Travel outside of the USA

davenportmom

5-Year Member
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
8
Our DS has received an appointment for USMA this year after a year of Civil Prep. He is itching to travel before he reports on June 29. We are not a military family and are constantly at a loss about what is correct. Would it be appropriate for him to travel out of the country these next two months and have one last adventure? What would you tell your child? Any help would be appreciated.
 
Yo! Go for it! Although every transition to college should be celebrated, USMA is definitely special in that freedom to travel will be restricted somewhat during his next 4 years -- so Fiji, Japan, Hawaii, Aus, the other Aus, whatever -- take him there! (but for right now and for the sake of your son's apptment I think its best to stay out of West Africa :(

Congrats to your son -- its a great accomplishment -- I'm 18 and if I were a parent of a SA appointee (and money grew on trees) I would let him/her go wherever they wished.
 
I would definitely let him. As long as he has a passport and is traveling somewhere safe, go for it! State dept website provides travel warnings, countries that are cautioned for travel and those that are banned for travel.
 
I take it that beautiful downtown Marion was not exciting enough, eh? Wasn’t for my DS 4 years ago, either, between MMI and R Day. Given the position he is in, I can understand the desire to do something exciting, my DS was the same way. He ended up deciding to do exciting things around home, things he had not had the time to do before, and keep things within the state. Nothing exotic like travel OCONUS but after all he had put in (including MMI) he also wanted to make sure nothing messed up his chances to report healthy for R Day. There is something to be said for both the “bubble wrap” mode and the desire to do something extraordinary – my guess is you’ll get both suggestions. DS found enough to do including last-hanging-out with friends from HS, a big heading-to-West-Point BBQ for friends and family, and just doing some other stuff that he was satisfied, and now since he graduates from USMA in a few weeks, he doesn’t even think about it. He put that energy into great summer leave adventures though, including trips OCONUS, which for him meant more than the leave before R Day.

I guess, in short, do what you want, yet know that there will be more times ahead for great adventures, too... and those times may even be more momentous.

Congrats on his appointment! The fun has only begun.
RLTW
 
Yes, absolutely have a trip before reporting! As others have mentioned, I would stick to "safe" activities!! For a graduation present I took my daughter on a week-long cattle drive in Montana. It was on an actual cattle ranch and the horses were a little "frisky" shall we say in the mornings when we were tacking them up, and, of course, we were galloping and driving the herd all day, every day. Needless to say, I woke up in the middle of the night one night, panicking that my daughter could take a simple fall and break something!! What had I done? Lol, everything ended up fine, but it could have been devastating and this mom would have felt so irresponsible if something had happened!!
 
Just my 2 cents and I may be projecting my own biases but a vacation somewhere relaxing. Not one of those we have to go-go-go kinds where one is trying to cram every activity into moment.

They are about to have 4 years of go-go-go have one last major relax moment is my suggestion
 
Another option is to consider staying in NYC a few days prior to R Day. That was actually interesting to my DS, so we did a lot of the usual tourist things (Statue of Liberty, etc. etc.) and became somewhat familiar with that area. That helped him feel more "at home" with all the travel in and out of the city over the next four years, as he typically takes the train south from USMA into Grand Central Station then a shuttle to whichever airport he is headed to for the flight home, and does the flip side on the way back after leave. Having done that a zillion times now, it's old hat, but at first there was a small (but manageable) learning curve. We all enjoyed the short stay prior to the 90- 60- or 30-second good bye (whichever version you get).
 
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