Hmmm... I may have/ I was just thinking since it was specific to travel.
I must add that the memory I posted above was the first I can recall but certainly not the fondest.
My father was an artist in the 60's and 70's (a very talented metal sculpter) and I spent much of my summers traveling to art shows. I was sort of an art show brat. I was a master manipulator and had a knack for finding money. I would have free run of the shows. No parents watching me and they really did not give me much money so I could not do much. Spending 3 days at an art show in the Texas summer is pretty darn boring after you have explored the grounds, gawked at the hippies and Hari Krishna members.
Before the end of the 1st day I had always found a job helping someone for pocket change. I'd sell balloons. I recall making cascarones at the Laguna Gloria Art Festival in Austin every year. I think many food and 'fun' vendors were charity groups and they took pity on me. It was a great, free spirited environment in those years. No parent would dream of cutting a kid of 7,8,9 loose these days.
We never traveled by plane so it was all car trips.
My older brother would poot in the station wagon to torment us girls and my Dad would pull over and spank him right on the highway!
We had a small farm in East Texas and I spent many summers picking blackberries and tomatoes off the vine and blowing up the ones that were too ripe with firecrackers.
Things were so simple then...

Going by train from Freeport to Amagansett to my grandfather's house. Then he would take us to the Montauk Point lighthouse, swimming at Louse Point, or into East Hampton for ice cream. I was probably about five or six at the time.

My other early travel memories revolve around 2 week vacations in San Pedro (my dad was in the Army Reserves at Fort MacArthur). We did day trips to Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm and Catalina Island.

My first memories are the 4 summers our family drove cross country, shclepping in and out of Howard Johnsons for 3-4 weeks exploring the west.

Anyone remember clam strip sandwiches at HoJos?! Woohoo, they were delish for the late 60s, and as a 5-9 y/o, i loved them!

My dad and i took several hikes deep into Bryce and Zion canyons, while mom and sis waited in the lodge or gift shoppe! I remember having to pee in places that made my mom cringe when i told her And getting 'stuck' in Yosemite, exploring too late into the evening to find a motel -- we never had ressies back then -- so we 'had' to stay in yosemite lodge in a twin bedded room with 3 cots!

Anyone remember that amazing Native American who became an icon to Mt. Rushmore? I was so thrilled to have my pic taken with him!
And on each out-west trip we'd get new moccasins from some kitchy souvenir store, probably along old route 66.

Those 4 cross country trips definitely set the stage for the 10 cross country western adventures i've recently taken with dh and kids, the last several planned with kind, expert Fodorites!

ok, thats several memories, but great thread, TxPro!

My travel memories began at the age of six. My father passed away a couple of years prior, and my mom was a school teacher so she had the summers off. Therefore, we were hardly ever home during those three months. She was always jetting us off on a plane to somewhere....Colorado, Hawaii, Wyoming, visiting family and friends, etc.

My sister and I loved traveling and especially flying from early on, and we still have so many photos of she and I sleeping across the seats with those stethoscope earplugs of the 70's stuck in our ears.

It's no wonder I began collecting frequent flyer miles early on in life.

Now, if only "I" could have the whole summer off work to travel. Maybe Mom was on to something there.

Camping in the mountains.
Hot and sticky and miserable on a pre-airconditioning in the car visit to DC in the summer.

At 4 yrs old, the family did a trip around Lake Huron. Starting in Cleveland, the first stop was Niagra Falls. We stayed at the Honeymoon Hotel- Mom, Dad and 4 kids!

We continued north to the French River for a stay in a cabin so Dad could fish.

Next headed to the Soo, with a ferry across the St. Mary's. Then to the Big Mac bridge which was just a few years old. Also did Fort Mackinaw, which is beside the bridge. Headed south on Old 27 - no I-75 yet. Stopped in Flint to see family, then back to Cleveland.

I now live in Michigan and have re-visited some of the same places as on the first trip. Still remember almost drowning in a motel pool because sisters didn't hold on to me. I think my love of history started at Fort Mackinaw. What memories!

