Wadcutter wrote:
When I was a kid we traveled all over the US camping in the summer. Saw almost every state, Canada, and Mexico. When my wife and I got married she had only been outside of IL as far as St Louis and that was to the Cardinals games. So we started traveling so she could see the US. Then we had kids.
When my kids were 8 and 6 we started traveling with them. My goal was to get them into all the states, Mexico, and Canada before the oldest graduated high school. We didn't make it to Alaska but we made it to the other places.
At the time the kids didn't appreciate what they'd seen. They just assumed all kids traveled and seen things like they did. Other kids in their classes if they traveled at all usually did the 'summer at the lake' or visiting relatives somewhere. Same thing every year not seeing anything different. When my youngest was in about the 6th grade at a parent-teacher conference the teacher said she didn't have any trouble with our daughter except she had a vivid imagination. I asked her to explain. The teacher said when they talk about various things in class like the Liberty Bell, NYC, the Grand Canyon, etc that my daughter would tell the class 'I've been there.' I explained to the teacher that wasn't her imagination, she had been to those places. The teacher was shocked. She said she was in her 30s and had barely been outside IL.
Now my daughter is a teacher. A couple of years ago she admitted all the traveling and site-seeing really was a benefit to her now that she's older. The world is a smaller place. She has seen the various cultures in the US and how people live.
For the OP - Do it. Your kids won't understand it now but later in life they'll eventually understand the advantage they had that other kids didn't.
This was me and my brother growing up. My parents took us cross country several times in the old VW westfalia. I somewhere have a denim jacket with patches from all the places I have visited. It was completely covered. My DW and I will talk about some place, and chances are I have been there. I can only hope to take my kids to some of these places. The recession and loss of means has made this very difficult for us, and I will probably not equal what my parents were able to do, but I will expose them to as much as I can!
