Most families get time to spend together only during vacations when they travel for leisure or just as a way of enhancing the bonding among the family members. Before a person pack for a vacation, it is important to look for a good and affordable destination. It is not always easy because adults do not realize there is something more difficult to handle.
This is traveling with a teenager in case one has one or several teenagers. Most parents have a desire to go to any length to please their teenagers on holidays, and therefore they get to spend a lot of money and time together. The wake of the twenty-first century has made teenagers more open-minded and liberal to the extent of choosing the destinations on behalf of their parents.
Most teenagers want to go to beaches for a vacation, where they can swim and interact with their peers in various fun activities. Teenagers also do not mind a nice fun-filled cruise. To make it easier for both the adults and the teenagers when deciding on where to travel with minimal disappointment from both parties, the adults can beforehand visit various beach hotels or cruise trips, which they can afford, and they are comfortable for all the members.
They can then float the options to the teenagers and pick one of the places where they feel comfortable to adventure (Humphrey 57). When it comes to the booking of rooms in a hotel, the teenagers will need their own space and room because they prefer to stay in their private rooms away from the adults most of the times. This should be taking into consideration when making the reservations.
Teenagers require a large suitcase to pack their things because they are not at the stage where they travel with few clothes. They will need to carry almost the entire wardrobe and want to travel with technological gadgets such as laptops and even play stations. A good image is everything to teenagers, and they will go out of their way to look good and stand best among their peers.
This information will come in handy by ensuring there are enough storage compartments in the vehicle for their items. Some teenagers who are into music will bring their instruments with them such as guitar, violin, clarinet, or even trumpet. For some girls, extra bags will require enough space. Therefore, if you are traveling with a teenager, make sure you have only one bag yourself so that you leave enough space for him or her.
In case the family is traveling by road, and it may take a considerable time, there might be some conflict of interest especially regarding the source of entertainment along the journey, which is the car radio. Adults and especially parents will opt to listen to music from their generation such as country music or the seventies bands such as the Earth, Wind and Fire, Abba or Boney-m.
The teenagers will be disinterested mainly because they cannot relate to this genre of music. The adult should beforehand ensure that the teenager has an iPod. An iPod is a portable music player, which can store very many songs. This way the adults can listen to their preferred music on the radio and the teenager using the earphones will listen to music from the iPod (Kelby 45).
Teenagers require a lot of energy because they are still growing and hence require many snacks. It is necessary to stock enough snacks such as crisps and chocolate bars in the car. It is more important also for an adult to have prior knowledge of the stopover spots on the route that may be of great interest to the teenager. A place where there are ice cream, cold sodas and a store that may be stocked in magazines, music records, and chewing gum or tic-tacs.
Tic-Tacs are a brand of small, hard mints, which give good breath. Such a place should also have heavy snacks such as burgers, hot-dogs, and even fries, which the teenager will find refreshing and filling after traveling for a while. Teenagers are heavy consumers of soft drinks taking a lot of juice, water, and soda along the way.
It would be thoughtful of the adult to make several stops at convenient spots even if it is at a bush for the teenagers to take a lick. It would be more relieving for them if the initiative to stop coming from the driver and they did not have to keep asking for a stopover now and then to use the bathroom.
When on the road, some teenagers may already have acquired a driver’s license, and it would be good of the adults to ask them to drive at different intervals so that they can feel like indeed are parts of the journey. This mostly happens to young men who have a keen interest in driving. The adult should give the teenager the car to drive when they are not running out of time and when they are not on a highway (Vedral 200).
Works Cited
Humphrey, James. Teenagers Will Be Teenagers. Nova: Kroshka Books, 2002. Print.
Kelby, Scott. The Ipod Book: Doing Cool Stuff with the IPod and the Itunes Music Store. Myriad: Peachpit Press, 2008. Print.
Vedral, Joyce. My Teenager is Driving Me Crazy: A Guide to Getting You and Your Teenager Through These Difficult Years. Avon: Adams media, 2003. Print.