HIT THE ROAD, SHAQ!

Shachne Arye and Naomi Rowner Plan Trips to Remember….for Thousands

It was during my usual frantic Googling before a trip (I may or may not have been known for preplanning a minutely specific Magic Kingdom ride schedule) that I stumbled across greatfrumtrips.com. Suddenly, at my fingertips, was everything I’d always wished for in a single portal: information on the how’s and where’s of planning anything from a small trip to a full-fledged vacation for a frum family, down to the last detail.   

Trying to decide on a place to visit for your next family getaway? Need a day trip destination that will satisfy everyone from the 18-year-old all the way down to the two-year-old? One that’s affordable or maybe even free?

Shachne Arye (nicknamed Shaq by his family and friends) and Naomi Rowner have got a place for you.

Collecting firewood in Jacob’s Creek, NH.

Let’s  Go!

As the parents of seven rambunctious children, ka”h, the Rowners are constantly on the lookout for new and exciting places to visit. On Sundays and school vacation days the family packs into their van and sets off to explore a new destination, often with no official game plan. “We like to wing it,” explains Shachne Arye.  

They began their adventures as a family when their eldest was just a few weeks old – and it wasn’t with a calm, low-key trip: they climbed Mount Tammany, a challenging feat for anyone, let alone new parents with a newborn. (Naomi is quick to point out that they did not make it to the summit, although Shachne Arye says that was because the weather was a bit too cool.)

For someone with such an appetite for exploration, Shachne Arye has had humble beginnings. A native of Toronto, he grew up in Thornhill, which at the time was comprised of less than 40 homes. His backyard opened into a cornfield, which he says whetted his love of the great outdoors. Venturing out beyond that great yard, however, was no mean feat for parents and many siblings. “Chol Hamoed in our house,” he says, “meant deciding what we’d do at 2, getting in the car at 3, and arriving at our destination at 5  – just in time for closing.” When Shachne Arye was old enough, he purchased a car and invited his siblings to join him for various excursions that he planned from beginning to end. That was just the beginning.

He married Naomi, who says she was raised in a family of world travelers. “We went on trips every Sunday when I was a kid; we were always going somewhere. So when I got married, it seemed natural to me to continue that lifestyle.” Shachne Arye loved her approach, and took things to the next degree, pushing Naomi’s boundaries and encouraging her to try new and more unconventional experiences. As a traveling salesman, Shachne Arye covered as many as 18,000 miles each year.  He took photos of the places he deemed most promising, slowly building a repertoire of great family destinations for the future.

Rocky coastline of Portland, Maine.

By the time their seventh child was born, the Rowners were accustomed to the get-up-and-go lifestyle, with an impressive list of places they’d visited under their belts. In the summer of 2015, Shachne Arye decided to take things to the next level. He purchased a used pop-up camper on Craigslist and set off  with the entire family packed into their large van, camper in tow, towards Niagara Falls. First off on the destination list? Bald Eagle State Park, Pennsylvania, where a sign warned them: “Please keep the door shut at night to prevent wildlife from entering.” “Very comforting in Black Bear Country at night,” noted Shachne Arye wryly.  The family spent Shabbos in Cleveland, then continued on to Niagara, for a fun-filled trip which lasted eight days door-to-door. The trip was so successful (notwithstanding  two flat tires on the first and last days of their journey) that the Rowners decided to do it again – in style.

The following summer, the Rowners headed out on an ambitious 28-day, 3000-mile expedition – this time in the “real deal,” a hard side camper that accommodated the entire family. With Shachne Arye having just left his job and the children home for the summer break, it was the ideal time for the Rowners to plan such a daunting trip – although the word “plan” is being used somewhat loosely. “We had a general idea of where we were headed and when we wanted to be back,” explains Naomi, “ but we only planned for the first week – after that, we figured it out as we went along.”

Campground BMX Stunt Bike Trail.

They traveled as far as Wisconsin to the north (where they visited the Jelly Belly factory) and as far as Kentucky to the south (where Shachne Arye was almost arrested at gunpoint by an anti-Semitic park ranger for letting the kids play in the campground), then took a circuitous route back through Pennsylvania.  RV purchase aside, the entire trip cost the family less than $2000, including admission to an amusement park in Lancaster. And not once did any of the Rowner children utter the words, “I’m bored.”

After four weeks of searching for minyanim and places to eat, rest, and visit, the idea for greatfrumtrips.com occurred to Shachne Arye. “I said to myself, this is crazy,” he recalls. “There were bits and pieces all over – such as godaven and mikva.com, zmanim and kosher restaurant apps – but there was not one central website containing all that information.

The day after the Rowners returned from their trip in August 2016, Shachne Arye began working on the site.

To date, greatfrumtrips.com includes hundreds of posts featuring links to discounted and interesting family-friendly attractions. Its 14 trip reports detail the Rowners’ journeys with photos and descriptions of everything they’ve done at specific locations, but Shachne Arye says, “If I wrote for three years straight, I still wouldn’t cover everything we’ve done.” The Rowners collaborate with companies such as Florida Kosher Villas and Ripley’s Entertainment, and have affiliate links such as Groupon to help fund the site.

