Road Scholar is a travel based website formerly known as Edlerhostel. They have a huge section devoted to “Grandparent Travel” by which they mean travel packages for grandparents and grandchildren. Covering mostly the United States and Canada these packages are meant for a certain type of traveler. From their website:

“Road Scholar Intergenerational Programs were designed for adults (grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, or authorized family friends) to participate in a learning adventure with their young relatives or friends. These programs provide opportunities for grandparents to get to know their grandchildren better, for aunts and uncles to share their enthusiasm for special places, and for participants to experience with younger friends the spirit of Road Scholar: “sharing new ideas, challenges, and experiences is rewarding in every season of life.”

While not providing babysitting services or child care facilities, they do tweak the programs for multigenerational travel.

“In most Intergenerational Programs a group leader will work with the children as well as the adults. However, Road Scholar expects a responsible adult to be the primary supervisor of the younger participant in his/her charge.”

Perhaps the best part of their website is that they rate all of their travel programs by age for the youngest participant. This way you can gauge both the interest and physical levels for the grandchildren. One has to wonder if a bit of indexing for grandparent physical requirements might also be a good idea, some of those hikes can be a bit taxing on the elder back.

The other big plus for the Road Scholar programs is the educational level of the material presented, meant to keep the kids interested but not dumbed down so far that the adults are disinterested. All tours and treks are led by skilled guides with a lot of local knowledge.