|
The travel season starts
|
 |
May 26, 2000: 6:03 a.m. ET
Making sure your Memorial Day trip leaves you with good memories
By Staff Writer Alex Frew McMillan
|
NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Memorial Day weekend will have more than its share of Chevy Chase moments for many Americans -- it's one of the busiest times for driving in the year. Here are some ways to prepare for a holiday weekend, just in case your trips tend to descend into scenes out of the "National Lampoon's Vacation" movies.
Planes, trains and automobiles
Only for the July 4 and Christmas holidays will more people pack their bags and hit the road than this weekend. The AAA, which surveys people on their travel plans each year, estimates that 34.4 million U.S. residents will travel 100 miles or more over Memorial Day. The vast majority -- 28.4 million -- travel by car.
Fuel costs are much higher this year than last. A gallon of gas has risen to $1.52 from $1.15 twelve months ago, according to the AAA. That means consumers pay an extra $5 or $6 every time they fill up.
 So for a long trip, expect to pay $25 to $50 more than you did last year. Higher gas prices have not dissuaded vacationers, though. Auto travel will run 2 percent higher this Memorial Day weekend over last year, the AAA predicts. Vacation travel in general is rising a little faster, up 3 percent.
"Most people have planned this weekend in advance, they've planned all spring for it," AAA spokesman Geoff Sundstrom explained. "So the fact that they're going to have to spend a little more is not going to derail their plans."
Bearing in mind the higher cost of car travel, though, vacationers on a tight budget might consider scaling back the distance they're willing to travel. To make up for the extra dollars they'll spend getting there, some holiday goers may also want to leave earlier than they otherwise would.
Hitting the tar is a summer splurge
Needless to say, if you're driving, set out early, if possible.
At Thanksgiving and Christmas, it's the airports that get jammed. People are much less keen on driving long distances in cold, bad weather, Sundstrom said.
But over the big three summer holiday weekends -- July 4, Memorial Day and Labor Day -- families bust out the minivan and head to the beach, lake or mountains.
So before you hit the water, prepare for the vagaries of the road. Due to accidents, predicting traffic slowdowns is a highly imperfect science. What you can count on is a lot of like-minded drivers.
The most popular destinations over Memorial Day are resort areas such as Myrtle Beach, S.C.; the Cape Cod coast in Massachusetts; the mid-Atlantic beaches around Delaware and Maryland; Orlando and the Florida coasts; the Great Lakes in the Midwest; and San Diego and other California coast spots, Sundstrom said.
ROAD TRIP!!!
Sherri Brennen, the author of Better Living: Tips for Saving Time and Money, has the following suggestions for planning a pleasant road trip.
She suggests breaking out a map. Measure the distance you can easily drive in a day. Figure out how long you're willing to spend on the road -- four hours each way, tops? -- and how fast you typically drive, then draw a circle around the epicenter: your home.
That way, a family knows its reach for a day out. Then, work out which destination has the most to offer in attractions, Brennen suggested. She said more and more families are taking "minivacations" to "superdestinations" to save time and money.
 For instance, the Williamsburg, Va., area has Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown Settlement, the Yorktown battlefield, a Busch Gardens amusement park and a water park all very close together. In San Antonio, you have The Alamo, the river walk, SeaWorld and other attractions.
Call ahead to inquire about group rates. By booking ahead, she said a family of four can find three or four nights in a hotel and tickets to Williamsburg-type attractions for around $700. The packages have something for everyone, sometimes even -- gasp -- a little educational content to slip by the kids. "That's a pretty good vacation, if you think about getting to do everything you want to do," Brennen said.
Call the convention and visitors bureau, chamber of commerce and the local tourism board to find out about such package and group rates. If you will be in a city for a reasonable amount of time, Brennen said it may be worth asking about books like Entertainment, which for a fee offer coupons and meal discounts in a city.
