Get your game on, go play at skate or surf camp
Deep into a winter that seems endless, you're looking forward to that week of your kids' summer camp when you have the house to yourself. Come on, you know that by day three the hollow silence will be deafening without Junior and his miscreant buddies at the fridge and on the phone.
Why not have the best of both worlds? They experience an amazing time at camp and you explore the surrounding area on a vacation of your own.
If All Star Adventures wasn't named for the Smash Mouth song "All Star," it should have been because the song's lyrics are perfect: "Hey, now, you're an All Star, get your game on, go play."
Rated one of the 14 skate camps "that don't suck" by Transworld Skateboarding Magazine, All Star Adventures' camps for kids and teens afford boarders a chance to skate the newest skate parks in Colorado, Oregon, North Carolina, Australia and Grand Cayman while being coached by professionally trained instructors who adore the sport as well as some of their fave celebrity athletes.
In its ninth year of hosting summer skateboard camps, the company offers a lineup of day camps (for younger kids) as well as overnight travel camps that put an emphasis on fun -- as a summer camp should. They meet and train with their sports heroes, make new friends, skate world-class parks and play hard during four- and seven-day camps for ages 12 and older.
In Colorado, your young Tony Hawks also get some time off wheels by visiting spots such as Six Flags Elitch Gardens in Denver and camping in the foothills of High Country wilderness. Watch them go ga-ga exploring sample Colorado itineraries at www.allstartrips.com/denver_skate.html.
You power up the other computer and visit the Colorado Tourism Web site at www.colorado.com to explore what you'll want to do in the Mile High City and environs.
Prefer the beach? The Outer Banks North Carolina Skate Camp sessions cost the same: $545 for four days and three nights (add three days for an additional $349). It's a spectacular seaside backdrop for skating Manteo Skate Park and Nags Head Skate Park and exploring the area via street skating. Get details at www.allstartrips.com/ncskate.html.
You get your own game on and visit the North Carolina Aquarium or the North Carolina Maritime Museum, both on Roanoke Island; get your best shots of historic lighthouses; talk to costumed Elizabethan sailors about 16th-century seafaring life at Roanoke Island Festival Park; indulge in just-caught seafood at more than 160 locally owned and operated restaurants; and kick back in a charming bed-and-breakfast, full-service hotel or a rental cottage.
Contact the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau at www.outerbanks.org or call (877) 629-4386.
For information about other summer skate camps in Salem, Ore., and the Cayman Islands (boasting Black Pearl, the world's second-largest skate park at 60,000 square feet), call (866) 758-2267 or go to www.allstartrips.com.
Perhaps you fancy another hemisphere. There's an Australia Skate Safari in January 2009 exploring Sydney and New South Wales, and this summer or fall the company offers a ski/snowboard camp in Middle Earth: New Zealand. Participants visit three of the best mountain regions and areas where the "Lord of the Rings" movies were filmed. The New Zealand Powder tour is for teens and adults, so you can have a shared experience of a lifetime. Check out www.allstartrips.com/powdernz_ski.html.
Sayulita, home to All Star's Mexico surf camp, is a pristine coastal village 26 miles from the Puerto Vallarta airport, offering first-class beginner and intermediate surf breaks to learn the sport or polish surfing skills. Campers also snorkel, sea kayak, look for whales, fish and mountain bike. Who needs video games? The teen camps are held in late June 2008 and February 2009.
While the teens are hanging 10, you can relax on a beach unblemished by large-scale development or get some exercise of your own: horseback ride on the beach; snorkel or dive the nearby Marieta Islands, home to dolphins, giant mantas and an incredible exotic bird sanctuary; jungle hike; mountain bike; or golf.
As Smash Mouth opined, "So much to do, so much to see; So what's wrong with taking the back streets; You'll never know if you don't go -- you'll never shine if you don't glow."