Spring Break Stay-cation in Salt Lake City

As my search for spring break options continues, I wonder what a stay-cation might look like. If I were coming from out of town to Salt Lake City with children in tow, what would I do to fill a week? I distinctly remember visiting Seattle once with two families. My husband and I did not yet have children, and this Seattle trip was our first peek into how our travels would be revolutionized when we did. We were there just three days, but we hit the zoo, every city park, and the huge REI store, among other kid-centric stops. Not once did we dine on the waterfront or sip coffee (well, we drink hot chocolate) downtown.

I admit to wishing we could at least try some great seafood. But one of the kids on this trip would eat nothing but the bun from a hamburger (and by nothing I mean NOTHING) and the other kids seemed mostly interested in mac and cheese. At the time I didn't quite understand it all and felt a teeny bit disappointed that we didn't get fresh calamari.

But I get it now. I have been educated. I see the need to approach a vacation through children's eyes and through children's menus.

So if I were visiting Salt Lake with children, what would I do for a week? The idea of a stay-cation is appealing. We would save on travel expenses and hotels by staying at home (mostly), but if we treat it like a vacation and give ourselves a bit of a budget, we might actually be able to put together a week as fun as any week away.

With that in mind, here's the itinerary I came up with for a spring break stay-cation in the Salt Lake City area:

Day 1:

1) Go out to breakfast at The Original Pancake House in Sugar House. Family friendly and yummy.
2) Spend the morning at Tracey Aviary in Liberty Park.
3) Have a picnic at Liberty Park.
4) Play at a playground in Liberty Park. If it's warm enough, let them play in the Canyons water area or the splash pad -- or both. Remember the sunscreen.
5) Visit nearby London Market and get a some scones with clotted cream and good chocolate from Jolly Old England. (This is mostly for mom.....)
6) Home for dinner.

Day 2:

1) Big, fancy breakfast at home. French toast, scrambled eggs, sausage, fresh fruit.
2) Visit This Is the Place Heritage Park. Baby animals come in the spring! Plus there is tons to do -- horse rides, pioneer games, a petting zoo, train rides, panning for gold, a Native American village, cabins to visit, a playground, etc. We truly could spend several hours here if the weather is nice. It's one of Salt Lake's best-kept secrets.
3) Have lunch in the park. Nothing special -- just a hamburger, but fun for the kids and convenient for me.
4) Movie afternoon -- in an actual movie theater. It's something we never do. We'd even get popcorn and licorice.
5) Home for dinner.

Day 3:

1) Quick breakfast at home, maybe even a sack-lunch breakfast in the car.
2) Day at the Living Planet Aquarium. It's about a 30-minute drive from our house and we'd want to leave early to be there when it opens. It's usually a mad house, so it's best to go early.
3) Lunch at a local restaurant after the aquarium. I'm thinking the family favorite: Chuck-o-Rama.
4) Check into a hotel near our next stop tomorrow, which is only about a 15-minute drive further south of the aquarium. The hotel must have an indoor pool and free breakfast.
5) Let the kids go swimming until they are prunes.
6) Order pizza.
7) Movie night in the hotel room.

Day 4:

1) Breakfast at the hotel/check out.
2) Day at Thanksgiving Point. So many options; an all day affair. Dinosaur museum, farm animals, tulip festival, beautiful gardens and water falls, National Geographic Mammoth Screen Theater, etc. Note: Thanksgiving Point is not a bargain. Search for coupons or plan for it in your budgeting. You typically pay an entrance fee for each section (Farm Country, the gardens, the museum...). Check the price of an annual membership. It might be cheaper!
3) Lunch at Thanksgiving Point.
4) Home for dinner. Probably cereal.

