We Had to Ask . . .
Young travelers tell us what's cool -- and what's lame.

By Peter Mandel
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, June 17, 2007

You're on the perfect vacation -- sampling history, adventure, cuisine -- and everything's shared because the kids are in tow.

Then you hear it. Peep, peep. Ba-deep.

No way. They wouldn't dare.

They would. A Game Boy in the Musee d'Orsay.

Is taking the kids along all it's cracked up to be? Despite weird beeps in galleries and sometimes whiny complaints, for many adults the answer must be yes. American families are like roaming packs these days, and kids are now included on more than just the traditional car trips. The Travelers' Health Yellow Book, which tracks trends from year to year, says that the number of children who travel outside their home countries has reached an estimated 1.9 million annually, the highest ever.

Having kids who are adventurous travelers sounds good. Well, at least to us grown-ups it does. We're the ones who make most vacation decisions on where to go, who's coming along and what we'll do.

But are we absolutely sure that our kids feel the same?

It's time, I thought, to get the inside scoop from kids themselves on what they love and hate about travel. Their private warnings. Their secret tips. The stuff they'd say if parents weren't constantly at their side. Would they rather skip most "grown-up" destinations? Do they really think travel is fun and educational? Or is going places basically a bore?

Would they, if it were up to them, really prefer to stay home?

To find out, I talked with 12 kids ages 4 to 14. It's a group with varied vacation experiences and some geographic diversity: They hail from suburban Maryland, New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Wisconsin; one panelist lives in Spain. Although most have traveled pretty widely with their families, including visits to Europe, Asia and South America, a few on the panel have been only to Canada and neighboring states.

Parents, get out your pens and notepads. In our admittedly unscientific but nevertheless fascinating survey, panelists are telling you to "lay off the sunblock" and to "stop arguing inside hotel rooms since other people might be able to hear." They wish you'd take them on a boat. And oh, yeah: They want you to "use back roads during car trips" instead of highways, and to tell more jokes in the car -- "good jokes, not duds."

Here are the rest of their likes, hates, tips and demands.

Vacation Likes

· Sightseeing and shopping. I kept expecting the kids to rave about Disney World or trips on the wild side like snowboarding in Quebec or whitewater rafting in Idaho. Boy, was I wrong. Instead, most on the panel preferred sightseeing or shopping in Old World European cities.

Asked about his best trip ever, Will Clansky, 11, of Bethesda picked Rome. "It had cool sights like the Colosseum," he said. "I like places which are ruins but you know that people wore uniforms and had fights there." Emily Barkan, 13, of Foster, R.I., said she's not impressed by uniforms or "any fights that have gone on." But, though she hasn't been yet, Rome is her dream destination. "I've got a purse collection," she said, "so I'd look for Italian ones. Also, I'd check out the jewelry."

Isabel Deixel, 13, of Brooklyn, N.Y., likes Siena and Florence best of the places she has been. "On vacation," she said, "I'm a shopaholic. I'm also obsessed with shoes. In Florence I got to buy these black, strappy heels by Annabella Club. I love them since they're from Italy even though they're really uncomfortable."

· Big cities. Sullivan Sweet, 8, of Madison, Wis., liked Paris, where his family took him last summer, "because they have tons of famous monuments and the Metro and stuff like that. Though you felt kind of small because everything's so big." Sullivan's sister, Charlotte, who just turned 4, agreed, though for a specific reason. "I didn't believe the Eiffel Tower had a bathroom inside," she said. "But it did. And I got to use it."

And though Pablo Drexler Serrano, 10, of Escorial, Spain, said it's "boring when people make you walk around too much," he liked London "because it has good toy stores. I bought a microscope when we went there last year. It's amazing. It has a screen like a TV."

· Cruises. Another overall hit with kids was going anywhere by boat or ship. Jack Giuricich, 14, of Bethesda liked the days at sea on his family's recent Baltic cruise even though he had to wear a rented tuxedo and "eat at a table with the ship's doctor."

Nate O'Donnell, 13, of West Gloucester, Mass., went on a Caribbean cruise and a whale watch last year. The cruise was good, he said, "because they had soft-serve ice cream. Sometimes in the middle of the night I would sneak downstairs. The machine worked, and you could have as much as you wanted." On a ship, he added, "you can be out there standing in the front doing the 'Titanic' thing with all the wind. There are usually no grown-ups up there. They're too scared or too cold. Or having tea or something."

· Mot els and lodges. Top-rated places to stay were basic, unfancy motels. Adam Landry, 12, of Woonsocket, R.I., said it's because of the pools. "They're really huge," he said. "Plus motels have cool soda machines and ice machines. I'm always going down to get more ice." Isabel Deixel said she's not into "ritzy" hotels. "Instead I liked the place we went in Belize last summer. It was called Lamanai Outpost Lodge, and you stayed in thatched-roof cabanas."