Driving the Merrit Parkway, before Rt. 95, traveling from home, in Providence, to N.Y.C. and Brooklyn, to visit my Mom's brother and his family, over the Thaanksgiving holiday. It was during World War II, and one picked up any soldiers or sailors hitchiking. I remember us (I must have been 6 or 7) being invited into a large white house, close to the water in CT. where the hitchiker's family lived and playing with an older girl who lived there. Then on to the city , Radio City Music Hall, which was an annual thing-and lots of shopping!

I remember another memory. We traveled out to the big West! We flew from NY to Wyoming and Montana.
On one flight, we were on a large plane. All the parents were poured champagne. The kids had to taste mom and dad's champagne and write what they thought it tasted like. My brother won my parent's a free bottle of champagne by saying it tasted like Listerene. (I was 7 years old and my older brother was 9.)

By the way, that was my first flight.

Moving from North Dakota to Montana in the very early 1940's--like something out of the Grapes of Wrath. A mattress on the top of the car, and a goat somewhere with us. My brother was allergic to cow's milk, so we bought our goat with us.

Then later my mom driving us from Montana to Washington state, through Lookout Pass, which was two lanes at the time. The car's brakes gave out and there was no money to fix them. Mom used the emergency brake and the gears to regulate the speed. For whatever good it would do, she put us all in the back seat in case the car went off the road, though the drop off the road side was hundreds of feet down.

These are wonderful stories..
Peg...yours has to take the cake, you brought the goat along...amazing!

I remember asking myself during our summer road trips, how did the first settlers manage in their covered wagons and all the elements. There were
some pretty tough cookies back then!

Great thread Tx.

Motel soap just the right size for my dolls!

TxTravelPro,

I lived in Richardson, Texas from 1959 to 1966! We moved to Houston, TX in 1957 when I was just 7.

We traveled back and forth to California every summer to visit family so I have many memories of that long drive each year. A couple times my Mom brought my brother and myself back on a train. I don't really count these as vacation travel because it was always to get from point A to B to visit my Grandparents. I do remember my first "vacation" trip when I was 11 1/2. I went with my Grandparents via Greyhound bus from Richardson to New York City, Buffalo, NY, Detriot, Michigan for siteseeing and meeting family. We took the train back to Los Angeles. I have many, many great memories from that trip.

Utahtea

Nice topic.
My first memory, around 4 o5 5 years old, involves driving with my family from Mass. to Wash., DC, for a week.
Years later I asked my mother why we went to Washington. She said, "We were supposed to go all the way to Florida, but by the time we got to DC, your father couldn't stand you and your brother anymore."

Driving on two-lane roads for hours, and through countless small towns where we were forced to slow down, on the way to visit grandparents. Even though it sounds like torture in today's standards, we all loved those trips and they made many a happy memory.

Also, our family of 6 went on vacation in a VW beetle. I rode in the little compartment in the back because I was small enough to "fit." It was hot and the carpeted interior was pokey and it hurt!

I don't remember where we were going, but on one trip we forgot my sister at a rest stop. Another time, my brother was eating cotton candy in the back of the our avacado green station wagon and my dad rolled up the rear window, catching his cotton candy. This was a problem because it was raining.

My father works on an oil tanker.

My first memory of travel is taking our family vacation on the boat (he did his route in the Gulf of Mexico then, and we would get off at such stops as Jacksonville, FL & Norco, LA - near New Orleans, etc.)

The captain let me steer the boat, and I think I was about 5 years old. And he was saying stuff like "watch out for that whale!" (on later trips, after learning to read - I noticed the big light that said "autopilot").

On that same trip....my sister bought a rubber knife while we were in port in New Orleans. That evening my mom tied a bandana around her head so she could pretend to "hijack" the boat.

Visting family in Tampa back in 1968 when I was five years old. The main reason I remember it is because my great uncle had a wooden leg.

I also remember visiting Busch Gardens and all the birds and other "tropical" animals there (I don't think they had many, if any, rides at this point).

Keith

This is a great thread, Tx!

I remember when I very small we had a new "teeny tiny" camper trailer. We loved it and thought it was the living end and for the 60s, it was!

Now there are campgrounds and facilities all over, but not so then. We had to park the first night at a truck stop right beside a busy highway. They say kids can sleep through anything, but that night none of us slept a wink.