Welcome to the eighth edition of SINGLE PARENT TRAVEL e-zines - a continuing series of monthly newsletters created for the community of single parents and single adults who like to travel with their kids. This month's topic will be fun activities and getaway weekends for the fall and Thanksgiving. Before addressing that theme, I would like to bring you up to date on the various Single Parent Travel activities.

* The live radio interview on Los-Angeles based KLAC went very well. My interview started late so there was no time for questions from the audience but I was able to discuss with the moderator the need for travel suppliers to wake up to the single parent travel niche market. We talked about the special needs and desires of the single adult traveling with kids. It was lots of fun and we got the word out!

* If you have not done so already, PLEASE take a few minutes to fill out the Single Parent Travel Survey. Remember you need not be a single parent to fill it out. You are qualified if you are single or married and have traveled or will travel alone with children. The results have been coming in steadily and we have noted some expected trends. Survey participants are asking for activities appropriate for single parent, not double parent families and nearly all survey participants are voicing displeasure with having to pay a single supplement. What has surprised us is the intensity of your displeasure with the single supplement. These are the messages I am taking to the travel suppliers. EVERY SINGLE OPINION COUNTS, so please, click on the survey page and take five minutes to fill it out now. Thank you. http://www.singleparenttravel.net/Survey/survey1.htm

* My book, "The Single Parent Travel Handbook," is progressing well and should be completed before the end of September. Publication date will be advised via the newsletter. I would like to add more stories to the chapter entitled "Single Parent Dads Tell Their Stories. The ones I have are informative and delightful but I need more. Please contact me if you, or anyone you know, could be a contributor. You do not need to be a professional writer or even a good writer. I will be happy to interview you and write the story for you. It doesn't matter whether your trip is exotic or close to home, readers will enjoy reading about your experiences. Single Parent Dads from their 20's to their 60's have contributed stories. Single Grandparents are welcome to contribute as well. Please contact me at globalbrenda@yahoo.com

* The list of newsletter subscribers continues to grow steadily. We are now close to 400. Reader feedback was a little lighter than usual last month, probably because so many people were away on vacation. Your comments are always welcome. If you have any idea or a topic you would like included in the newsletter or on the Web site, please let us know. You can reach us through the Web site, www.SingleParentTravel.net or by emailing me directly: globalbrenda@yahoo.com One of the subscribers emailed me to say that she has had very good single parent family vacation experiences with Club Med so I am happy to pass that information on.

* Two new stories have been added to my Web site. One is about safety when traveling and includes an amusing story about handling money during our single parent trip to Syria. http://www.singleparenttravel.net/Articles/Syria.htm This article is currently featured on www.ParentsWithoutPartners.org More recently we added another story to our site about our trip to Japan and staying overnight at a Buddhist monastery. This story will appear on the PWP Web site in October but you can read it now on my site: Enjoy! http://www.singleparenttravel.net/Articles/Koya.htm

GETAWAY ACTIVITIES & WEEKENDS FOR THE FALL
Your local newspaper is a great source for fall family fun activities. Besides the usual apple picking, hayrides, and Halloween haunted houses, many farms offer corn stalk mazes, cider making, and pie-eating contests. For years I maintained a file in my desk drawer at home called "Sunday Outings." Every time I saw an interesting activity posted in the newspaper, at the school library, or the local grocery store, I would clip the information and add it to my file. As the weekend approached, my kids and I would go through the file and decide what we wanted to do that Sunday. If it was an all day activity, the kids knew they had to pitch in with Saturday chores so we all could "take Sunday off" to have fun. This taught my kids responsibility and reward.

Single parents also need to budget their family time the way they budget their money. To do that one needs to organize and think ahead. That doesn't mean there isn't room for spontaneity, quite the contrary. One fall weekend the weatherman predicted it would rain heavily for two solid days. As we grocery shopped Saturday morning, my son said, "Mom, let's just buy lots of junk food and rent a whole bunch of videos we haven't seen and pig out and play couch potato for the weekend." We did just that. It certainly wasn't our normal routine but we still laugh about that weekend. Usually, however, full day and weekend fun activities do require some advance planning. My son learned he couldn't come up to me last minute and ask if we could go down the shore for the day and always expect a yes for an answer. It required a little training but he realized that if the activity was very important to him, he had to give me at least a day's notice. Now that his weekends are filled with college studies, he tries to train his buddies to do the same with him. My daughter learned organizational skills from our weekend planning and has made event planning one of her hobbies. She has told me one of the first things she will do when she has kids is to set up a "Sunday Outing" file.