· Basic food. As for road food, cheese rules. Erin Landry, 9, Adam's sister, still remembered a grilled cheese sandwich she once had on vacation. Sullivan Sweet highly recommended the macaroni and cheese at Noodles & Company, a chain his family has stopped at on car trips. "It doesn't make you feel sick," he said.

Vacation Dislikes

· Museums. Nearly everyone agreed that, although parents talk them up, museums are a vacation land mine. Adam Landry summed up the general feeling: "People try to make you look at art. I'm not an art person. I hate it."

Will Clansky said he's sick of "paintings hung on walls. Sometimes they can be totally random pictures. A bed of flowers that's supposed to mean something. Instead I'd pick paintings of either sports or army. Of people who really knew what it was like having bombs dropped on you."

Nick Giuricich, 14, Jack's brother, offered some thoughts on improving museum selection and display. "If museums put more space between pictures," he said, "it would be better. Some have a million in one place. And sometimes they paint the same portrait or the same scene over and over. When you get older, people seem to like old stuff. I like modern things."

· Cathedrals. Visiting cathedrals didn't electrify the panel, though certain trimmings seemed to make looking at architecture more fun. Jack Giuricich said he likes "onion-shaped domes on top of churches," something he and his family saw in St. Petersburg. Nate O'Donnell remembered a "big, boring cathedral" he saw in San Jose, Calif., but said "it got better when I noticed there was some art way up on the ceiling instead of just on the walls. Also, when I saw all the stained glass. Stained glass is cool."

· Outdoorsy stuff. Kids like nothing more than camping, right? I figured you couldn't go far wrong if you arranged a trip to the mountains or out on a lake. Um, guess not. Outdoorsy trips were a frost for my group. "No, I really don't like fishing," Erin Landry said. "I like fish. We used to have a fish named Rocket, but he died."

Isabel Deixel and her sister, Sophie, 10, complained that when they went out West three summers ago, their parents "always wanted to go to these deserted places." Isabel said: "When we were driving through Yellowstone, they kept stopping at every single hot spring they saw. The same if they saw even one animal. It could be just an elk or something under a tree."

"When you're going somewhere outside," Emily Barkan said, "it always seems like it's about to rain. Then you have to leave. When it comes to camping or fishing, there's too much sitting around. You have to sit there and wait. I can't sit in one place for a long time."

Also, tents are bad ("they drip on you").

· Hotels without extras. Dud places to stay include any hotel with a "smell" and, Jack Giuricich said, places that "forget to put out good shampoo and soaps that you can take with you." Such extras seemed important to the panel, more so than, say, a comfy bed or clean room.

To Erin Landry, the worst flaw with hotels is that "some don't give you anything to eat for breakfast. I would like a bagel with cream cheese. But some don't even care." Sophie Deixel agreed about breakfast but said that when she and her family were in France last year, they were eating in a hotel "and a frog came out of the kitchen. It didn't make it a bad hotel, but you had to like animals. There was also a sheep near the pool."

· Seafood. For the kids I talked with, seafood crops up way too often on vacation. "Parents always want you to taste some local fish," complained Pablo Drexler Serrano. "It's disgusting. Plus they make you taste the sauce, too." Will Clansky said he keeps trying to remind grown-ups that "I've never really been into shrimp. It tastes like you're eating something raw. But since they like it, they always forget and think I do."

Going vs. Staying Home

One question sounded simplistic when I asked it aloud. Still, it seemed important: If you got to choose between going on a pretty interesting-sounding trip with your parents and staying home (to play with toys, hang out with friends, etc.), which would you choose?

A majority of my sample said they'd rather go on the trip: eight out of 12 kids. Not a resounding shout in favor of hitting the road. Nevertheless, on the bright side, kids who said they liked travel really liked it.

Emily Barkan thought it "would be weird to stay home. I have a scrapbook which I paste things in, so I like to go places so I can add to it. Plus, sometimes I really need a break from my house." Sophie Deixel also would rather go than stay. "I'll go almost anywhere," Will Clansky said. "I even went on a train ride to Florida with 14 Girl Scouts, seven moms and some of the other little brothers. The whole thing took 19 hours."

When I told him about Will's train trip, Pablo Drexler Serrano snorted. "No way," he said. "No chance I would get on that train. If I have a choice about almost any trip, I'd rather be home with Tabuca -- he's a German shepherd -- and Nico the cat. I have my books there, the TV; I have my room and all."

Sullivan Sweet prefers to be in the United States "because they have PetSmart, and PetSmart sells hamsters." And though Sullivan liked Paris monuments and the Metro, he said it's not even close to being his favorite destination. The best? "It's Madison, Wisconsin," he said. "Because I live there."

Peter Mandel is the author of several books for kids, including "Planes at the Airport" (Scholastic) and "Say Hey! A Song of Willie Mays" (Hyperion). He last wrote for Travel on British tourists in New York.