Iowans vacationing closer to home
Danni McCoy (left) and Mary Lichtenberg, both of Omaha, walk along the street in Amana recently. During tough economic times, attractions like the Amana Colonies are one option for a destination that is closer to home./Photo by Liz Martin, The Gazette
By Carla Keppler
The Gazette
Iowans may be strapped for cash, but plans to travel are still on summertime agendas. Rather than cut warm-weather trips, many Eastern Iowans are compromising with close-to-home trips on a tighter budget.
Take Sherri Clemence, 42, of Iowa City. Instead of an annual weeklong fishing trip to Gordon, Wis., Clemence will break summer ventures into weekend trips.
The Clemences are planning a trip to the College World Series in Omaha, Neb. They also want to visit the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago and on another weekend, she hopes, take a day trip to Dubuque’s National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium.
“We figured now if we do just a couple weekend things, it might not hurt so bad” financially, says the first-grade teacher at Penn Elementary in North Liberty. “We’re going more for convenience and in the price range we can afford.”
The same goes for vacationers across the map, a recent Associated Press poll found. The study showed that 20 percent of Americans who plan summer excursions — a number that has dropped from 49 percent to 42 percent since 2005 — will stay closer to home because of economic worries.
Carrie Koelker, director of Eastern Iowa Tourism, says half of Iowans will travel at least 50 miles from their residences this summer, a number down slightly from past years. These trips, she says, can be especially enjoyable.
“There are a lot of tourism destinations in your own backyard,” Koelker said. “People are looking for value in price and in what they’re doing, and these are only a short drive away.”
Nancy Landess of the Iowa Tourism Office now focuses travel promotion on attractions in Iowa and surrounding states and offers gas cards and discounts as incentives for Iowans planning getaways this summer.
Another 23 percent of summer travelers, like Elizabeth Green, a 32-year-old University of Iowa student from Iowa City, are slashing costs by staying with family and friends rather than at hotels while on vacation, the poll showed.
Green and her husband will drive to California with their three daughters to visit family and will be penny-wise on their journey by dining in and skipping the shopping.
The Greens also travel locally when temperatures rise, visiting local festivals, pools and museums and — like some 400,000 others — the Amana Colonies.
As one of the state’s tourism hot spots, the Amanas are the perfect “day-cation,” says Joni Brezina, who plans events for the national historical landmark, which welcomes about 750,000 visitors annually. Food, art, breweries and festivals attract tourists, she says, noting the modest price of the “one-tank” trip for Midwesterners.
“Sometimes you forget what’s right next to you,” she says.
Green says, however, that with frugality comes a loss in spontaneity.
“When we were in a better financial position we would just get in the car and drive … stop and buy a toothbrush and stay,” she says. “With the way things are, we do less of that … and don’t always get to go as far or stay the night.”
Others, like teacher Clemence, look forward to a relaxing summer regardless of the destination.
“Taking time just to sit and talk and just relax and have fun doing the things you don’t have time for throughout the year makes it worth it,” she says.
2009 Gazette Communications
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