Travel ideas and destinations that are close to home.
The kids want to stay right where they are because they’re having way too much fun at the expansive Explorer Island pool-water play area at the New Four Seasons Orlando at Walt Disney World,
You’ll find increasing mountain-biking options at ski resorts across the country, whatever your level. You’ll also find free kid-friendly activities, festivals, farmer’s markets, mini and disc golf, tennis, challenge courses or, of course, the chance to hike, fish and river raft.
The whirlwind parks tour continues at Universal Studios Hollywood and Knott’s Berry Farm. Heading home with an armful of souvenirs, Hannah says: “I had such a great time with my dad and will always remember this trip with him.”
Ten-year-old Hannah Sitzman is a serious and competitive gymnast who only gets one week off her training a year. So she and her Dad Mike made the most of every day on a whirlwind visit to the parks and beaches around Los Angeles recently.
The shop windows are full of surprises, like the self-knitting needles. There’s the towering dragon that breathes fire, the Escape from Gringotts ride through the Gringotts vaults and the chance to chat up the Knight Bus conductor and the shrunken head hanging from the rearview mirror
It was no surprise that she was mesmerized –along with every other child in the place at the Frozen Sing-a-long at Walt Disney World’s Hollywood Studios. In fact, the show, which reprises the story of Anna and Elsa complete with music and special effects, is so popular that it is moving to a larger theater.
“We hear all the time that guests are cutting down on their time at the parks to enjoy the resort,” said Four Seasons Orlando Resort Manager Ben Shank, noting there are five acres for fun and games.
The good news is that if you are planning to visit Orlando in May — before the summer crowds arrive — the lines might not be as long and you’ll save some bucks on your hotel.
Once we land, I talk the rental car lady and my Dad into getting us a cool Mustang to ride around in instead of this family looking car they had for us. My dad tells me I have rental car swag.
Just as you should plan your itinerary and have a “what if” talk if the kids (or you) get lost, you need to have a souvenir strategy before the trip even starts. You don’t want to bust the vacation budget on something like a $40 sweatshirt, or a toy that will be forgotten the next day.
The National Park Service and the National Park Foundation has just launched a nationwide campaign to encourage Americans to Find Your Park and share their memories and experiences online and via social media with the #findyourpark hashtag
Spring is one of the busiest times in Orlando which happens to be not only the theme park capitol of the world but the most visited city in the country. What does that mean for your family?
For you coaster lovers, there are more than two dozen new attractions with unprecedented technology, spins and speed at large and small theme parks around the country this year,
Matt Yemma and his 12-year-old cousin Ethan Sitzman spend a week shagging baseballs, autographs and enjoying the waterparks and sunshine of spring training in Arizona.
A high school junior and scholar in the A Better Chance program writes about a weekend of snowboarding fun and bonding time with his housemates in Bolton Valley, VT.
Younger campers say having a smartphone on a camping trip is nearly as important as toilet paper, according to the 2015 North American Camping Report. I’m guessing your kids would agree
It is only fitting that the home of our third president and the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence is so kid friendly. Jefferson was very fond of his 12 grandchildren, many of whom lived here with him after his retirement.
By springtime, many skiers are exhausted by the lift lines, carved out runs, and crowded resorts in Colorado Ski Country. But Sunlight Mountain Resort is the perfect little oasis where skiers can hit the mountain without having to schlep to the lifts.
March is all about baseball in Arizona — some 2.75 million visitors, 60 percent from outside Arizona, come to watch 15 major league teams get ready for the season through April 4
Situated between Southern Vermont ski resorts Bromley and Stratton, Manchester is home to shops, restaurants and more small cozy inns than you can count. The Inn at Willow Pond was a quant rustic place that can fit the needs from couples to families, even allowing pets.
Whatever you choose, spring break is a good time to get away with the kids. Plan smart and you might even snare a bargain. The good news is you’ve still got plenty of time to get a trip organized.
We’re hiking the famous Batteries to Bluffs trail in San Francisco’s Presidio, a national park unlike any other, which takes us up and down steps along the western Pacific shoreline, past historic gun batteries, rewarding us with a spectacular view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Wow!
Maybe you should check out Marriott Vacation Club. Backed by the Marriott name and celebrating its 30th anniversary, it’s a far cry from those old school timeshares
David Rothblatt and Fia Hargil are among the six members of the inaugural class of teen ambassadors trained to work with children who visit the National September 11 Memorial Museum, which opened at the new World Trade Center this past May.
