<p>How do families with limited funds handle all the breaks? There seems to be one about every 6 weeks which really adds up if plane fares are involved. </p>
<p>In checking today, I learned that the cheap student travel agencies I know of do not deal with high school students.</p>
<p>We are FA dependent and live over 1000 miles from my D's school. Fortunately, her school will bus her to either Logan or Manchester, giving us a choice airlines. The sucky part is that making connections to our local airport means her flights have to leave those 2 airports well before 6PM.</p>
<p>Another choice is to fly my D to one of 2 large airports about 2.5 hours from us where we can get direct flights later in the evening. One of them even has Southwest.</p>
<p>She has a long weekend coming up this weekend, but considering a late hockey game, she can't leave that evening, so she is spending the weekend with a teammate who lives in the area instead of flying a long distance for a short time. Big savings there!</p>
<p>Of course, at Xmas I drove both ways including the full 2000+ mile round trip in 2 days on New Years, as even renting a small car and paying for gas (car rental place was amazed!), it came out cheaper. I'm a glutton for punishment sometimes. I wouldn't recommend it except for the experienced road warrior.</p>
<p>Don't know where you live Kirmum nor where you are transporting from, but perhaps these thoughts may spark some ideas. Always open for PMing if you'd rather go offline.</p>
<p>Many kids who do not have the funds to fly home every break spend the break wtih a day student or local boarder. The breaks that mostly everybody goes home for are winter, spring, and summer since they are the longest. Many kids do not go home for a 3 or 4 day weekend simply because they have too much work and its too far to travel for just a couple days.</p>
<p>Just curious...following up on your point about boarders connecting with local students...would that be a "strike" against St. Paul's, with 100% boarders? Or does St. Paul's have about the same number of local students as other schools? I think my son would be just fine staying in town over some breaks -- but if the dorms close and there are few local students, the chances would obviously be pretty slim for doing that and that, in turn, means lots and lots of travel. Either long car trips or expensive flights...being in the same boat as you g'dad (though not QUITE as far).</p>
<p>SPSstudent...if you're listening: Any idea on what percentage of your school's students are local?</p>
<p>D'yer Maker - </p>
<p>The teammate my D is going home with lives 100 miles from campus. I'm sure there are plenty of students at SPS who live within an easy driving distance whose parents pick them up for long weekends. Mine is just tagging along with another regional boarder.</p>
<p>sugerkim - what are the 3-4 weekend breaks? how many are there? I assumed there was just thanksgiving, christmas, spring... how many others are there? you can't stay in your dorm (i live in california, so going through all the trouble to just stay 2 days is redundant)..andover has the most breaks of all of the top schools, correct?</p>
<p>blairt,</p>
<p>Here is an interesting thing... The international students (much longer flight than yours) at my D's school take group vacations together during those long weekends. Usually a couple friends of the family of one of them who lives in the US looks after them at the hotel.</p>
<p>Thanksgiving is typically the break where most international students and those tough on funds stay with local families because the dorms are closed. You can stay in your dorm during the long weekends. There is usually one 3-day weekend a term, with some random days off in the middle of the week for different occasions. I don't know if Andover has the most breaks, but we have one of the least amounts of school days in the country.</p>
<p>There are tons of fairly local kids at SPS, many from NH and many from Boston and it's suburbs. The network was seriously tested last year when the campus flooded and we had to quickly evacuate. Everyone had a local home to go to.</p>
<p>For 4 day weekends, many who live far away go home with friends, others visit relatives and many parents make the trip here rather than the kids going home. I've been to California with friends for 4 days to get out of the cold! Fares were pretty low last year. I have friends who meet their moms in NY or Boston too. I live in NYC and almost always take someone home.</p>
<p>I think the parents mostly do the suffering. It's amazing to see all the parents who fly in from Asia for parent's weekend.</p>
<p>so..could i take the train to NYC/Boston on a long weekend and just check into a hotel and relax or something? with friends, possibly?</p>
<p>If your parents sign the forms, but I've never seen anyone do it.</p>
<p>Personally, I need a dose of family every couple of months as much as I love school.</p>
<p>I've had the same experience as SPS. Once you get a sense of the workload, the weekends are a time to relax and catch up on homework. Over long weekends I'll take a day trip to Boston, but never stay for the entire weekend.</p>
<p>If your parents arrange it, I guess that is possible. I don't think I'd send my D unchapparoned for the weekend.</p>
<p>SPSstudent - good point about the evacuation last year. It shows that the really good boarding schools are a community that pulls together in tough times and comes out better for the experience!</p>
<p>And for those Fall break weekends, color season is a wonderful excuse for your parents to visit!</p>
<p>Sweet. I've been traveling alone for a very long time and my parents are very liberal with giving me permission to do things and go places.. i guess i could only do this for the 2nd semester of my senior year because i won't be able to check into a hotel alone before then.. hm.</p>
<p>sugerkim - could you give an estimate as to how many long weekends there are per year at andover?</p>
<p>I know that there is always at least one per term. It also depends when holidays fall. We have several Jewish holidays off in the fall that can lead to long weekends or just a day off in the middle of the week. There are also days such as MLK where we don't have classes on Monday, but we have required workshops.</p>
<p>blairt, Every school has the calendar posted for the academic year on their website. All holidays/vacations are included. Check it out.</p>
<p>what do you mean by "workshops"? like, lectures and one-day tutorials, etc.</p>
<p>There is a key-note speaker and then usually a movie, play, speaker, program that you attend and later discuss</p>
<p>Even though the airport was 10 minutes from Loomis, with the time change, flight costs, and time spent, it was too difficult for our son to come 3000 miles home for the 3-4 day weekends. He was fortunate enough to have a NJ friend who boards at Taft to stay with during Headmasters weekend. He was able to stay overnight at other players houses and one of the faculty families whenever he had to come back earlier than the dorms opened (i.e. Thanksgiving week for hockey). Other students and their families were amazingly generous with transportation and lodging during short school breaks.</p>
<p>Three things for people who live far away from boarding school:</p>
<p>Air Tran, JetBlue and Southwest</p>
<p>Cheap flights, plenty of destinations across the US. Happy parents.</p>