Summertime is Calling: Get Away With Your Tween! Just Read This First.

Tween travelers still have the spark of wonder and imagination allowing parents to also be a kid when traveling. Yet, they are also ready for interactive, cultural and experiential vacations.

Author of "12 Going on 29: Surviving Your Daughter's Tween Years" Silvana Clark believes travel should be a time for new experiences. “Encourage your tween to step out of his/her comfort zone,” suggests Clark. “Take the lead and find an ethnic restaurant you haven't tried before..”

Increasing the travel excitement, Tracie Shroyer, mom of three tweens, suggests planning vacations around a theme.

“Our last trip we decided not to take the most direct route, but one that had fun things to do and see,” she says. “We went to Hannibal, Missouri and did all things Mark Twain on the way.”

Capitalizing on themes this age group enjoys, mom of a tween daughter Sheri Wallace has planned a trip along the Laura Ingalls Wilder trail has done the Fairy Tale route in Germany.

Traveling with Tweens

Whether planning a road trip or flying to the vacation destination parents can minimize the “are we there yet” questions. Recently completing a 65-hour roundtrip drive with her tweens, Shroyer offers the following road sanity tips:

Destination Education: Allow the novelty of the trip to keep them busy for as long as possible. Buy books, tapes or maps featuring the destination.

Books on Tapes: This is great when traveling with kids of different ages.

Journal the Experience: Bring journals and encourage the tweens to write or draw a few things about their journey. Looking back in their journals and see what they wrote on the last trip inspires them to capture more.

Minimizing travel time and packing entertainment options contribute to the en route experience, according to travel industry veteran Steven Hattem, parent of two tweens.

“Don't forget the DS, iPod, iTouch, iPad or anything else that has a battery and an ‘I’ in its name,” he recommends.

Vacation Choices & Activities

Outdoor activities have been integral for Weinstein family vacations. Bringing sports equipment wherever they go they have found that breaking up museum visits and tours with a game of catch is a welcome release.

Mom of three boys (two tweens and one teen) Andrea I. Weinstein says their favorite vacations have all featured activities. “We have hiked in the mountains around Seattle and biked across the Golden Gate Bridge and checked out the volcanoes in Iceland.”

Hattem recommends cruises and all-inclusive resorts for families with tweens due to the plethora of activities designed just for their ages and for the destinations.

“We recently took our tweens on an Alaskan cruise and they loved the scenery, shore activities and seeing nature up close.”