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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP you are making so many generalizations here. Not all “travel” sports require much travel before the teen years. For soccer the league is regional so they only play teams that are in the DC area. My sense is that basketball is similar. People may have to drive to the outer reaches of the area occasionally, but no overnight trips other than a tournament once or twice a year. Those are fun for the kids and usually the family makes a trip out of it and sees some other things (like museums!) while they’re there. Some sports do seem to take up more time and have more tournaments, but that’s not how all of them are.

As a PP said rec sports have become miserable. Half the kids have parents who take it way too seriously and are coaching from the sidelines. The other half are literally afraid of the ball. Then there are the disruptive kids whose parents of course never stay. The volunteer coaches are usually nice, but know next to nothing about the sport. They also don’t feel as empowered to discipline someone else’s kid. Everyone has to play the same amount of time, so you have these combos of kids out on the field with vastly different skill levels and attitudes toward the sport. It’s frustrating for all of them. Basketball does a pre season skills assessment and holds a draft to try to balance the teams. I wish all rec sports did this. It’s awful when the teams are based solely on random luck and when kids are available for practices.
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As someone with younger children, this is informative.  My 7 year old loves soccer, but the term “travel” is a turnoff because it implies that the family will prioritize a young child’s sport over everything else.  When I hear “travel,” I think Olympic-level training equivalent to swimming, gymnastics, etc, involving thousands of dollars and time off of school for competitions, which seems like overkill for 8/9/10 year olds.  It’s nice to know that “travel” doesn’t mean elite athlete.[/quote]

Duuuuh[/quote]

Well, when you hear parents bragging about the money and trips (including flying), you wonder how DC has such a precocious number of elementary-age athletes.[/quote]

I hear parents whose kids don't play saying things like this, but after two kids and multiple sports between them, I've yet to hear which sports require elementary schoolers to regularly fly [/quote]

If you live in a nontraditional market, hockey (not if you live in Boston, Minnesota, Chicago, Denver, NY tri-state, and a few other dense hockey markets), maybe also lacrosse starting in late elementary school if you are not in a decent market.  If your kids are elite gymnasts or figure skaters, they also need to fly by late elementary school for national qualifying competitions.  [/quote]

The best lacrosse is in Maryland and the mid Atlantic, so that doesn't really apply here. [/quote]

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