Single Servings

“I wish I had another mom!” the 10-year-old declared in the middle of the vacation.

Andrea Engber was more angry than hurt. She’d worn herself to a frazzle and spent lots of money showing her son the Seattle sights he’d begged to see. Now she felt it was her turn. “I just wanted to carve out a little time for myself,” she explained.

But that can be tricky when a single parent such as Engber--editor of the SingleMother newsletter--is traveling solo with her children. There’s no one who can pinch hit for a couple of hours.

“Remind yourself why you’ve taken the trip: to be with your kids. If you want to relax, divide your vacation and take a few days without the children,” said Engber, who negotiated a compromise with her son and planned a getaway. (For more information on the nonprofit National Organization of Single Mothers, call [704] 888-KIDS.)

The rewards can be great.

Sixteen-year-old Chloe Liederman may not agree with her 40-something dad about many things, but there’s one subject on which they’re totally in sync: Their annual just-the-two-of-us vacation. “The truth is, I never get bored with my dad,” said Chloe, who has vacationed with him at Club Meds, and toured England and Italy. “It’s the most important week of the year for me,” adds Bill Liederman, a New York restaurateur who is divorced from Chloe’s mom and has traveled solo with his daughter since she was 3. “To have one week a year when you spend the time focused on each other makes it really special.”

Every single parent who has taken a trip away from home with the kids has a story to tell: the time a mom alone with several children couldn’t find a campsite until way after dark; the time a dad watched in horror as his toddler darted into the women’s restroom.

The good news is that single parents now tell these as survival tales--memorable experiences that have shown they can handle anything, even the challenge of navigating a trip alone with the children. As one who has done it many times, I can testify that it’s no small accomplishment to juggle the kids’ safety and needs with maps, budgets and itineraries, all in unfamiliar territory.

There are many single parents taking their kids on vacation with no other adults along for backup supervision. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that more than 30% of American families with children under 18 are headed by a single parent. Perhaps that’s why those who have weathered the single-parent vacation with children report that there’s no longer a stigma attached to being a solo parent, even in the most traditional family vacation spots. On the contrary, couples seem impressed with such fortitude and sometimes even offer a little informal baby-sitting.

“Everybody on vacation is looking to socialize, to chitchat,” said Long Island, N.Y., psychologist Leah Klungness, co-author with Engber of “The Complete Single Mother” (Adams, $12.95) and a widely traveled single mom herself. Besides, she adds, it’s unlikely that you’ll be the only single parent on the cruise, in the ski lodge or at a hotel. Consider that there are now nearly 10 million families headed by moms and 2 million in which children are living with single dads, according to the Census Bureau.

The travel industry is finally recognizing this trend. Club Med, for example, has launched an advertising campaign touting special programming for single parents at its resorts in Eleuthera, in the Bahamas, and in Ixtapa, Mexico. Copper Mountain Ski Resort initiated single-parent packages after getting so many queries about them. Escapes Unlimited, a Southern California tour operator, has scheduled three Christmas adventure trips to Peru, Indonesia and Costa Rica specifically for single parents and their kids.

For those on a budget, Hostelling International touts its hostel family rooms as great bets for single-parent families because they are filled with other families.

(Call Club Med at [800] CLUB MED and ask about special single parent packages; call Copper Mountain at [800] 458-8386; Escapes Unlimited at [800] 243-7227 and Hostelling International at [800] 909-4776.)

But there is a lot more hotels and resorts could do to make it easier and more affordable for single parents, Engber said. “These parents have to start talking about what they want, starting with better deals for rooms occupied by just one adult.”

Some single parents, however, remain tentative about travel with their children, though they can afford to go and have no trouble managing the rest of their lives on their own.

“They go visit relatives because they don’t want to go alone,” said UCLA child psychologist Jill Waterman, adding that too often such trips turn out not to be fraught with stress and not a vacation at all.

Sharon Shultz, a Phoenix widow and mother of a teenage son, has an answer to those not ready to head out on their own: Opt for a group trip. Shultz and her son chose a Backroads family bike trip to the Canadian Rockies. “As a widow, I don’t get any time off from parenting, ever,” she explained. “This trip was a present to me. Someone else was taking care of things. I didn’t even have to cook!” (Call Backroads for a schedule of their family trips at [800] 462-2848.)

Johns Hopkins University research physician Charles Flexner spent a week with his three boys at a rented house on the California coast. “I recommend staying in one place,” he said, to make things as simple as possible. “As a dad, it’s nice to set the pace and the schedule and not have to involve another adult in the decision making. “

Waterman, who counsels many families about divorce issues, advises that newly single parents start small with weekend or even day trips close to home. “Even if it’s one night at a dumpy hotel, the kids will consider it a treat,” she said. Marcy Posner, a New York literary agent, offers another suggestion for traveling single parents: Teach the kids to read maps as soon as they’re old enough. A plus to traveling with her daughter: Posner tries activities like sea kayaking or snorkeling that she would have otherwise skipped.

Taking the Kids appears the first and third week of every month.