A chat with Richard Louv on the benefits of being outdoors

A chat with Richard Louv on the benefits of being outdoors

Louv’s work has stimulated an international conversation about the relationship between nature and children. His new book has just been named to Oprah’s summer reading list He as the chairman and co-founder of the Children and Nature Network, and hopes to inspire the many parents and grandparents on board to realize how important it is to get kids engaged with nature on trips like this as well as at home.

Spotting all kinds of wildlife in the waters and ice around Svalbard

Spotting all kinds of wildlife in the waters and ice around Svalbard

It’s drizzly and cold but no one on the deck is moving—not when a bear and her cub can be seen on the ice in the distance –and much closer through the scope, binoculars or the long camera lens they’ve got. We’re the guests here so we speak in whispers so as not to disturb the bears.

Searching for polar bears in the water and ice

Searching for polar bears in the water and ice

We’re 950 miles from the North Pole. While some of the crew and naturalists scan the horizon—all we see is blue sky and floating ice of all different sizes and shapes—the captain explains that as much as 30 feet of the ice bergs are below water… This ship, of course, is built especially to handle ice. “Potentially any floe can have bears,” he says.

Living life in the slow lane on Amelia Island, Florida

Living life in the slow lane on Amelia Island, Florida

Though we’re just a 30-minute drive from Jacksonville International Airport, and plenty of nonstop flights from major cities like New York and Atlanta, we might as well be on another planet with long, deserted beaches, lots of wildlife and clear, warm water. It feels more like the South, though, than South Florida, with canopies of trees and locals who seem happy to live life in the slow lane.

Learning how to shoot like a photo pro in the Arctic Ocean

Learning how to shoot like a photo pro in the Arctic Ocean

Because of Lindblad’s partnership with National Geographic , there is now a new Expedition Photography Initiative, which means that there are certified photo instructors aboard all ships in the Lindblad Expeditions-National Geographic fleet who can help take our photography skills to the next level, from composition to proper exposure. There are special sessions for kids too.

To Norway and Svalbard and the Land of the Ice Bears

To Norway and Svalbard and the Land of the Ice Bears

Welcome to an excellent exhibit at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Norway, where an amazing interactive exhibit for children about refugees– Nansen and I– has recently opened. At the same time, the Center is showcasing Transit, a terrific photo exhibit about Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen and refugees of today.

Memories of a hot air balloon adventure in Albuquerque NM

Memories of a hot air balloon adventure in Albuquerque NM

I wasn’t dreaming. We were floating high above Albuquerque, N.M., in a giant, rainbow-colored hot air balloon. We gave each other one of those I-can’t-believe-we’re-here grins that made every argument we’d had on our Southwest road trip fade away. Every vacation should have at least one standout moment like this.

History and Science for all at the Indianapolis Children’s Museum

History and Science for all at the Indianapolis Children’s Museum

The scientists are mostly under the age of 10. Welcome to the new “Treasures of the Earth” exhibition here at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, launched in partnership with the National Geographic Society and world-renowned archaeologists, at the largest children’s museum in the country, which draws well over a million visitors a year to Indy.

Broadway is booming with family entertainment

Broadway is booming with family entertainment

How much would you pay for a memory? I was thinking about that looking around at the parents, grandparents and hoards of young children—especially little boys—at the Foxwoods Theater on Broadway where Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, the most expensive production ever mounted and one fraught with problems and delays, has recently opened.

Early American history comes alive in and around Philadelphia

Early American history comes alive in and around Philadelphia

The Continental Army. Here in the heart of historic Philadelphia on a steamy summer day, we’ve time traveled back to the heady days of the American Revolution, the drafting of the Declaration of Independence and the making of Betsy Ross’ famous flag sewn at the request of General George Washington — all right where it all happened — thanks to 30 terrific costumed “History Makers,” as well as 40 first-rate storytellers from the nonprofit Historic Philadelphia organization .