We live in the Great White North while our families live mostly in the Deep South. Once a year, we make a trek down the US Interstate System to visit with family members for a week. Since we live in the Great White North where there is so much snow and so little light in the winter, we find that this vacation works quite well in February (besides, we get to miss the very loud snowmobile races that occur just a block from our house!!). In the Deep South, it is usually pleasant shirt sleeves weather during February (although the humidity is pretty awful, but that’s another story). The entire trip is usually one very long day of driving (10-12 hours) and another shorter day (6-8 hours).

During the last two vacations, we have made them more interesting for our children by making up “quests” for them to work on during the trip. Last year, we had just finished reading the Dragon Keepers series of books by Donita K. Paul (wonderful books, by the way – if you have preteens or teens, they are great family reads). All of these books have to do with quests on which the heroes and heroines are sent. (By the way, they are written by a Christian woman and are chock full of Christian themes.)

Quest 2008

When it came time to go on vacation, our family was all “quested” up. So, we decided that our trip would be a quest. Several days before our scheduled departure date, our daughter made “quest books” using cardboard and cloth for bindings and computer paper for the insides. She was all ready to take notes and draw pictures. Bright and early on the morning of the trip, the kids got into their van seats where they each had an envelope addressed to them. The envelope told them the details of the quest and directed them to an encoded message. The message had to do with the trip that they had to take South.

I had actually written the message as diary entries describing a number of cities and landmarks we would be passing on our trip and then changing them to a “code-like” font in the word processor. The idea was that the kids would gradually figure things out as we travelled down South. Well, it didn’t quite work out that way. Our daughter had the code broken within 3 or 4 hours (with the help of the atlas). Regardless, they enjoyed following along where we were going. They also recorded things of interest in their quest journals.

When we got to my parent’s house, we had arranged for them to place some ceramic dragons out near their shed. On arriving at the house, I surreptitiously placed a final letter on the dining table for the kids to find and decode. The directions led them through the woods to the shed where they found the dragons.

Quest 2009

This year, I wanted the quest to last longer and use up more of our “downtime” that always happens on vacation. I decided to get a little more involved this time around. As it happened, both kids were able to get new cell phones the day before we left on vacation and they both wanted camera phones (which happened to be on special). I made a list of 20 items that one or the other of them needed to take a picture of. These included things like “a relative who is younger than you but not your sibling”, “something that starts with the letter G”, “something that converts carbon dioxide to oxygen”. You get the idea. Each time they took a picture, I gave them a 3×5 card with a riddle on it. Some were pretty easy, while others required some effort. The kids were allowed help, so they got to discuss them with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. After the first five or six, the kids got better at figuring them out.

When a riddle was figured out, I gave the kids a card with a letter on it. My daughter wrote each letter into a little notebook. By the end of the quest, they had twenty letters. I then gave them the last riddle, the answer to which would use all the letters they had collected. Here’s the final riddle:

What Am I?

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum

My owner’s a sailor and an Englishman.

I’m filled to the brim with goodies so fine;

Some baubles, some jewels, some things quite a find.

I’m found on an isle in a sea of bright blue;

Under the sand or in a cave hid from you.

So, “X” marks the spot when you’re searching for gold;

But, today I’ll be found when you’ve deciphered my code.

The answer was “A Pirate Treasure Chest”. They figured this out the day we were leaving to come home. Their prize was . . . . a pirate treasure chest!

I had gotten some boxes from Wal-Mart and filled them with little trinkets – candy, flashlight, barettes for my daughter, card game for my son, etc. You’ll notice that the top of the box has names that are crossed off. My kids love the Pirates movies, so I used the names Montezuma, Cortez, Barbosa, Jack Sparrow, Will Turner, and then my kids names. It really was a fun quest – and cost less than $20.

How to set up your own quest

Consider the ages of your kids – Children who don’t yet read will do better with a scavenger hunt of finding items or taking pictures of items.

Single-Step versus Multi-Step – Our first quest had only one step, (decoding), but our kids were pretty quick at figuring it out. This year, the two step process worked better for the kids, but was more work for me.

Cooperative versus Competitive – We chose to make both quests cooperative and give both kids their “prizes” when they had both finished. This way they worked together. This works quite well since one of our kids is very verbal and the other is more auditory and kinesthetic.

Tie it to something their interested in – This can be something you are studying in school or just something they enjoy. For our first quest, we used the set of books we were reading as our jumping off point. For this year’s quest, I just kind of went with the pirate theme. One of the funny things was that we listened to a book called Peter in Scarlett about Peter Pan, Captain Hook, and pirates. It all tied in quite well.

Family vacations can be wonderful or stressful. Hopefully, a quest can give your family something to focus on together to pass the hours!

Catherine is a homeschooling mom of a 13 year old daughter and a 10 year old son. Her children were homeschooled by their father while Catherine worked as a Family Physician until three years ago. Since that time, Catherine has been the homeschooling parent since she is no longer able to work due to illness while her husband is developing a business doing math tutoring. Her hobbies include blogging, reading, knitting, and trying to stay (somewhat) sane. Please visit her blog at Domestic Adventure.