<p>Suzie, get thee abroad, if only for a week or two.</p>
<p>If your kids spend a semester or year abroad, you will also have a great excuse to go abroad yourself – to visit them.</p>
<p>If I remember correctly, educational travel carries some tax advantage, which is why lots of universities organize such tours for their alums. They get a member of the faculty to discuss Greek culture or Japanese religion, or the Galapagos eco-system.<br>
Maybe we should organize ourselves into CC tours. :)</p>
<p>Count me in, but I’ll have to wait 7 years till the youngest is through college. Grad school’s on them.</p>
<p>Mackinaw…
Let me clarify a bit. I wish to travel way more than I have, particularly to other countries. But luckily I have traveled “some” in life, just not a real real lot or as much as I hope to, or certainly never got to study abroad as I had thought I would in college. </p>
<p>I have traveled throughout the US extensively and I am grateful I have seen our wonderful country. Besides many vacations, the summer before the final year of both my hubby and my graduate schools (or before real life really kicked in), we took six weeks and traveled across the country and to the Canadian Rockies as well. With our kids we have also been to Alaska. I have been to the Caribean a lot. Actually it is one of my favorite places. My fave of all is Anguilla. When I ever have funds to go on a trip further away, I usually will pick Anguilla as it is a special place for us and if I can only have six days away, I like a relaxing type trip like that, no kids, etc. rather than sightseeing. Countries in the other hemisphere need more time, money, plus are not laying on the beach, lol. This past year with college and all looming, I did not even go there and just went camping on Cape Cod! We also try to take our kids on trips though that is likely ending now with college too. I have been to Europe once when I was seventeen for a five week teen travel tour one summer and so I have luckily seen many places but I was much younger then. </p>
<p>My kids have been lucky to see a bunch of places too in the US and in the Caribean. My oldest did a six week trip throughout the Western US, Western Canada and Hawaii one summer and another to several European countries on a tennis tour one summer, plus a school trip to France too. The younger one has not done as much travel as the older one as she does not want to give up her summers at a performance program, but she did get to go to Greece and Italy on a school trip last spring and was offered a trip to France by grandparents with her school this year but wanted to go back to her summer program instead (major “paradise” for her). So, hopefully both will go abroad in college (positive the older one will). </p>
<p>It is just that I need MY turn, lol. Right now, most of our energy and funds go into the kids. I hope when time and money allow, I will go abroad again but can’t complain in the sense that I have been abroad once and have also seen alot on this half of the world. Just want more, lol. </p>
<p>Both my own parents and my in laws have traveled the world. I hope I can do more as I get past the child rearing years. The college payments will now be the one obstacle!
Susan</p>
<p>Marite…great idea. I almost signed up for the Stanford Amazon trip this spring, but finally realized I was living in a dream world–leave the girls for 10 days with all of their activities and logistical challenges and just daily needs?–wouldn’t work. </p>
<p>I would love to do a walking or biking tour of Italy or Spain with all of you! (We could report back on European colleges or high school students or something, perhaps?)</p>
<p>However, I am not aware of any grounds upon which such trips are deductible. Travel expenses which are deductible are those related to your business, so you would have to go somewhere and somehow tie it in with your business. I used to know an English professor who deducted his trips abroad to visit, e.g., English gardens or Spanish historical places on the grounds that he then wove those into his lectures and reading lists. It seems just a tiny bit of a stretch, to me, but in truth he really did become a student on those trips. So professors perhaps could do so but I’d have to go sit in the family law courts or something to have a prayer of deducting.</p>
<p>NOT to get too political but maybe when Bush overhauls the tax system he’ll give us a new tax break on this…</p>
<p>And I thought the “heck, if D doesn’t want to go here, I’ll apply” thought was one of those guilty over the top secrets we weren’t supposed to admit to. Well, add me to the list. Guilty,guilty,guilty. It’s all I can do to keep from saying it at one out of every three colleges we visit. LOL. It did pop out once so far, but only once. D just looked skyward, praying for deliverance.</p>
<p>I never said it OUT LOUD, mind you. Just thought it. I stuck to the “don’t say anything evaluative about a school until your child has offered his impression” advice our school’s college counselor begged us to observe, in her talk to the junior parents. Which, of course, meant that I said nothing at all because he never let on how he felt…</p>