Eldergay summer youth nostalgia

Before Virginia Beach there was the glitz, glamour and ambience that was Buckroe Beach in Hampton, VA. You'll can be jealous all y'all want. I don't care.

I was born in 1961, the year the USA forbid Cuba for American visitors. I suppose my Grandmother might have vacationed in Cuba in the 1950s, when she was in her 30s, but she didn't. Her sister was a party girl and very well may have! In the 60s she had houses in the Bahamas, Martha's Vineyard, and Westport CT.

Lake George, in northern New York, and Point Pleasant Beach, down the shore in New Jersey.

When I was 21 or 22, my parents and sisters flew to Walt Disney World in Orlando. It was the first time either of my parents - in their 40s - had ever been on a plane.

We were a middle class, blue-collar family.

Lake George in upstate New York.

Camping on an island in the lake with my aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Grossingers!

You can see in the movies! They thought Havana and Latin America was an exotic paradise. This woman tries to flee her boyfriend so she can live in Cuba.

My family didn't travel, but growing up in the city of Chicago (late 60's - early 70's) my brother and I participated in Day Camp which was a program at my grade school which offered a day of activities like Arts and Crafts, sports (one of them, unfortunately was Dodge Ball. I still have the scars), free lunch and such. I'm guessing that this was a city wide program in many cities. Other than the dodge ball, I have no complaints. It was fun.

In this film Shirley Temple and her husband go to Mexico for their Honeymoon.

Not too different from today except people are more elegant and classy.

Downna shore.

Coming from Indiana Virginia Beach, Myrtle Beach, Gatlinburg, TN were favorites. Washington DC because my uncle lived there.

My family only ever took a couple real vacations - one road trip to South Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming, and another road trip to the Ozarks. My maternal grandparents had a farm and rarely traveled - if they did, it was only to see friends and family. My paternal grandparents loved Jackson Hole and did some other trips to Alaska and the western US.

I don't know where my wanderlust came from, but part of me always resented the fact that we barely went anywhere when I was growing up. First world problems, I know.

Maine coast in the summer.

What is a "vacation"?

The beaches of Southern California

My family didn't have a spot to summer. They would rent a house on the ocean or a lake for a month, or, worse, series of interminable road trips.

I tried to commandeer the road trip itineraries by loading a long list of historic sites. My parents indulged the novelty of this for a time, until they caught on and rationed me (they favored long country stretches between Hootervilles, mountains, and scenic overlooks.) These driving for driving's sake holidays contributed to my dislike of road trips.

Usually, we spent a day at Adventureland in Des Moines, Iowa, but there was a trip to the Henry Vilas Zoo, where my dementia-riddled grandma dropped her drawers and pissed next to the lemur cage.

Right out in plain sight of just everyone at the Hop!

We would always visit my grandparents -- one pair lived in Pierre, SD, and the other pair lived in Rapid City, SD. We would have to drive from Minneapolis to visit them.

The pair in Pierre were poor so they didn't take trips except to visit children and grandchildren in Minnesota and California. The pair in rapid City were wealthy but were terrified of leaving the country and did not like the East Coast--they would take trips in Western cities like Denver and San Francisco and Seattle and would stay in very nice hotels.

As a kid, I decided I would take as many trips outside of the country as I could, and now I go about once a year. But I always go to Europe--I'm as fearful as my grandparents of going to Asia or Africa or Australia or South America. I did go to Mexico City once and had a great time.

Adirondacks each summer. My siblings and I would turn feral while we were there.

We went to Oak Creek Canyon near Sedona, Arizona every summer. There were little cabins next to the creek and an old country store. I loved playing in the creek. And Slide Rock was always fun. This is very nostalgic for me.

One thing I liked about going to the beach in Maine in the summer was I had a whole different set of friends.

When I was living in California for a while with relatives, we went to Big Bear to a rented cabin. I loved it, although it reminded me a lot of New Hampshire.

A series of rented villas in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat over about a 10 year period, which started out as truly spectacular places and became less and less so until finally the really big money my father had was gone and we stopped going there at all. By then I was in high school and after that it was just places like Bermuda or Turnberry in Miami.

[quote]Lake George in upstate New York. Camping on an island in the lake with my aunts, uncles, and cousins.

I love those islands. They used to rent them for $15/night. You got an outhouse, a picnic table, and maybe a little dock for the boat. Great memories up there.

[quote]My family didn't have a spot to summer. They would rent a house on the ocean or a lake for a month, or, worse, series of interminable road trips.

Road trips in the rear-facing seat in the station wagon.

We went to Yosemite one summer where I rode in the rear-facing seat of the station wagon. I'll never forget when the driver (some friend of the family) ran over two squirrels in the road. I had to see them on the pavement with completely flat sections of their bodies where the wheels had run over them. We all shrieked and he said it was too dangerous to swerve so he had to run them over.

We went on a few driving trips, even though I got car sick (especially riding in the back of the station wagon). One was to Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor, New Brunswick, and northern Nova Scotia where we were staying for a week. Another one was to Chincoteague and Assateague.

My uncle's farm deep in the woods in the Ozarks. Five boys washing in the same washtub in the backyard with water heated in pots, and then a fresh tub for the girls. We were nailed by hundreds of ticks and covered with chigger bites. One year they were in the middle of a feud (truth) and we kids were taking the three-mile walk up the private dirt road to the little post office to get the mail. Gunshots sounded, the bullets were bouncing off the dirt, and the dog with us was hit. It ran off into the woods and my cousins never saw it again.

We loved our vacations.

Reddit did a good thread on this: Formerly noted vacation spots, that are in decline.

Many places in the Catskills don't see the numbers like they used to in the olden days with the advent of AC.

We used to winter in Palm Beach, which used to be nice, until Trump ruined it.

Maine.

In Northern Ca we spent summers at the Russian River. Monte Rio-Guerneville . Big family and lots of wonderful memories. This was before the gay resorts had opened and that “secret “ Bohemian Grove encampment was still going on.

r31 We did Russian River a couple of times, but mostly Santa Cruz. SoCal and Disneyland twice (when I was 8 and 11.) We had no relatives out of the Bay Area to visit, so that was pretty much it. I was 26 before I'd been farther east than Reno.

[quote]One was to Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor,

Beautiful place. My folks never had much money but it didn't matter because I liked all the camping trips. We had one of those little tent trailers that had two bunks and a little sink, and when our car broke down, Dad bought a 1929 Buick from a gas station for $50, hooked up the tent trailer, and we were back on the road. Eventually someone from the The Untouchables TV show bought it for $250.

Same here, R7. I lived about two miles from Long Island Sound, so we'd sometimes go to the beach. When I got to be 10 or 11, I went by myself or with friends (took the bus or walked). I went on my first real vacation when I was 15 and went with my mother to visit family in Italy.

Myrtle Beach!

Havana looks nice but then again it’s Havana. My grandparents never went anywhere. They ran a business their entire lives.

[quote]Another one was to Chincoteague and Assateague.

Did you see Misty?

My parents were both from Montana originally, so summer vacation for us was a VERY long car trip to Montana, two-three weeks there, and then a very long car trip back. I think the trip alone was two full days (8 hour driving days, possibly longer) . Lots of legs of the interstate system were not completed when I was a child, so there were long stretches of two or four lane highways with uncontrolled cross traffic.

Children don't question much. We grew up in the desert of the Southwest, so camping was never really an option - not that either of my parents would have gone for that. We just accepted that the annual trip to Montana WAS our summer vacation.