Kids love learning about Greek ruins--on their own terms. Just ask Susan Jaques, '80. One day last summer, she was standing in the legendary theater at Epidaurus, enraptured by a lecture about drama from the 3rd century B.C. Then she realized her 6-year-old daughter, Clara, was nowhere to be seen. Panic. "I looked around and found her leading a bunch of friends on a subterranean tour," Jaques says with a laugh. "They were having a great time."
Just another episode from the Aegean Adventure, the first in what has become a new series of family trips sponsored by the Stanford Alumni Association. Jaques spent two weeks exploring the historic Aegean coast with Clara, son Jon, 8, and 172 other Stanford travelers (98 of them kids). "As a travel-starved adult, I really loved all the lectures and the chance to learn," Jaques says. "But at the same time, I enjoyed experiencing it with my children. It was like seeing it all through their eyes."
Along with a second Aegean tour, the SAA has launched three other family trips for 1997. The new program, called Family Adventures, aims to combine the virtues of two of the Association's most popular offerings: Stanford Travel/Study tours and Stanford Sierra Camp summer vacations.
Like Sierra Camp, Family Adventures are staffed by recent Stanford grads. A dozen seasoned Sierra Camp counselors went along on the Aegean trip. And like Travel/Study offerings, faculty are there to give expert insight into the geography, history and culture of the destinations--with no tests at the end.
The Family Adventures tours fill something of a gap in the association's offerings for alumni in mid-career, says Nora Sweeny, '74, who runs the program from her Bowman Alumni House office. "People who graduated between '68 and '80 seemed to be falling through the cracks," she says. Many of those alums would like to spend a week or two at Sierra Camp, but with only about 700 slots open each year, competition for space is fierce.
The Aegean trip filled the vacation bill for Janet Peterson, '76, MA '76, and her husband Eric, '74. With two sons and busy careers under way in Seattle--she's a physical therapist, he's a psychologist--they wanted to make the most of a rare European vacation. "We were definitely looking for more than the Mediterranean sun," says Janet, who was especially inspired by visiting some of St. Paul's missionary sites.
The Family Adventures trips planned for 1997 include a cruise around the Galápagos Islands with Bill Durham, MacArthur Prize-winning professor of human biology; a stay at a Montana dude ranch with history professor David Kennedy; another trip to the Aegean with Edward Steidle, an English department lecturer who has written extensively about Homer's Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid; and a rafting adventure on the main fork of the Salmon River in Idaho with experienced white-water guides. Prices (not including airfare) range from $1,290 to $5,845 for adults and $940 to $3,065 for kids.
In 1998, Family Adventures plans to expand the offerings to include a three-day seminar at Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, a trek for teens in the wilderness surrounding Sierra Camp, a river rafting trip through the Grand Canyon and a 15-day safari to Africa.
Of course, some parents may wonder whether kids will pay close attention to the finer points of Galápagos Islands biology or the intricacies of classical mythology. Not Cecilia Herbert, '71, who traveled on the Aegean trip last summer with her husband, James, and their three children, James, 14, Alexandra, 12, and Deirdre, 8. On their way home to San Francisco, the family made a detour to visit Cecilia's brother, who lives in London. "He was a bit skeptical about how much learning could go on," Cecilia says. "But when Deirdre recounted all 10 of Hercules' labors--and told him that Hercules had to do two over because he had cheated--my brother was pretty impressed."
