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Today’s guest is Robert Reid, the US Travel Editor for Lonely Planet, who written over two dozen guidebooks, including New York City, Trans-Siberian Railway, Central America and Myanmar (Burma). He lives in Brooklyn, New York, and blogs at www.reidontravel.blogspot.com and www.lonelyplanet.com.

As an 11-year-old kid of the Great Plains, I became a trip-planner during the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. I loved watching the US hockey team’s stunning upset of the Soviets and Eric Heiden skating to five gold medals, but both paled in comparison to a far more exotic sight to a flatlander like me: skiing. I had to try.

Before the closing ceremonies were done, I had talked my dad and Uncle David into flying to Colorado and even booked us some out-of-the-way resort I found in an old Mobile travel guide. It was the worst trip we’d ever taken.

On arrival, I got a front-row view of altitude sickness as my dad vomited into a small sink at the foot of our shared bed. And the next day we all got stuck in a blizzard on a cross-country trail none of us had wanted to take. Even downhill slopes weren’t much fun with sheets of ice hitting your face. We were cold and miserable. And really bad at skiing.

We never went back there. But we never stopped talking about it either.

In a 2008 New York Times article on how travel (without ice I suppose) can be good for your health, a Minnesota professor noted that vacations are of the best family activities and even “the bad times are some of the best memories.” I agree, and I’ll add another piece to the puzzle of memory-making: going to new places. Even forlorn ski resorts. Sure it’s great revisiting past glories and many do (one in two visitors to Vegas and Cancún have been before), but spending every summer at the same lake can be limiting too.

Seeing new places at least once every other year or so opens up the realm of possibility and builds the imagination, particularly for kids. My few trips to Disney World were great fun, but ultimately made less of an impact as a lone episode, at age six, of climbing real pyramids outside Mexico City or being surrounded by mountain goats at Glacier National Park a decade later.

Another memorable trip for me was two simple days in Wichita, Kansas, where we walked along the Arkansas River. I was amazed it was the same river I played Frisbee golf next to back in Tulsa, and that locals pronounced it differently (”ar-KAN-sas”). We never returned to any of these places, yet they loom larger than a dozen-plus fun trips over the years to the gorgeous Ozarks, which have since collapsed into a thinner memory of bearded dulcimer players and apple butter.

A trip can be broken into four parts more or less: planning, getting there, doing stuff, then remembering it all later. Kids should be involved in all parts, particularly the dreamy stage of planning – which goes hand in hand with new places you don’t yet know.

After plotting out that failed ski trip of 1980, my family kindly didn’t give up on me. I got to search out B&Bs to stay in Quebec City (success), map out scenic drives in California (can’t go wrong with coast-hugging Hwy 1), and suggest a July 4th in nearby Pawhuska’s Tall Grass Prairie Reserve (we saw no buffalo and ran out of gas – care to guess which one we talk about the most?).

Kids are drawn to the new and unknown – seeing what’s around the corner. (Hopefully souvenir shops.) Even if parents have been, it’s a hoot seeing their first look at something new. I’m finding that already, as my seven-month-old daughter Ruby grabs one toy while fervently looking for any neglected ones. She’s already traveled some as well. She’s seen Pittsburgh’s Andy Warhol Museum and a Civil War re-enactment (don’t ask), and my wife and I are hoping to break a day from a trip back to see cousins in Oklahoma to stay a night in the hotel at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Price Tower in Bartlesville. Just because we never have been.

Ruby might not remember these early trips, but we certainly will. A few weeks ago in Philadelphia, Ruby took in her first parade, kicking with glee as dancers and drummers passed by. Seeing her reaction was as rewarding as any travel experience I’ve had.

And I can’t wait till Ruby starts helping plan what’s next. I’ll even ski.

Want to win one of five copies of the fully revised and redesigned 5th edition of Lonely Planet’s Travel with Children?  Just leave a comment here (with or without a family travel disaster story that looms large in your memory) by midnight September 23rd, 2009 (U.S. only please).

Teotihuacan photo courtesy of trailofdead1.