Traveling with grandchildren

My wife, Hazel, and I enjoyed reading Chloe Winston’s article about planning and taking trips with her grandchildren (Nov. ’13, pg. 50). We have taken all seven of our grandchildren on trips to Europe, starting in 2003, because we believed they needed to be exposed to life in other countries.

We certainly agree with most of Ms. Winston’s planning suggestions and with limiting the number of telephone calls the kids get from home during the trip. And we, too, encouraged the kids to each keep a diary.

Although we had permission slips from their parents, allowing us to make decisions about health care or other items that might arise, we never had slips giving us permission to take the children out of the country, but maybe times have changed.

Ms. Winston mentioned that taking children between the ages of 14 and 16 is probably ideal, and we agree. We waited until each of our grandchildren reached 16 before taking them overseas because we felt they would get much more out of the trip at that age. On the last trip, we decided to abandon our policy and took three children instead of two; the youngest was only 13.

All seven of our grandchildren had a great time traveling abroad, and they all want to travel more when they can. One of our granddaughters went to Italy in 2012 for a course on art restoration. She had a ball.

We planned our trips so that they were first exposed to English but spoken differently than what they were used to. From England, we took the high-speed TGV train to Paris, where we rented a car before driving through Switzerland, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. We flew home from Amsterdam.

Six of the children found Switzerland to be their favorite spot, but the youngest liked London best.

We agree with Ms. Winston that if you’re going to head into countries where English is not the native language, you need some experience. However, we find that English is spoken much more today than it was in the past.

We always stayed in small hotels or B&Bs because we felt our grandchildren would experience the culture of the country better than they would by staying in American-style hotels.

We have good friends who took their granddaughter on a Rick Steves trip all around Europe because they didn’t feel comfortable planning and arranging a trip on their own. Fortunately, my wife and I had the privilege and pleasure of living in France for 2½ years and traveled extensively as part of my job, so we didn’t feel uncomfortable doing trips on our own.

Traveling internationally helps children appreciate what we have in this country and gives them a broader perspective on the world. As Rick Steves says when he closes his TV shows, “Keep on traveling.”

GALEN HODGE

Kokomo, IN