Sprinkle out the distractions
One of the biggest money wasters on a trip is that kids get bored, Brennen said. That causes frequent stops along the way. If you don't have a better idea, you drop a lot of cash on pit stops.
She recommends taking toys, puzzles and other ways of keeping kids entertained in the car. Timewise, spread out when you give them to your kids. Obviously, the older your children, the more likely they'll occupy themselves for long periods of time, perhaps with music or a book. But a smaller child needs a new stimulant roughly every half hour, Brennen said.
Keep the toys with you in the front seat or the trunk, Brennen suggested. That way, they're special. When she was traveling with her 3-year-old daughter, Brennen used to buy coloring books and the like, little gifts that cost $2 or less.
She then wrapped them up like presents. "Every time she got cranky I'd pull one out," she said. "It was, like, 'Whoa!' She would color and play. And in a car, that's fabulous."
The high price for fun
The next cost cutter comes with fast food. There may be reasons beyond cost why you'd want to fill a backpack with some sandwiches and snacks -- like, maybe you just don't want your family filling up with junk. And let's face it, expensive junk is what you're gonna get halfway along a highway.
"If I was trying to save money on the road, packing lunch and having a picnic -- kids love that," she said. Added bonus? "They burn off a little steam," Brennen said. They might even sleep and give you a little peace on the drive. Think one less "Mom, are we there yet?"
Vacations are notoriously expensive. By their nature, almost all of the expenses are optional. The average summer vacation will run $2,274 this year, according to a survey of 1,000 people by credit-counseling company Myvesta.org. More than half the people surveyed said they'd be taking one.
At the average take-home pay of $27,219, Myvesta calculates the average vacationer will be working more than a month -- 22 working days -- to pay it off. Looked at another way, vacationers will spend more than 8 percent of their annual salary on the trip. If you look only at families with kids, the average vacation costs a little more, $2,517.
Myvesta doesn't ask how long people are going on summer vacation. Most Memorial Day weekend trips aren't going to be full summer vacations, for a week or more. But the costs can still add up.
Time is money
Might as well make the most of it. If you're going to be paying for something this weekend, admission to an attraction perhaps, "when you waste time, you're wasting money," Brennen pointed out. With a little planning, the tickets, parking and hotel room pay off a little better.
For any three-day weekend like Memorial Day, the middle day is the most crowded. So if you're planning on taking the family to an attraction such as a theme park, try and avoid the middle Sunday if possible, Brennen said. The crowds will be at their peak.
For a regular week, Tuesday and Wednesday are going to be the best days to skip the crowds, Brennen said.
Arrive early at any attraction and tour counter-clockwise, she suggests. Most people start going around a theme park or historic site clockwise, so you'll skip the crowd for a while.
After two or three hours it likely won't matter which way round you go. But you can cut down on other distractions. Because kids often want to buy souvenirs and nicknacks, specify a time for shopping later in the day and set a budget limit, she suggests. Something like "Remember, we're going to go shopping at 5, and you can spend $10."
That way, they can start looking for what they'd like but they aren't bugging you about buying stuff all day, she explained.
As a time saver, Brennen likes the way that some theme parks let you rent walkie-talkies. It also lets groups split up, so the teen-agers, dads and moms can do their own thing if they want. Cell phones could also accomplish the same thing.
"When we go to some [attraction] like that, we lose everybody and spend half the day trying to find everyone," Brennen said. If the adults divide and can communicate by walkie talkie, it cuts down on that "lost time."
A few tips like that, and you'll have a Memorial Day to remember. Even if it does descend into a Griswold family home movie, bear in mind that we seem to edit out the disasters and remember the good parts anyway.
"For kids, their fondest memories are all these wonderful trips they had with their parents," Brennen said. "They forget the teen-age arguments and all the hassles." 
|
|
|
|
|
|
Track your stocks
|
Note: Pages will open in a new browser window
External sites are not endorsed by CNNmoney
|
|
|
|
 |
|
