Originally Posted by tandempower

Yes, thanks. I've actually looked at the touring and Adventure Cycling stuff before and it is definitely a worthwhile resource, especially if you're an experienced cyclist who's up to @100 mile days. The reason I posted this on the car-free forum is that I think weekend tours are (going to be) quite a different thing for families with children. Riding on a tandem with a 9-year old, I can do up to about 50 miles in a day but that is asking a lot. 30 miles each way for a weekend is quite doable but if I would plan a longer trip, I would want to have accomodations @ every 30 miles and for young families/parents traveling with child(ren), cost is that much more of a factor. Since I'm hoping that car-free living isn't going to be something that has child-free living as a pre-requisite, these are different issues from adult touring.

Also, it's great to hear that there are so many global options for long-distance travel and cycling but many young families and others don't typically fly to distant destinations on a regular basis, so the question is what it takes to have the option of car-free weekend travel become a local reality for all budgets. Until this happens, I'm afraid young people will continue to invest in cars so that they can at least have the freedom of weekend travel to not be stuck at home except when traveling by plane, train, or bus. In the southeastern US, I don't see much emerging in terms of bus and train options, so car-free living is still somewhat of an isolation-sentence for people who don't have the budget to fly and rent a car at their destination. I don't even think it is possible to rent bicycles at airports to be able to travel car-free without toting a bicycle with you, which has gotten quite expensive, last time I checked.