The fall is a great time for a getaway weekend. Summer tourists have gone home and the natives (human and otherwise) are out and about in their native habitat. National parks are wonderful places to visit at this time of year. Yosemite National Park, clogged with tourists in the summer, is uncrowded and absolutely glorious in its autumn colors. If you live near Canada or Mexico, a weekend driving trip not only offers a change of scenery but also rates in many areas are off-season. A great place to start your weekend getaway research is the Internet site for the Tourism Offices Worldwide Directory: www.towd.com This site lists not only the state tourism bureaus, but also acts as a gateway to local agencies and chambers of commerce that provide information on special events taking place in the fall. Some states, New Jersey being one of them, have teacher conventions planned in the fall and families look forward to going away for a long weekend without having their kids miss school. Besides the obvious Walt Disney World, there are many exciting destinations that beckon to traveling families. How about London? The UK is still suffering from the bad press it received when Mad Cow disease was rampant. There should be excellent fall bargains available for savvy single parent family travelers.

Ryan Air, the upstart local Irish Air carrier just had a one-day special on fares. All flights between London and Ireland were on sale for the fall for £1 ($1.50) each way. Yes, $1.50. That is not a typo. I learned about this on my daily newsletter from www.Frommers.com. If you have not yet subscribed to this daily newsletter, I recommend you do so today. Just click on the link above and then click on "subscribe" under the Daily Newsletter. If you do not want to receive their daily newsletter, then peruse their specials from time to time. They have done a lot of the work for you. For an off-the-wall autumn destination how about Iceland for the weekend? Your kids will love it and you for taking them! Iceland is less than five hours from the U.S. East Coast. Besides the beautiful capital city of Reykjavik you can explore the gorgeous countryside and, if the 50-degree weather is too chilly for you, you can hop into a hot spring to warm up! Iceland's tourist board has a superb Web site: www.goiceland.org. Also check out the Web site for their national air carrier: www.icelandair.com and sign up for their exclusive Net Fare Internet Specials. (You only get the emails once a week, not too bad).

If you can't travel on a September or October weekend, then consider Thanksgiving and having your turkey on the plane or on the road. It will be a family getaway weekend to remember. One Thanksgiving weekend my son decided to have dinner with his Dad and his family so my daughter (who was then working) and I spontaneously decided to fly to Europe for a week. We purchased one of those $200 winter special airfares from New York and flew to Brussels and visited the medieval city of Bruges and drove all around the Low Countries sightseeing all the places we had missed on previous trips. We decided to fly out on Thanksgiving Day. (On two previous overseas Thanksgiving trips I had flown out the night before Thanksgiving and swore I would never do it again. The traffic was so horrendous that, in both cases, I nearly missed my flight). Our decision proved to be a wise one. Traffic on Thanksgiving Day was not bad, service on board the flight was friendly, and the plane was not crowded. My daughter and I had six seats to ourselves. The only problem to solve was how I was going to have my Thanksgiving turkey. My daughter and her friends had prepared an early dinner in Manhattan while I was commuting up to JFK Airport, so she packed up the leftovers in doggie bags and I had my Thanksgiving dinner at the airport cafeteria. Although the circumstances weren't glamorous the food was delicious. When we boarded the plane we laughed when we found out the menu was - you guessed it - Thanksgiving turkey!

On a final note, if you haven't already done so, please fill out the survey by clicking on the Web page below:. http://www.singleparenttravel.net/Survey/survey1.htm

POSTING MESSAGES
Feel free to send me your comments, queries or feedback to me directly at: globalbrenda@yahoo.com or to the list directly at: SingleParentTravel@yahoogroups.com. Please note that comments sent to the list must pertain to single parent travel.