Despite the wealth of information on the site, many people still prefer to reach out to the original source: Shachne Arye says he can’t even count the number of travel inquiry calls he gets during vacation season.  

Life on the Road

So what’s a trip like with the Rowners? It starts with the planning – or lack of it. There are a few basic factors that Shachne Arye and Naomi consider, such as the dates – “We learned the hard way that July 4 books up fast,” says Naomi – as does finding campgrounds with technical specifics such as electricity which they consider a must. They look up some attractions in the area they want to visit, but prefer to ask locals about places to visit once they have arrived.

The food does take a fair bit of planning. The Rowners’ RV is equipped with a refrigerator and freezer, which they make sure to stock with proteins and chalav yisrael ingredients. They rely on local retailers such as Costco, Walmart, [and local farmstands or supermarkets] for basics such  as produce and dry goods once they are on the road. One more ingredient necessary for a successful Rowner trip? Marshmallows.  Each child in the family has been taught to build a bonfire, and roasting marshmallows is a daily event.

The key to a successful trip is  to not over-plan. “I learned that planning too specifically sets everyone up for disappointment. Things never happen exactly the way you want,” says Shachne Arye. Naomi says that they do plan a little more specifically for shorter trips, such as their recent 12-day trip to Israel – but even in that case, they leave plenty of room for flexibility.

There are a daunting 40 steps of preparation necessary to  ready the RV for travel each time it sets off from one site to another. To incentivize their young crew, the senior Rowners distributes quarters each time a task is completed. The children store their monetary stash in half-pint containers and spend it at thrift shops, garage sales, and general stores during their travels.

Packing up for 2017 summer RV Trip along the East Coast to Maine.

Two whiteboards list the events of the day, beginning with “CTH” – Connect to Hashem – a clever acronym that includes tefillah, kriyah, and Tehillim. This is followed by “3MCU” which stands for three minute cleanup: two to three tasks such as washing dishes and collecting garbage are assigned to each child to help things run smoothly.  Some days there’s an afternoon outing listed on the boards; other days, they choose a destination or activity as the day unfolds.

Caving in Lost River Gorge, Lost River Valley, NH.

The campgrounds themselves are often full of entertainment such as bike paths, playgrounds, pools, and creeks or lakes for fishing and swimming. The Rovners actually stayed for a full week at one site in Maine because there was so much to do.

On another memorable vacation, the Rowners parked their RV on the sprawling grounds of a shul in Cincinnati. “Every frum person in Cincinnati stopped by to schmooze,” quips Shachne Arye, “and every man asked the same question – ‘Can you convince my wife to take a trip like this?’”

There are always bumps in the road – literally and figuratively. The tires blew out twice in a single trip a few years back – on opposite sides of the highway, first as they left and then again when they were en route home.  “You need to know what you’re in for with an RV,’ explains Shachne Arye. “There are a lot of moving parts, and  shlepping a fancy bungalow on wheels isn’t necessarily  a simple trip.” But look at the happy faces in the Rowner vacation photos, and you’ll know that for them, all that effort is more than worthwhile.  

Places to Note

What’s the most interesting place they’ve visited?

“The African Lion Safari in Canada is phenomenal,” Shachne Arye says, considering. “Or Maybe Robert is Here.” Robert is Here is the name of a fruit store in Florida, which, typically, the Rowners discovered quite accidentally on their way to the Everglades. “We passed a sign for it, and I just had to know who Robert was,” explains Shachne Arye. “He’s the owner of the craziest store you’ll  ever see, with fruits you’ve never heard of – such as chocolate pudding fruit.” When the Rowners visited, they were treated to a grand tour of the store followed by a tasting party.

2017 Greenwood Lake Airshow – wingwalker on the plane.

The post that attracted the highest number of hits on the website was about Duke Farms in Hillsboro, New Jersey.  Bequeathed to the State of NJ by the Duke Family of Duke University fame, it’s comprised of 2,700 acres. Admission to Duke Farms is free, and the Rowners describe it as “gorgeous” and “enormous.”  Featuring trails, lakes, waterfalls, fields, an orchid conservatory, and even a pet cemetery featuring a pet camel , it’s so large that they’ve never seen its entirety, despite repeated visits – which sometimes include a ride on the low-cost bicycle rentals on site.

Potato Creek State Park in Liberty, Indiana is another unique place they’ve visited, although Shachne Arye jokes that they made the trip just so he could draw a floating potato on the family’s whiteboard (they often use illustrations to accompany their posted agenda.) It was there that they found chalav yisrael ice cream, a find that astonished them until they learned that South Bend, home of a well-known yeshivah, was not far.

But who knows? Maybe the most interesting place in the Rowner trip book is one they haven’t visited yet. This is the kind of thinking that keeps them on their toes, planning trips to new destinations many times each year. With their children happily buckled in for the ride, RV in tow, there’s no limit to the places they’ll go.