From my earliest childhood memories of vacationing, our family road trip always routed us to Club Wyndham resorts. My parents made the wise and sacrificial decision to invest in the Club Wyndham experience even though, as a young military family, the financial investment was difficult.

Of course, as kids, we never knew that. All we knew was that the monthly family meeting that focused on planning our vacation was our favorite family meeting! I remember getting the big resort catalog out on the kitchen table and taking turns flipping through the different areas as we talked about where we may go that particular summer.

One distinct advantage in being a military family who moved around the country was that it put us in driving proximity of many Club Wyndham resorts that may not have been as accessible if we lived in the same town for most of our lives. It wasn’t so much a rule as an encouragement, but our parents would nudge us to look at the maps at the front of each geographic area and read the blurbs for some of the resorts that we had not yet visited. I actually don’t remember ever visiting the same resort twice as we were growing up.

‘Where are we going to go this summer?’ was the question that drove the discussion at those family meetings. And our family photo albums from decades ago are full of our memories of crabbing off the piers at the Outer Banks, horseback riding and canoeing in Sapphire Valley, paddle boating in the Ozarks, and so many more.

One of the kindest and most generous acts ever bestowed on my brother, sister and I has been the continued investment my parents have made in providing the same vacation experiences for our young families today. My husband and I have taken our three boys on more vacations in their 9, 12, and 15 years of life than most people enjoy in their whole lifetimes.

Like me growing up, they will never have any other frame of reference for what a vacation looks like except through the lens of a Club Wyndham owner — other than the occasional one-night hotel stay when the 9-year-old walks in and asks, ‘Where’s the Jacuzzi tub?! Do you see how tiny this shower is? Are you sure we can stay here?’

Often, our boys cannot tell us what gifts they received for Christmas the previous year, but they can recount every detail from our vacations even a few years back. Our family meetings today tend to look more like a huddle around a computer monitor, but we still seek to answer, ‘Where are we going to go this summer?’”

Jennifer Johnson
Murray, Kentucky