Staycations

Around this time every May, I get a press release from AAA predicting how many cars will hit the road for Memorial Day weekend. These cars are filled with families heading out for whole weekends or single days at beaches, lakes, vacation properties and relatives’ homes. Some lucky folks even …

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 more likely these days, on your couch. These types of movies are ideal for a staycation, or a spring and …

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. Tortilla soup reminds us of Mexico City and tofu with ground pork and rice takes us back to Laos. Treacle …

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 merry-go-round. It’s a ride that remains remarkably unchanged through the decades. And unlike with other rides, the older the carousel, the more caché it has. …

In the weekend before New York City schools closed and life in my city ground to a halt, bread flour was one of the first things to disappear from supermarket shelves.  I suppose everyone was planning to do some comfort cooking over these difficult weeks. And for most people warm …

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 learned as much about a place from a good novel as I have from any travel guide.  Books are an escape from the here and now, …

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 Museum certainly helped me out when when Tween Traveler was small. Sometimes the best children’s museum is the one that’s nearby. …

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 at $15 or so for kids and heads higher for the parents. At zoos, aquariums, and science and natural history …

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 …

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 work harder to remember you’re on your family vacation. it’s easy to catch up on work, get caught up in …

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. We wanted it to feel like a real vacation, though, not just a week hanging around the house. One goal …

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 choose to staycation. We look yearround for opportunities for weekend jaunts, daytrips and staycation fun. We rediscover our own backyard …

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 really on vacation. More than that, we need to get out of the house so we don’t spend our “vacation” …

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 at amusement parks, be it a giant destination theme park or your local fun park. Here are some tips, care …