We booked a cruise out of Miami over winter break. Since we’d never been to this famously colorful Florida beach city, we decided to spend 48 hours exploring. Planning our 2-night itinerary was a challenge, Miami doesn’t market itself as a family destination. There are plenty of fun and unique …

All hail the Girl Scouts! Tween Traveler headed off on a two-night camping adventure with her troop trip in early June, leaving Rich and I free to take our own 36-hour kid-free vacation. This year we chose Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Barely two hours from New York City (if you’re up …

St. Augustine, Florida, is the longest continuously occupied city in the U.S. It’s often not the first place in Florida that parents think of for a beach getaway with kids. But with its mix of hands-on history, quirky fun and beaches, it’s an ideal something-for-everyone family destination. Here are my …

The Berkshires are one of those regions that looms in my mind as a summer vacation paradise.  The region stretches along the spine of Route 7 up the length of Western Massachusetts. And it offers a bounty of things for families to do on a weekend getaway or weeklong vacation. …

It’s a challenge for a city or region to develop a new tourist area from the ground up. It’s even more unusual for to develop one that is robust enough to be self-sustaining and genuinely worth visiting. But Maryland has done exactly that with the *National Harbor, a great base …

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 …

We had 24 hours in Gettysburg, which was not quite enough to see the town and its sights; 48 hours is probably perfect. But it seems a lot of people use Gettysburg as a stopover en route to places like Pittsburgh, Hershey and Lancaster (we were breaking up the drive to …

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 …

Hotel Review: *Nemacolin Woodlands Resort Where: Farmington, PA The Vibe: *Nemacolin Woodlands, a luxury resort located 90 minutes south of Pittsburgh, doesn’t have a single vibe. The type of vacation you have depends on where you stay—one of three hotels or on-property vacation homes—and what activities you’ve come for. On …

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 …

Tiny Traveler headed off on a group camping trip recently, leaving Rich and I with 48 hours of treasured grown-up time. We were overdue for a kid-free vacation but couldn’t stray too far. So we headed to Dutchess County, two hours from home in the Hudson Valley. We took advantage …

We went to Williamsburg, VA to take a walk through American history. Within a few square miles, Williamsburg offers up a “historic triangle:” the first successful English colony in North America, the battlefield where we won the Revolution and the town that was Virginia’s capital until 1780. We wondered if it would …

Lake Placid is one of our favorite winter wonderlands. We’ve traveled there for a few winter breaks and even Christmas. As long as you pack clothes that will keep you warm outside and the weather remains cold and snowy, there is a lot of fun packed into this Adirondack town. We …

Read about Lake Placid activities. One of the things that brings us back to Lake Placid year after year is that the town has a lot of dining for its small size and much of it is very enjoyable. There is plenty of standard ski-town fare–pizza, pasta,chili, steaks and burgers–but quite a …

You might also read  10 More Things To Do in Washington DC With Kids Wow, what a great #MOMtravelchat Twitter party we had with the Smithsonian, our first ever paid sponsor. Washington DC was the topic of the evening. Local parents and travel experts chimed in with advice on taking kids to …

For more on NYC at any time of year see our At a Glance section. I may be biased, but there’s nothing more magical than Christmastime in New York. The lights, the decorations, all those cozy spots to stop in for a hot chocolate; it’s pure yuletide bliss. So if …

Everything you need about NYC is in our At a Glance section. I’ve always just assumed the holiday song Silver Bells was written about New York City. New York is a vibrant—if somewhat crowded—place to get into the holiday spirit, which is why so many people do.  As a lifelong New …

The Christmas season can get chaotic. There are meals to make, families to visit, gifts to purchase, decorations to put up…you know the drill. Taking a time out to visit a city full of holiday lights and sounds can really change this time of year from hectic to happy. These are …

Hershey, PA calls itself the “Sweetest Place on Earth.” Visiting at any time of year is a chocolate-filled, family centered experience. So you can imagine that this is a place where they really get into the holiday spirit in a big way. Taking my family to Hershey for the holidays …

Fall is a great time of year to for quick weekend getaways. It’s cool, but not cold, places tend to be less crowded. Apples orchards, fall festivals, corn mazes and haunted happenings offer inexpensive family fun and your last shot at pleasant outdoor time before winter sends you indoors. And …

Like Mystic? Read about nearby Newport, RI with kids, too. We’ve been to Mystic with Tiny Traveler three times now. It’s an easy weekend or overnight from New York City and its New England coastal vibe — sailboats, wood frame house, clam shacks and ice cream— deeply appeals to me. …

Read about the outdoors and where to stay on the Outer Banks. We came to the Outer Banks of North Carolina for the beach, no doubt about it. But every beach vacation has its rainy day— or that point where our blond, blue-eyed family has had way too much sun and …

You can also read about things to do in Baltimore. Baltimore is a small city with a lot of great food packed into it. Its Southern leanings show up in desserts like the multilayered Smith Island cake. There are the varying food accents of the many ethnic groups that have called …

After a relaxing week at the beach in South Jersey I’m feeling very chilled out. We often “vacation” by returning home to Europe. It’s a flurry of jet lag, suitcases, visiting family and staying in lots of improvised guest rooms. We needed a real break, an easy journey from home, …

It seems that sitting on a tour bus and having an informed guide point out a city’s sites is no longer enough for the average tourist. Nowadays bus tours must have a theme – some might say a shtick – not to mention a really cool bus.  The tour must be …

I was carrying a very tired four-year old who wasn’t ready to leave Philadelphia’s Please Touch museum even after a full rainy day there. She clutched my neck, leaned up and whispered urgently in my ear, “Mommy! Can we come back to Philadelphia again one day?” The City of Brotherly …

We spent Saturday morning beneath New York City battling evil and loved it. No, we weren’t on the subway. Ninja Turtle Time Much better: The truth is we spent a bodacious morning in a pretend sewer at the amazing Liberty Science Center in New Jersey checkin gout their new “Teenage …

Read about where to eat and what to do on Cape Cod, too. On previous, childfree trips to Newport, RI, we grooved in the hot sun at the famous Folk Festival, kayaked Narragansett Bay, slurped raw clams and drank a lot of beer. These activities weren’t likely to go over …

Read more about Cape Cod and Newport, RI. I can’t think of a better way to honor July 4th than with a blog about Cape Cod, the place where our nation ostensibly began. As a food writer from Queens, NY with family roots on the Cape and a school-age son who …