Looks like the summer travel season will be a somewhat sparser one this year. Today, Bloomberg News reported that the two largest airlines, American and United, had the biggest declines in air traffic last month. In fact, four out of the five major carriers reported such decreases. (Delta was the only one of the Big Five to report an increase. Low-fare carrier Southwest also posted a gain.)
We will not be doing a summer vacation in the SpendMiser household this year. Partially because we are only a few months off of our European vacation, and partially because we prefer to travel in the winter months anyhow. And partially because we have a 7-month-old and a 2-year-old. Traveling with young children is more work than staying at home.
Instead, our summer entertainment plan will comprise the following activities:
Park time. We happen to have a nice collection of parks in our smallish town, and plan to use them. Since it gets to be unbelievably hot here in the summers, we usually try to hit them before 9 a.m. or after 6 p.m.
Sprinklers and pools. We have an inflatable wading pool and plan to buy a cheap lawn sprinkler for our 2 year old to play under. The only downside: It will necessitate more frequent lawn-mowing.
Walks. One of our favorite things to do is load up the kids in the double stroller and go for a spin around the neighborhood. We get some family time, exercise and fun, all at the same time.
Zoo, aquarium, and kids’ events. Our town has one-time art classes and workshops for preschoolers; the Big City half an hour away has a zoo and the Even Bigger City an hour away has an aquarium. Of course, these are occasional treats, because of the relatively high cost of admission – but even at $10 per person plus $10 in fuel costs, our $50-70 tab for the day is far less than the cost of ONE plane ticket. Our town also has free Movie Nights in the park that we may attend.
Spring and summer cleaning and organization. I guess this one is more for me than anyone else. But I do regard cleaning as a form of entertainment. And it’s especially cool because you have something concrete after you’re done, like a neat pantry or a sparkly bathroom.
So there you have it. No, it’s not Disney World, but it’s easy on the pocketbook and it’s yet another way for us to reduce our consumption of those precious natural resources. I suspect this plan will not be as palatable to our kids when they are 7 and 8 years old. We’re taking advantage while we can…
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