Welcome to the Hotel G, San Francisco’s newest boutique hotel with 151 rooms just north of Union Square but miles away from the big-box chain hotels in the neighborhood. Incidentally, there have been hotels in this building since just a few years after the 1906 Earthquake.
Award winning San Francisco chef Traci Des Jardins wishes American restaurants would take a page—a menu page—from their counterparts in other parts of the world. “The United States is one of the only places in the world that has special meals for kids,” she said. “We are conditioned to teach kids to eat differently than we do and that is a mistake.”
The human kiddos laugh and giggle at the antics of the animals all day at the St. Louis Zoo. It’s one of three major free zoos left in the country along with the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., and the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.
It all started nearly 25 years ago, when three college-friends — Matt Goldman, Phil Stanton and Chris Wink — developed a bald and blue character they called Blue Man (to evoke the word Human), who delighted audiences at this small theater
Mountain resorts across the country offer an ever-growing array of off-the-slopes activities where the kids — and you — can get inspired to build your own sculpture either at home or near where you are vacationing in mountain country
David Rothblatt has been a New Yorker all his life but his sole memory of 9/11 was being with his mom as she searched for a store to buy milk. Fia adds that next year’s high school freshmen will have been born after 9/11. “Kids need to know even if it is hard,” she and David agreed.
If only the Metropolitan Museum of Art had life-sized wax figures of Degas, Monet and Picasso. I’m joking, of course, but I was thinking that watching how much fun our group of high schoolers was having at MME Tussauds NYC.
We’re not in England though it feels like it. We’re in suburban St. Louis at the locally owned Cheshire, celebrating its 50th anniversary.
If you want to expand on what the kids are learning in school, then head to a national park. That’s right. There are many national historic sites that figured into the fight against slavery and the civil rights movement and are ideal for out-of-the-classroom learning opportunities, especially when so many are offering special activities this month.
If you are a newbie, there is no better time than January, the nationally designated Learn to Ski and Snowboard Month to hit the Colorado slopes.
Across the country, theme parks are adding new and bigger holiday attractions every year, enticing more and more families to come through the gates, glad to forsake holiday shopping and cooking for a few hours, even though it can be a costly afternoon or evening.
The USS Iowa, now a museum in Los Angeles Harbor, has a storied history but the story of its mascot, a little mutt named Vicky, charms visitors of all ages.
It might seem counterintuitive, but this past trip to Disneyland, we opted for grownups-only visit to the home of everyone’s favorite Mouse to take in all the holiday decorations.
Every Dec. 19, an annual event commemorates the arrival of the rag-tag Continental Army to Valley Forge PA, and its determination to persevere against hardship to become the first American Army.
Since holiday lights have become more and more festive each year, create new traditions to see them, even as early as Thanksgiving weekend, wherever you find yourselves.
We were at Spring Mountain, a modest ski area just outside Philadelphia but a mighty fine adventure place for a canopy tour with four expert guides — and six high-school scholars
On a beautiful fall day, the contrast could not have been more different than what George Washington and his Continental Army found here in Valley Forge during the winter of 1777-78
Cheesesteak and ice cream. The Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution and a galaxy of top-flight colleges… that’s what we found on a whirlwind day in Philadelphia with a group of teenaged boys.
There are dented helmets, letters home, photographs, flight jackets and K rations, complete with chocolate bars and gum.
“Dim Sum is one of my favorite foods. Everyone likes Dim Sum!” said Andy, 14, one of the many local kids who contributed their ideas on what kids like for my new “Kid’s Guide to San Francisco.”
The idea in the Historic Triangle — home not only to this recreated 18th-century city but also to the living-history museums Jamestown Settlement and Yorktown Victory Center, is to use interactive activities, 21st-century technology and costumed interpreters
Correspondent Melissa Miller had time to spend touring the Charlottesville VA area after a spectacular wedding this month. Here is her report.
The New Bedford Whaling Museum is the largest museum in the country devoted to the story of whaling and the history and seafaring traditions of Massachusetts’ south coast region.
It is only fitting that the home of our third President and the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence is so kid friendly. Jefferson was very fond of his 12 grandchildren, many of whom lived here with him after his retirement
What’s it like to see 18th Century history unfold in the street of Colonial Williamsburg, VA? We asked some of the “junior interpreters” what they thought.
21st Century meets 18th Century—that’s the idea of Colonial Williamsburg. The audience was enthralled by the street theater Revolutionary City where costumed interpreters play out different aspects of the politics surrounding the American Revolution.