The end of the family vacation as we know it?

by Andy Campbell

May 15, 2008

Whoever said “getting there is half the fun” must have said it a long time ago.

As we head into the first long weekend of the summer season, we can anticipate busy highways once again, as cottagers and campers begin their visits in earnest. I can’t help but think of my childhood experience travelling to Killbear and Pointe au Baril in the 1970s and early 80s.

You knew you were in the north when you got onto that winding two-lane highway, passing between rough granite faces on either side, seeing billboards for upcoming roadside attractions, general stores and hamburger stands. Dad would refuse to stop most of the time, but occasionally could be badgered into picking up ice cream or checking out the reptile house.

That was before the four-laning of Hwy. 69, of course. We didn’t get up this way too much, but I assume Hwy. 11 must have offered a similar experience. There are certainly elements of that time still around, but what does the future hold?

It appears to hold a four-lane highway that avoids towns, and allows neither roadside businesses nor billboards to advertise them. The only exception will be overpriced signs that make a tourist attraction and a landfill site seem about equally entertaining.

Is the family driving vacation a thing of the past? Does anyone care?

These days, it’s all about getting there as quickly as possible, non-stop, with nothing to hold you up along the way to your destination. The drive is an inconvenience, a necessary evil, not a part of the trip. If there was a way to spend the drive in suspended animation, like astronauts in a science fiction movie, we’d jump at it.

Not to say we didn’t need something to stave off boredom in the past. We talked, played games, maybe read a book. Today, dad cranks up the satellite radio, mom talks on the cell phone and the kids are either playing their portable video games or watching a movie. The key to getting away from it all appears to be dragging it all with you.

The real question, I guess, is whether it’s too late to restore some of the fun of getting there in today’s complicated and hurried world, and how that can be done with the restrictions being imposed. Many people are wrestling with the problem of adapting to the new highway, but definitive answers are hard to find.

Saving the family vacation as we know it is not going to be easy, but it sure would be worth the effort.