A Grand Time

By Francine Russo

Last summer Ellen and Peter Derber, 58 and 64, of Manistique, Mich., invited their granddaughter Christine, 10, on a trip to Italy. Taking a day off from their Interhostel tour, they visited the American cemetery at Nettuno, where Ellen's uncle--a soldier killed near Anzio 20 days after the 1944 invasion of Italy--is buried. "Christine accepted the seriousness of it," recalls her grandfather, "knowing that under every cross or Star of David was someone who sacrificed their life just so we could do what we do."

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on America, that travel experience took on a deepened meaning for Christine because she was able to understand what thousands of dead meant. "At the cemetery," she says, "I saw 4,000 crosses--not even all of them. And World War II took years, but the World Trade Center was just one day."

Most grandparents who travel with their grandkids want the chance to bond with them individually, and that's the way the Derbers felt. They wanted to get to know Christine away from parents and siblings and to have the fun of introducing her to new experiences. Beyond that, they wanted to pass on the history of their family and an idea of how it connected to history in a larger sense. They want all their grandchildren to understand, as Ellen puts it, that "this is our world. You're not separate from these other countries."

These are among the powerful motives propelling what was, until Sept. 11, a growing boom in grandparent-grandchild travel. It remains to be seen what effect the terrorist attacks--and the chill they cast on the travel industry--will have. But the demographics suggest that the upward trend will continue as more and more of America's 77 million baby boomers become grandparents. In the past year, 20% of U.S. grandparents traveled with their grandkids, according to a survey for American Demographics by Zogby International, a polling firm. In fact, "grandtravel" made up 21% of all trips with children in 2000, reports a Meredith Corp. survey for the Travel Industry of America, up 13% from the previous year. Boomers, Meredith Corp. found, account for 46% of all family travel and spend more on their family vacations than any other group.

Today's grandparents are more affluent, fit and travel-savvy than grandparents ever. Whether they live near their grandchildren or at a distance, they feel a need to get away with them one on one. Typically, one grandparent travels with one grandchild, or a couple takes one or two kids.

Helena Koenig founded the Grandtravel tour group--and coined the term grandtravel, now common in the industry--16 years ago. She has expanded from four tours to 20, and a host of imitators have sprung up. Hotels and travel groups of every stripe, from the Loews chain to Elderhostel, have developed grandtravel packages. These range from reduced pricing and specially designed suites to international tours, complete with guides for adults and licensed teachers for children.

The most popular international destinations are cities like London or Paris. In the U.S., the national parks and historic sites like Washington or Virginia top grandparents' lists. Typically, the organized tours are for children ages 7 to 17, who are often divided into younger and older groups. Grandparents range from their 50s to their 80s, with most between 60 and 70.

For tours involving activities like hiking or white-water rafting, the grandparents obviously need to be in good physical condition. But most tours allow for the differing energy and attention levels of the eight-year-old and the 80-year-old. When Familyhostel's tour of Greece reaches Delphi, reports director Robert McCaffery, the kids run to the top of the hill and around the stadium, working off energy, while the grandparents absorb history at ground level. Still, as Elderhostel's Richard Harris says, "any grandparent may find a whole week in charge of a child pretty exhausting."

Many grandparents rave about the benefits of tours. The planning is done, adults and children have companions their age, and shared activities provide an easy way to bridge the generations.

Other grandparents prefer the freedom and intimacy of traveling on their own, whether on a trip to Europe or a local vacation in the RV. When Joyce Hall, a Manhattan singing teacher and grandmother ("in my 60s"), travels independently, she takes one grandchild at a time. Planning her trips to mesh with the child's interests, she goes to cities and stays at hotels she's familiar with--to minimize snafus and unpleasant surprises.

So long as the trip is appropriate to the child's interests and energy level, a grandparent can take a child traveling at almost any age, say experts. For Elaine and Mark Ganeles, both 59, of Cortland Manor, N.Y., it was a kick to see Washington, a city they know well, with their grandsons, 2 and 5. "I find it exciting to see things through the eyes of the little guys," says Elaine. "They loved the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, going into the space capsule, the moon rocks." Many grandparents say the ideal years for these jaunts are between 9 and 13, when the kids are old enough to take an interest in new things and young enough to retain their imagination and enthusiasm.

Overwhelmingly, grandparents say, the greatest benefit is getting to know their grandchildren better--and having their grandchildren know them. Phyllis Bierstedt, 68, of Wilmington, Del., took her 16-year-old granddaughter Calli Speakman of Dover, Del.--one of 11 grandkids--to France last summer on a Familyhostel tour. "Having her alone and learning and seeing together created a bond that didn't exist before," she says. "It was really a gift to me as well, because my husband died a year ago."

She got to understand Calli better, hearing about modern teen life from a teenager. And Calli saw her grandmother in a new light. "She's so upbeat all the time--more than when she's with the family--and so social," Calli says. She adds with a giggle, "I realized we're a lot alike: we both like to be the center of attention."

Joann Branson, 73, a theology professor in Monterey, Calif., treasures the memory of her granddaughter Megan's helping her learn her part at the Elderhostel theater week in Worcester, Mass. Joann and her husband Jack, also 73, a retired naval aviator, took Megan, 10, who lives near them, along last July. The Elderhostel group put on a musical play. "When I saw I had a solo, I thought I would die!" Joann recalls. "I couldn't learn my words. Megan was up at 6 a.m. teaching me. It was beautiful when she said, 'Oh, Grandma, you've got it!'"

For single or widowed grandparents, a grandchild can fill the need for a traveling companion. In recent years, Luella Kramer's husband has been too ill to travel with her. Last year the 76-year-old from Holden, Mass., considered a Kenya tour, she says, "but I thought, 'It's not much fun looking at the African moon with a bunch of ladies.' Then I thought, 'I could go with Jeff!'" Jeff, 12, of Ashland, Mass., jumped at the chance to see zebras and monkeys on the Grandtravel Safari. Luella enjoyed it so much that this past summer she took Jeff's sister Lauren, 16, to Britain and France with Grandtravel.

The zeal to share memories and history drives many grandparents' choice of destinations. For Joyce Hall, a Familyhostel tour of France meant a stop at the Normandy beaches, where she shared childhood memories of World War II with granddaughter Saya, 11, of Tampa, Fla. "All my uncles went off to war," she recalls. "My brother and I played commandos, and we had Victory gardens and war bonds at Christmas. Our next-door neighbor's son was killed on D-day. Saya and I talked about the fact that our freedom was bought at a high price. I think she got it--at her level." Hall felt that the teacher on the Normandy tour deepened the experience for the children by asking them to find a cross or star of three soldiers from their home state and write down their names.

The closer ties formed by traveling with grandchildren extend forward in time. Grandparent and grandchild may speak more often on the phone or simply have more to talk about when they do speak--sharing their memories of people and places. For both young and old, these trips are a way to make connections--between generations past, present and to come. When Hall and Saya made a scrapbook together of their trip to France, Hall told her, "You will have these things forever, and you'll be able to show them to your children when I'm long gone."