Places To Go

In our house we choose the Caribbean when we want an easy vacation. Beach, umbrella drinks, some sightseeing options in case we want a break from our lounge chairs and beach reading. Whether we choose a resort or rent a beach house even a simple vacation takes some planning. To …

My first cruise was on Royal Caribbean’s Adventure of the Seas. I began the trip as a cruising skeptic and ended up a huge fan.  My love for cruising truly soared, though, once I started sailing with kids. (I’ve loved it so much, I eventually wrote a book about it.)  …

If your family prefers a quieter Caribbean vacation than some of the mega resorts offer, consider an escape to the village of West End on Grand Bahama Island, the Bahamas. West End village is an especially appealing destination for a winter or spring break vacation with tweens or teens, who …

Chicago is a popular weekend destination for families, but the city has more than enough things to do to fill a four-to-six day trip. And most of the city’s most popular tourist activities are exceptionally kid-friendly and fun for families. Here is an itinerary of the most popular things to …

London is high on most families’ vacation bucket lists, and it’ss often the first place a family travels to in Europe.   It’s easy to see why, the people speak English, there’s a lot of familiar, kid-friendly food, and the city has attractions and activities you know you want to …

With its reliably warm weather and wide open spaces,  Australia is a prime spot for a family vacation with bicycles. In case you’re headed Down Under soon, here are five of the best routes and trails for a self-guided Australian Bicycling vacation. Some are easy, protected trails that are doable with …

Updated February 2020 Yes, a child changes your life in a big way, especially in the first few years. So getting a last chance to spend quality time as a couple is really important, whether it’s going to the movies a lot or taking a full-on babymoon getaway. If you …

Hanoi is my pick for the best place to begin a visit to Vietnam with kids, especially smaller kids. The country’s capital and second largest city, Hanoi has plenty of fun things to see and do. And its size, traffic, noise and congestion are more manageable than Ho Chi Minh …

Where should I go on vacation? It’s the question people love to ask travel writers. And our answer is always, “Well, what do you like? Every family has its own ideas of what is a relaxing, exciting, interesting or fun vacation. Our ideal trip might leave your kids bored and …

My husband and I booked a trip on a Disney Cruise Ship for our honeymoon. It was a once in a lifetime chance to blow our money on this type of vacation without anyone judging us. It turns out they did judge us, but a short way into the cruise …

Living in Colorado, our family enjoys spending weekend ski vacations, but driving to the ski resorts can mean battling traffic, weather and pretty precarious winter roads at times. So I was excited to discover The *Winter Park Express ski train from Denver to Winter Park Resort. My husband and I …

Updated April 2020 In need of some fresh travel ideas for the coming year? Lots of cities and towns have festivals to attract people in their low season or feature some of their best local attributes. They can be great events to anchor a weekend getaway with (or without) the …

Caribbean Islands that are close to the US, like Turks & Caicos or the Virgin Islands, get the most buzz for family winter getaways. But islands further south like  Grenada, Dominica and Barbados have neat opportunities to get off the beach and explore nature, local history and West Indian culture. They’re …

Updated February 2019 One of these days tween traveler is going to leave the nest. She’ll head off to college and Rich and I will once again be pair rather than part of a threesome.  Part of making sure that we enjoy being a couple twosome again when the time …

My family has taken two different South Pacific cruises, and each time our favorite port of call was Champagne Bay, on the Espiritu Santo island of the Vanuatu archipeligo. Here’s why we love getting to spend the day on this little patch of paradise. 3 Things To Do On A Vanuatu …

What will next year’s family vacation be for you? Another week at the beach? A first trip to Disney? Heading home to the family? How about something more exotic? Family vacations can–and should–be about experiencing new things with your kids and having adventures together. Even if you don’t have the …

Parents love Disney resort vacations because of the endless delights for their kids combined with service, dining and activities aimed at making sure they can relax and have fun, too. Many parents like cruise vacations for the same reasons. So what could be better than a Disney cruise? My experience …

It’s a challenge for a city or region to develop a new tourist zone from the ground up. It’s even more unusual to develop one that is interesting enough to be a destination all by itself. But Maryland has done exactly that with the *National Harbor, a great base for …

Updated October 2020 It can be tricky to find great Halloween activities for tweens and young teens. They’re over face painting and Halloween crafts but really haunted mansions and hayrides can be a bit too much. So many families staycationing this year and eager for fun local fall actitities. So, …

Like many families, visiting the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, Australia was high on our family’s bucket list. We hear so much about the bleaching of coral reefs that we decided this is an item we needed to tick off our list soon. So we recently paid a visit to …

The Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks are supposed to be a time for getting together with friends and family. But with the stress of cooking, shopping, getting yet another sweater from an aunt who thinks you are 2 sizes bigger than you are, really we sometimes just want to get away …

The Hotel: Woodloch Pines Resort Where: Hawley, Eastern Pennsylvania The Location: *Woodloch Pines is an all-inclusive resort that sits on the rural edge of the Poconos.  Rather than one large hotel, the resort has a series of small buildings and cabins that dot a woodsy campus on the shore of a picture-perfect …

Costa Rica is a small country packed with opportunities for a fun and action-filled family vacation. You can easily find things to do with young kids and teens. But I think the sweet spot for visiting this Central American country might just be tweens—kids between the ages of 10 and …

Updated September 2020 with new trail rides. I love bicycle riding. From the moment we began teaching Tiny Traveler to ride a two-wheeler I have been dreaming of family cycling trips through Tuscany or Alsace or even just the Hudson Valley, two hours from home. I’ve had to downsize my …

Updated February 2020. A lot of people use Gettysburg as a stopover en route to other Pennsylvania destinations, like Pittsburgh or Hershey and Lancaster. And this is a shame because you need at least 48 hours to see the main attractions horoughly and without rushing. And you could easily fill …

Updated June 2020 Have you ever had a vacation where you booked a quick stop in a place, arrived, realized you really like it and wish you’d allowed more time? That was our reaction to Flagstaff, where we planned to spend 24 hours before flying back to NYC on our …

The Top attractions in Washington, D.C. are well documented: the zoo, the monuments, the capitol, the museum with Dorothy’s ruby slippers. But let’s face it, the heat and huge crowds keep the zoo’s animals well hidden in summer. Kids have limited interest in monuments and with tough security in place it can …

If you’re planning to visit NYC on a family vacation you’ll quickly learn that Midtown East is not known for being the neighborhood that’s most cool (that’s Brooklyn), glamorous (SoHo), or exciting (Times Square). But it is close to some several classic NYC experiences that kids, tweens and teens will …

The *Blue Man Group first started banging on paint-laden drums in 1991 and it now has permanent shows in five US cities and Berlin, plus a touring version of the show. It’s clearly as popular as it is hard to sum up and it many parents wonder, can you take …

We had never heard of Page, Arizona before planning our recent trip to the Southwest. It turns out Page is a good size town planted strategically between Zion, Mesa Verde and Grand Canyon national parks. It’s further than you want to be for day trips to any of these places, but …