Staycations

Coming up with gift ideas for the dads in our lives is really hard, isn’t it? My husband in particular seems to know how to read my mind and sometime …

One of the few bright spots in the past 10 months is that families have been spending more time exploring —and newly appreciating — their hometown, their nearest city, their …

Around this time every May, I get a press release from AAA predicting how many cars will hit the road for Memorial Day weekend. This year of course, a lot …

Some movies transport you to a different place for two hours. When you’re done watching, you look up and are surprised to find yourself in a local movie theater —or …

One of our favorite ways to conjure memories of a favorite vacation is to make some of the foods we discovered away from home, ideally with ingredients we’ve brought back. …

With summer coming and everyone needing to get outdoors as soon as possible, I thought I would pay tribute that to amusement park classic, the carousel. It’s a ride that …

Everybody wants to bake bread these days. As our Covid semi-quarantine rounds on a full year we all crave things that are unique and a bit of a treat. And …

Books have both inspired and informed a lot of my travels. And they’ve taken me places I haven’t been and might never go. I’ve gained as much insight into people …

Nearly every city has a children’s museum. They can save parents’ sanity when it’s too cold, too hot or too rainy to take your energy-filled kids outside. The Brooklyn Children’s …

On any city vacation we take, admission fees to museums and other cultural institutions are one of our biggest expenses. For art, history and even children’s museums, admission typically starts …

Updated July 2021 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 …

Staycations at home need as much planning as away vacations, or in fact, maybe even a little more. You’re in your comfort zone, in familiar surroundings, so you need to …

Updated march 2020 Following two exotic trips over the winter (Guadeloupe and Senegal), plus spring break jaunt to Pittsburgh, we opted to be relatively frugal for the summer and staycation. …

Updated March 2020 My family doesn’t put its traveling shoes in storage when our travel budget shrinks or the odd pandemic prevents us from taking our usual vacation. Instead, we …

Updated November 2020 I love books. So do my husband and my daughter. We use fiction and non-fiction books to learn about places we visit.  And we rely on stories …

There’s always one week of summer where everyone is home from camp and work but we aren’t going away. We need things to do so that we feel like we’re …

Theme parks are go-to vacation destinations for some families and places to avoid at all costs for others. But if you have kids, you’ll wind up spending at least a few weekends …