was wrapped around a visit to relatives in Virginia. My aunt & uncle both worked at the Pentagon, so got a grand tour there.
Another time when I was little, was a train trip in the Rockies ... but I have no memories of it. Too young.

Favorite trips were to Chicago and Zion Illinois. Again, to visit relatives, but also baseball games and trips to Lincoln Park Zoo, etc..
 
our Family’s favorite vacation destination was Myrtle Beach, SC. This was the late 1950’s, 60’s when Myrtle Beach was still small. Today it is an overdeveloped, commercialized hell and about the last place I’d want to vacation.
 

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