Penn State Parents and Families Weekend, every fall. A big campus, long walks, and family who may not be up for all of it on foot.
Here is how to make the most of the weekend together, and how a chariot ride keeps everyone moving without the hike.
Parents Weekend is the one weekend families drive in from everywhere to see where their student actually lives, eats, studies, and spends their Saturdays. It is a wonderful couple of days, and it is also a lot of campus to cover on foot, especially for grandparents or anyone who tires easily.
Penn State is big, the walks between the good spots are long, and a full weekend of it wears everyone out before the real fun starts. A little planning, and a ride between the stops, keeps the weekend about the family instead of the hike.
Campus is packed, parking is tight, and the places you want to show off, Old Main, the stadium, the Creamery, the dorm, are spread out across a large campus. Trying to do it all on foot means a lot of time walking and a lot of tired feet, and the people you most want to include are often the ones who struggle with the distance.
A chariot campus tour is the easy way to show your family the highlights in comfort. You ride between the landmarks, hear the stories, and actually enjoy the view instead of staring at a map and counting blocks. Everyone stays together, and nobody gets left behind because the walk was too much.
If someone in the family cannot manage miles of walking, the weekend does not have to leave them out. Our accessible, no-walk tours are built exactly for this, so the whole family sees the same campus together, at the same pace, without anyone sitting it out back at the hotel.
Even if you are not doing a full tour, the weekend has a lot of back and forth: dinner, the dorm, a campus event, maybe the game. A reserved ride between stops saves the walking and the parking hunt, so you spend the time with your student instead of circling for a spot.
When Parents Weekend lands on a home game, parking and the walk to the gates get serious. A game day ride drops the family near the gate instead of a mile out in a lot, which matters even more when you are bringing parents and grandparents along.
Parents Weekend is one of the busiest weekends of the year in State College, and rides go quickly. Reserve early so your family is set, rather than hoping something is free once you arrive and the whole town is full.