Wherever I’ve been this summer, I’ve noticed more young kids chowing down in sophisticated environs while their parents, who’ve encouraged them to experiment with unfamiliar foods, paid for privilege. And chefs are welcoming them (as long as they don’t upset other diners) with healthier offerings, more interesting kids’ menus, smaller portions and even visits to the restaurant’s organic garden. 

 Imagine if you could only get into your office or house via toeholds carved into rock. Imagine cooking by tossing a hot rock into a waterproofed basket filled with stew fixings and grinding corn with a rock. Imagine living with your family in small stone rooms. Imagine no TV or video games to entertain the kids — just stories passed down from generation to generation.

 Nantucket — the only place in America that has the same name for the island, the county and the town — does have a well-deserved reputation for being preppy. “It is the only place you can wear pink pants and get away with it,”says one local....

 Finally, we’re off! The 32-foot Winnebago RV is stocked with every variety of food from Costco as well as toys, games, movies, pillows, sheets, towels, special “blankies,” and stuffed animals, along with two kids, 5 and 7, two parents and me.

 Travel back to the 18th century and you can even ask a British Regular, famous for their red coats, what it was like to serve so far from home where everyone seemed to hate them. (Not so much different from today, is it?) Watch the Regulars’ Changing of the Guard at the site of their original garrison at Faneuil Hall Marketplace.... 

 Big Apple Greeters -- it seems such a simple idea - to connect locals enthusiastic about their city to first-time visitors or those simply visiting from elsewhere.  Now, because of the economic crisis, the nonprofit organization has found itself in a financial crunch of its own and must come up with $300,000 in new funding by the fall if they are to continue. (Are you listening major travel companies?)...

 SPLAT! The water balloons pop on cue. The music is loud and energetic, with Nickelodeon dancers dressed in orange and green — down to their plastic orange-and-green Crocs — spurring on the crowd, some of whom came dripping wet from the waterslides, including the Epic Plunge, the biggest waterslide at sea, just for the chance....

 Had we been here in the 1800s, we would have been hunting whales rather than photographing them. Provincetown was a very busy whaling port. ....

 Thanks, Harry. Suddenly, young people, who wouldn’t spend much vacation time with their folks, much less get out of bed this early if they didn’t have to, think family vacations are fun again, especially when mom and dad or grandpa pay for the trip and pop for $100 wizarding robes (yes, despite the 90-degree Florida heat, fans traipsed around the park in the floor-length robes, wearing Hogwarts ties as belts) or $30 wands.

 I smile thinking of that hot day at Disney World when my son and older daughter worked so hard to convince their little sister that she really was “grown up” enough (and tall enough) to ride Space Mountain. “So cool!” they told her. “Not too scary,” they promised.