Vacations and Travel - Family Reunions

Family reunions provided incentive for about one-third of Americans to travel, according to the 2002 TIA Travel Poll. Thirty-four percent of U.S. adults (seventytwo million) had traveled to a family reunion during the three-year period preceding the poll, and one in five had traveled to a family reunion in the year before the poll.

Married people were more likely to take a trip to attend a family reunion than unmarried people (38% versus 30%). Similarly, adults with children under eighteen were more inclined than those without children to take a family reunion trip (39% versus 32%). There was a widespread willingness to travel great distances to reconnect with far-flung family members: 34% of surveyed respondents reported traveling five hundred or more miles one way away from home. Another 34% traveled between 150 and 499 miles, while 32% traveled less than 150 miles to attend reunions.

Family reunions were most often held in a private home (52%). The TIA poll found that other popular locations for reunions were city or town parks (12%) and national or state parks or forests (6%).