Taking the kids: Trips for part of the family

(Tribune Media Services) -- Patricia Pasechnick was sailing to some of the most romantic ports in Europe, but she'd left her husband home in New Jersey. Instead, she was sharing Rome, Tuscany and the French Riviera with her mother-in-law and 13-year-old daughter.

"I travel with my daughter and without my husband at least three times a year," said Pasechnick, a hairdresser from Teaneck, New Jersey, "he'd rather go to the Jersey Shore."

Pasechnick's new friend, Marie Goodman, sailed with her 12-year-old son while her college-bound son and husband were busy at home in Westchester, Pennsylvania.

"I just love to travel," Goodman said. She wasn't going to curtail trips with her kids because her husband, a business owner, had neither the time nor the interest. "He's used to me going now."

Pasechnick jokes that her husband misses her so much that he's extra nice when she and her daughter get home "for about a week, and then it's back to the same old!"

Wherever I go these days -- aboard the Disney Magic in Europe, on college tours, to spas like Canyon Ranch (www.canyonranch.com), which offers good deals for teens, ski resorts, big cities, resort towns, volunteer service trips (www.i-to-i.com/) and even far flung, once-in-a-lifetime destinations like Africa and the Galapagos Islands, I run into parents traveling alone with kids.

Travel agents and adventure outfitters also report they're booking more trips for solo parents and their kids. Kurt Kutay, founder of Wildlands Adventures (www.wildland.com), e-mailed me from Peru, "I'm traveling right now with a mom and her 13-year-old son because the dad doesn't like to travel in a group on a schedule, and we also have a dad traveling with his college-age son."

I've met grandmother-mother-daughter groups, fathers-uncles-sons and moms or dads traveling together with kids who are around the same ages.

Sometimes a special occasion spurs a trip. A few years ago, I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania with my daughter, Reggie, to celebrate her high school graduation (www.familyadventures.com) and met other parents doing the same thing.

While his younger daughter is away at camp, David Loewy, a divorced dad from Melville, New York, is taking his 11-year-old son to Costa Rica this summer as a Welcome to Middle School trip. "He loves animals and nature and she hates all bugs," explained Loewy, director of an interactive agency. "This is going to be some good male bonding and I hope I can build his confidence for the school year."

My 16-year-old daughter, Mel, and some camp friends have been discussing a parent-teen getaway to the villa resort Windjammer Landing in St. Lucia (www.windjammer-landing.com). Villas are always a good bet for groups, I think.

My husband Andy, meanwhile, has taken each of our three kids to a memorable football weekend at the University of Texas, his alma mater. There have been father-son trips to spring training and father-daughter trips to Mount Washington in New Hampshire and Stratton Mountain Resort in Vermont, an easy drive from our home.

Such trips, parents agree, allow a parent to focus on one child and their interests.

"You really get to know them," said Mark Vandelist, a Minnesota attorney who has made it a practice over the last decade to take each of his three children on a trip. He takes one child each year, usually during spring break.

Sometimes these trips are a matter of schedule: Both parents can't get off at the same time or, increasingly, one parent must stay behind because another child has playoff games or play practice or some other can't-miss activity.

Other times, it's a matter of interest. Every winter, for example, Ellen Schwartzberg, an innkeeper, takes her teenage daughter, Joanne, from their New Paltz, New York, home to New York City for a few days of theater and museums, while her husband, Paul, heads west to ski with 12-year-old Marc.

"The last time we joined the skiing with half of our family several years ago," Schwartzberg said, "we realized, as we read by the fire waiting for them, that we could be at a Broadway show! This way, we spend the same amount of money. Everyone has an exciting trip and a lot to share when we reunite."

Mark Vandelist has taken his kids to Disneyland and the Grand Canyon, Spain and Costa Rica, among other places. He and his 14-year-old daughter have started exploring the possibility of going to Africa next year. "But you really don't have to go anywhere exotic," he said. Go camping or spend a weekend in a nearby city at an inexpensive hotel. (Visit www.quickbook.com for good deals.)

"The point is this time with one child is totally different than time you spend as a family," he said. "Just get in the car and go!"

As much as I love traveling with my three kids and husband, like Vandelist, I relish that one-on-one time where I only have to worry about one other person who, for the moment, has the same agenda -- whether shopping for turquoise jewelry in Santa Fe, or making it to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. The key is to let the kids help plan where you're going and what you'll do when you get there, suggests David Fassler, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and a professor at the University of Vermont. "Help the kids keep in contact with their friends and the rest of the family with e-mail, IMs and text-messaging," he adds.

And wherever you're going, don't overload the itinerary. "You may not see every museum or historic site," Fassler said, "but you'll have a much more pleasant and enjoyable experience."

You will also gain an entirely new perspective when you let the kids' interests lead the way.

Time passes so quickly," Mark Vandelist said. "You've got to do it before it's too late." E-mail to a friend

(For more Taking the Kids, visit www.takingthekids.com, where Eileen Ogintz welcomes your questions and comments.)

Copyright 2009 EILEEN OGINTZ, DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

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