<p>"It's been a tough season for spring break destinations. With students and parents tightening their belts in the face of a major recession, the annual tradition of letting off steam ideally on an exotic beach, with access to plenty of cheap beer is suffering. This spring break season typically, March 16 to April 5 flights from the U.S. to the Caribbean have dropped as much as 20%, according to data compiled for TIME by the online travel agency Expedia." </p>
<p>Good news: some students are opting for service trips instead!</p>
<p>I'd guess driving four to a car all night and splitting a modest hotel room four ways would still be doable. And just as much if not more fun for under $500 all in..</p>
<p>It's definitely tough on the communities whose economies are partially dependent on such destination travel, so I feel for them.</p>
<p>As to the students, this is no real loss. I never understood the whole Spring Break craziness anyway. I know my son would never consider $500 a low cost vacation on his budget.</p>
<p>Well, if they never go they don't know what they are missing. Good times I still recall almost exactly. Portions of it are a little hazy if you know what I mean.</p>
<p>Road trip, splitting the gas and staying at parents' houses along the way...the new spring break!</p>
<p>Our first D (who is now a college graduate) never went on one of those spring break trips that you read about (or see on the news). How much of the college population actually goes on those trips anyway?</p>
<p>I have a friend with a D at another school who kept asking me where D was going for Spring Break, as if it were a given. D did not go, and most of her friends at school were not planning to spend the money to go either.<br>
Turns out my friend's D no longer has Spring Break plans either, because none of her friends at HER school want to pay the money to go either!</p>
<p>Boy, what a bunch of mopes. My friend of over 30 years and I still get chuckles out of our road trip from Madison to Mexico--sleeping in college dorm living rooms along the way (and getting kicked off the BYU and Berkeley campus), camping on the beach in Rosarita, BC. Being so carefree and adventurous while meeting lots of kids from all over the US doing the same thing. Seeing much of the country closeup for the first time from Berkeley to Las Vegas to Hollywood. Best few hundred bucks I ever spent.</p>
<p>I do admit to mope-ness or to being a moper. </p>
<p>Definition: 1 Archaic: to act in a dazed or stupid manner; 2: to give oneself up to brooding : become listless or dejected; 3: to move slowly or aimlessly.</p>
<p>"My friend of over 30 years and I still get chuckles out of our road trip from Madison to Mexico"</p>
<p>Hands down, no contest, the most fun I've ever had: college road trip with twelve of us in the 15-passenger party van. It doesn't get any better than that.</p>
<p>ETA: Mopery: the act of exposing oneself to a blind person.</p>
<p>Free food and maid service at home. The beach a 30 minute drive. Needless to say, no spring breaks for our D. Although she has brought the occasional east coaster home to sunny Ca during that time.</p>
<p>We had 4 good-sized guys in my 1967 VW bug ragtop. I think we each had 2 Tshirts, shorts, jeans, and some underwear. That was it. We only got over 60 going downhill. At least there were no speeding tickets.</p>
<p>barrons, one of my many similar trips was in a VW bus that literally had to be push started. We made it to the Ozarks and canoed and tubed down the Current River. We canoed, our ice chests tubed. ;)</p>