08.03.06 Rejuvenile Vacations

USA Today did a snappy piece last week on ?rejuvenile vacations? ? that is, holidays designed to unleash the inner kid. Part of me worries about the cross-generational phenomenon described in the book being reduced to a travel-agency package-deal buzzword (?Doris! Book me one of them rejuvie vacations in Boca!?), but it’s certainly true that vacations are often the only time adults shed their grown-up selves and let themselves enjoy activities they loved before they “grew up,” be they sipping fizzy florescent drinks or building sandcastles.

So yes, by all means, rejuvenile vacations. On the extravagant side, you’ve got your ultimate pajama parties and your “sleepover suites? complete with pink d—cor and karaoke machines. You can also go all-out at a place like Camp GetAway, a weekend camp in California’s San Bernardino mountains especially for women seeking a break from their jobs and husbands for a week racing canoes, flinging toilet paper and, in a vast improvement on the summer camps of yesteryear, massages and margaritas. Or you can finally fulfill teenage Rock God dreams at a fantasy camp where adults jam with grizzled rockers and hang out for a week at recording studios and nightclubs.

I myself am heading to a summer camp in Vermont next week that includes a terrific program for kids and simultaneous activities for parents. Thus while my three kids hike through the woods or ride the banana boat around Lake Champlain, my wife and I might be out skeet shooting or mountain biking or doing arts and crafts. Then we all get together and bounce on the trampoline. It’s pretty close to heaven.

What do we get out of such silliness? Hopefully we return to our normal adult routines refreshed and loosened and enlivened. Hopefully we find ways to maintain that energy when we get home. Hopefully we have the sort of fun that doesn’t distinguish between our adult and childlike halves, with the adult doing the work and the kid having the fun. Because that’s a recipe for low-grade schizophrenia, or at least majorly un-fun anxiety. It’s worth remembering that despite the talk of unleashing inner children and reclaiming the joys of childhood, rejuveniles don’t actually want to be kids again. We’ve just finally grown up enough to appreciate all the stuff we missed the first time around.