Day 5:

1) Breakfast at home.
2) Day trip to Heber to ride the Heber Valley Railroad. I have always wanted to ride the Heber Valley Railroad. There are so many options year round, including a Polar Express Train, Dinosaur trains, chocolate trains, sunset trains, and your typical ride around the lake and mountain trains. At the time of our spring break there will be an Easter train. Perfect!
3) Lunch at Dairy Keen, of course! Keeping with the railroad theme of the day, Dairy Keen is "Home of the Trains." A model train circles the dining room in a set paying homage to the history and geography of the Heber Valley. Forget the food. The train itself has become a tourist attraction. (But we'll still stay and eat.)
4) Home by dinner. In bed early!

And that takes up five days of spring break without even using the weekends. We could have added Park City, the Hogle Zoo, the Dinosaur Park and Treehouse Museum in Ogden, Discovery Gateway downtown, Temple Square, the Church History Museum's children's area, the Hill Aerospace Museum in Roy, and even hikes on the Shoreline Trail. As I stopped to think about it, it wasn't hard to fill a week in the spring. If it were summer the options would have doubled. Maybe I'll revisit the stay-cation idea again in the summer.

Finally, one family's stay-cation is another family's vacation. I'd love to hear about and share your itineraries for a stay-cation in your city. Please share and I'll post! kidsagogoeditor@gmail.com

Family Travel Resources

Both my cousin's rave review about a simple but effective hotel experience and my own desire to figure out how my family will spend spring break has got me googling. I have been looking for family-friendly resorts as well as good ideas on how to spend spring break with a six year old and two five year olds (and a mom and dad who would love a tiny chance to relax sometime during the week).

I haven't solved my personal dilemma (has anyone ever really solved the dilemma of getting relaxation time for mom and dad? Or is that just called "death"?), but I have found some very useful sites and blogs for family-friendly travel. Hopefully they are useful to you, too:

1) familyvacationcritic.com: Family Vacation Critic was a great find. With lengthy lists of family resorts around the world, oodles of travel tips, and a section on deals, it had pretty much everything I was looking for. My only complaint is some pages are "thin" in their content. For instance, I checked out Salt Lake City, just out of curiosity, and the three scant paragraphs and little bullet list just didn't cover it. But I was looking for a resort, and the list of resorts worldwide was lengthy and helpful.

The Family Vacation Critic Blog: The blog section of familyvacationcritic.com was fine, but the collection of links to helpful family travel sites was very good.

2) TripAdvisor.com: Family Vacation Critic is actually a "Trip Advisor Site." We use Trip Advisor all the time when planning trips. It's an excellent and comprehensive review site for hotels around the world. We always check reviews and "Top Hotels" lists for destinations we are considering. It is difficult to search the site specifically for "family friendly" accommodations (which is a weakness they should fix), but individual hotels can be reviewed based on their family friendliness. So you can find out of a specific hotel or resort is good for the family or better for just the two of you.

3) Parents Magazine List of 10 Best Family Resorts (and 50 Runners Up): This was published in 2006, so it may be dated in the details, but I still found it to be very helpful and pretty comprehensive for U.S. family resorts. In fact, I recently went to one of the runners up (Enchantment in Sedona, AZ) and my husband and I definitely want to take the kids back for a visit. So it gives me confidence that the other suggestions might not be far from the mark.

4) Kidventurous.com: A family travel blog with destination-specific information as well as various tips for adventurous travel with the fam. For instance, the post for today was about city guide apps -- a great thing to have, especially if you are visiting a new and unfamiliar city.

5) FamilyTravel.com: A well-organized site that broke down family travel into sections such as "Family Camps," "Beach Vacations," "Voluntourism," and "Eco Travel." But the best section of this site was "Trips by Age," which grouped trips best for various age groups -- from infants to teens.

6) TakingTheKids.com: Another travel blog with several good ideas. I was especially drawn to the "Super Spring Breaks" page, given my current need for a super spring break. But there were other helpful pages. The blog seemed a little self-promoting of the woman who author's the blog, but I suppose that's her prerogative as long as the blog provides the information she claims it does. (And it seems to.)

There are so many more, but these were a few I found helpful.

As for me, I'm still doing my research. Where will we go, where will we go?