Things To Know

Traveling with kids always has unique challenges. Holiday travel is always extra stressful. It’s no wonder that most parents dread holiday season travel with kids. Whether it’s Thanksgiving, Christmas or Hannukah, and whether you’re driving a few hours or flying across the country, here are our best tips, short-cuts and …

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 …

Having a camera on our phones makes it easy to take photos. Without the worry of running out of film we take a lot of photos, especially vacation photos. But then, we have a lot of photos. Despite my best intention my photos sit on my phone forever, waiting to …

We took quite a flew flights with Tiny Traveler when she was a toddler and preschooler and were lucky enough to never have a meltdown. I still have sympathy for parents with crying tots. We did have a lot of badly timed naps, forbidden food, squirming and inappropriate climbing, and …

Schools are out for summer (or nearly there) and that means lots of families are hitting the roads. Our family will be exploring the Pacific Northwest between Portland and Vancouver, Canada this summer. Sitting in the car for several hours at a stretch isn’t any healthier than sitting all day at …

One of the most fun parts of being on vacation is eating good food. For you that might mean trying all kinds of new things or eating fancier meals than you do at home. But for your kids it might mean getting to eat chicken fingers and ice cream every …

Question: The Holiday-Season Airfare Challenge How can I find cheap airfares for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays? FamiliesGo! Answer: In general you save money on airfare by not traveling when everyone else is. So one of the biggest challenges to traveling with kids is how to travel during those popular …

Short-term vacation rentals are popular with families. You’ve probably rented someone else’s house or apartment for a vacation with your kids somewhere along the way (or thought about it). But have you ever thought about renting out your primary home or second home to offset the cost of your family …

This is Ask FamiliesGo!, where we answer our readers’ questions about family travel. We add new questions as our readers pose them, so keep checking back. You can ask your own question with the private contact form down below. More Ask FamiliesGo!• Making time for naps while traveling.• Affordable Washington, DC hotels …

Your kids are great and you love them. But being confined in a large box with them as it travels down the road? No thanks, right? I totally get that. The truth is though, an RV family vacation isn’t nearly as daunting as it seems. In fact, road-tripping with an …

I love bike 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 family biking dreams a bit for the …

This is Ask FamiliesGo!, where we answer our readers’ questions about family travel. We add new questions as our readers pose them, so keep checking back. You can ask your own question with the private contact form down below. Add your own great advice in the comments. More Ask FamiliesGo! …

Few things scare new parents like the thought of *flying for the first time with a baby or toddler. There is the prospect of getting through the airport and onto the plane with ALL THAT STUFF you can’t leave home without. And then there is the fear of being THOSE …

For our first car trip with Tiny Traveler, we packed the car up bright and early, then transferred the 6-month-old baby from her crib to her car seat still in her PJs, more asleep than awake. We handed her her usual wake-up bottle of milk and set off. Everything was …

Being a parent is all about improvising. Travel is one of those times where you wind up improvising a more then usual. For example, when the key’s from dad’s pocket are far more enticing than any of the toys from the bagful you’ve brought in the car or on the …

There are certain New York experiences that native residents happily leave to the tourists. New Years Eve in Times Square is one (really, anything in Times Square) and for me, for a long time, meeting the Macy’s Santa in Herald Square was another. But the Santaland at Macy’s is a …

The Trouble With Kids and Taxis Yes, we know. You don’t need a rental car and either there isn’t public transit or you can’t deal with public transit with the kids and luggage in tow. You just need to get your family from the airport to your hotel and back …

We choose to travel by road trip far more now that we have a child (and our airfare costs have increased by 50%). We drive in snowy winter weather to ski resorts and crazy summer traffic to get to and from our beach or mountain vacations. In between we take city …

If you don’t live where you and your spouse grew up, you probably wind up sharing a house with relatives over the holiday season. Or maybe this is the year you’re all meeting up for that big vacation you’ve been talking about, renting a big beach house for lots of …

Plants are often the detail that gets overlooked in our house in the flurry to plan and get out of the house on vacation. But few things are more discouraging than coming home to a plant that’s brown and dead (or near dead). So here are some tips to help …

It’s probably easy to believe I was not excited about the prospect of flying long haul to Australia from the U.K. with a 10 month old baby. In fact, I was so anxious, I nearly cancelled the trip. But I’m so glad I didn’t. It wasn’t a complete barrel of …

What do moms want in a great family beach resort? That’s the question we asked in September at #MOMtravelchat. The Twitter Party was sponsored by Grand Beach Hotel in Miami Beach, which is known for great family amenities like big rooms with an extra bathroom and even a Kid Zone right …

Rock climbing may seem out of reach (literally) and intimidating for a family outing, but my kids and I love it. It’s been rewarding to see them master the basic skills and scramble up a wall ahead of me. And it’s an easy activity to build a day or weekend …

Read 9 Staycation day trips and 20 staycation ideas. We decided to do a staycation this summer. Following two exotic trips over the winter (Guadeloupe and Senegal), plus our spring break jaunt to Pittsburgh, we opted to be relatively frugal and save up for bigger trips again over fall and winter breaks. …

Cruising is an easy way to vacation with children, especially if you live in a city that’s an embarkation point. Whether you were an avid cruise-goer before you became a parent, or you doubted you’d ever go on a cruise in your life (guilty!), there are things you’ll want to …

Share your expat stories and advice below. We’ve all had that moment where we’ve wondered what it would be like to live for a while in a different country. I’ve pictured myself in Hong Kong, Munich and London among other places, usually during short visits I wish could be much …

When was the last time you traveled without your family? I can count the number of times I’ve been away from my family for a night or two on one hand — and have fingers to spare. All these trips have been for business, usually speaking engagements. Each time I …

“Come out little guy. Are you in there?” My son Sam, 10 at the time, poked at a snail shell in Calais, France, glorying in the special mini-fork that came with his order. I was holding my breath, still disbelieving that my picky eater had asked for snails instead of pizza. …

Laundry on vacation? I avoid it at all costs. In my carefree younger days I would pack 14 pairs of underwear on a 2-week vacation and not think twice about it. But sometimes you can’t avoid it—you’ll just be gone too long, or you need to pack light, or you have a …

As part of a married couple, I never expected to spend a lot of time traveling with a toddler as a single parent. But my family moved to Tunisia from New York City a few summers ago. I felt duty-bound to visit our scattered family on this side of the …