Formula for the best family vacation ever

I heard this little gem on Fox News not too long ago. I turned it on in the car (hurray for satellite radio -- a must-have for long car trips....), and I caught the middle of a discussion about family travel. I do not know who the host was interviewing, so I can't give her credit, but I do want to pass along her excellent advice for a great family vacation.

The guest said you just need three things for a fantastic family vacation:

1) WATER:  Kids love water!The beach, a lake, a pool, a river, even a splash pad. They are in heaven if there is water involved and they are allowed to be in it.

2) NATURE: Kids love nature! Animals, outdoors, shrubbery.... The zoo, botanical gardens, mountain hikes, nature walks. Kids, as natural curious explorers, will eat up anything to do with nature. (And yes, sometimes they will literally eat up nature, so do be careful.)

3) YOUR TIME: That's right. They just want you. Daily life divides our time every minute of the day. (While I quickly write this post I have had to tell the kids to "wait a minute" at least five times.) So when it's time for a family vacation, all your kids really want is you. I know some parents need to bring work with them to even make a vacation happen. But the more time -- undivided, kid-centric time -- you can give your kids, the better the vacation will be for the whole family.

Utah Travel Ideas -- SLC and Park City

Here is a link to some great -- and detailed -- travel ideas for families traveling in Salt Lake City and Park City, Utah. Thanks, Mother'sNiche blog, for the informative round up! http://mothersniche.com/travel-play-time/utah-travel-series/

For my local peeps: 20 Things to Do in Salt Lake City Before You Die

And most of these you can do with your kiddos!

Check it out: 20 Things to Do in Salt Lake Before You Die.

Here’s why you shouldn’t buy a US-to-Europe flight more than two months in advance

Fascinating article I came across on Facebook (thanks to my traveling friends!): 

From qz.com:

"The average fare for a flight from the US to Europe will vary by $256 from when a ticket is first offered to the day the plane takes off. A flight from the US to South America will fluctuate in a $262 range over the same period. This is according to Kayak, a travel website, which analyzed millions of searches made by US travelers over the past year.


"Kayak found that the cheapest fares from the US to Africa were just 33 days before departure, while the cheapest to Europe were 53 days before departure, and the cheapest to South America were 162 days out. The cheapest flights to Asia were booked 270 days—a full nine months—in advance...."

Continue reading, including nifty graphs of the phenomenon: 
http://qz.com/178531/heres-why-you-shouldnt-buy-a-us-to-europe-flight-more-than-two-months-in-advance/

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?

Thanks Hotel Georgia!

I think it entirely appropriate to give a shout out and big thank you to a hotel that treats kiddos as first class citizens and makes mom and dad’s job a tiny bit easier. I was talking with my cousin the other day about her first big outing with her nine-month-old son. It was a practice run really, as they have planned a much bigger outing next month. But to be sure their little guy (and mom and dad) could handle an airplane ride and some time away from his own bed, they decided a quick trial trip was in order.

They live in Calgary, Alberta, and they went to visit family for a few days in Vancouver, British Columbia. More about her trip and tips for traveling with a baby later. But I did want to pass along her big thank you to the Rosewood Hotel Georgia in Vancouver. It’s a lovely luxury hotel in beautiful Vancouver, and in my experience, luxury hotels are not always the most family-friendly places. I have often felt like guests go to these places to get away from children rather than be surrounded by them. And that’s totally o.k. We all need a place to get away from our children and other people’s children now and then. =)

But I am happy to report that Hotel Georgia was extremely accommodating of my cousin and her baby boy. She reported to me that the staff truly went the extra mile in many ways, including not just supplying a crib for their stay but also a baby bath tub, baby shampoos and soaps, a diaper genie, and a teddy bear. It might not sound like a lot, but it made this family feel like the hotel was very happy to have them all stay. Looking at the hotel's web site, it looks like they welcome families and offer deals to make the stay fun for everyone. I especially liked the free in-room movie, popcorn, and juice for every day of your stay! See their "offers" page for a family package offer. 

So my tip of the day: It’s amazing how even small gestures of forethought and kindness go such a long way – in any situation really. Honestly, it's a true life lesson. But in this travel situation, we can thank Hotel Georgia for a few extras that meant quite a lot to these new parents on their first big trip away from home.

If you have had an experience with a hotel or resort that was outstanding and you think other parents should know about it, let me know so I can pass it along!

(Full disclosure: I have no connection to or relationship with Hotel Georgia -- I am just reporting on a positive experience a guest had there!)

How to Ruin Disneyland for an Anxious Four Year Old in Two Rides or Less

Pardon me if you’ve heard this story before (as some of you have), but it bears repeating in this forum. We made our first pilgrimage to Disneyland this past year (after scoring an incredible deal on airfare for five – which I will share in another post so you can score, too.). We arrived early our first day and jumped right in the very short line for Star Tours. Hurray! One of my favorite rides from my childhood!

Our five year old loved it! He wanted to go again 20 times (and did by the end of the trip). But perhaps we should have taken a quick minute to think through how our four-year-old twin daughters might feel about riding a flight simulator in a dark room with robots. 

Yeah, that reads back pretty clearly….

And while one of our daughters seemed to shake it off when we promised she wouldn’t have to go again, the other had no good opinion of Disneyland after Star Tours. Trying to sooth her anxious soul, we rushed right over to the ride based on her favorite movie, Finding Nemo, and immediately put her in a dark submarine simulator with sharks.

Yeah.

Needless to say, she spent the next three days at Disneyland riding the carousels and It’s a Small World and hanging out in ToonTown. My son and my husband had a blast on every fun ride they could get on (despite my husband’s propensity for motion sickness). At almost six years old, my son seemed to be the perfect age and perfect disposition to eat up Disneyland. His favorite part? Being selected to become a true Jedi Knight and battle the real Darth Vader.

The girls and I, on the other hand, spent a lot of time in line to meet princesses, and I spent a lot of time assuring one of our girls that the next ride was not dark and scary inside. (And when I was very wrong on the Little Mermaid ride, I heard about it during the whole ride and for quite some time afterwards.)

So here’s my tip from this trip: Take two minutes to stop and assess your children and their personalities and how they might respond to the adventure you are planning. 

For me, as for many of us, Disneyland is the source of cherished childhood memories. We didn’t live too close and we didn’t have too much money, so the few times I went as a child were extreme treats. I first went when I was five with my aunt and uncle who won a trip through a contest.  I lost my very first tooth sitting next to my uncle waiting for the Monorail. I remember going as a teenager while on an epic road trip from Colorado, through Utah and Nevada, and down the California Coast in a barely functioning yellow Buick boat of a car. We stopped in Reno, Nevada, to visit old friends and talked them into joining us. Then we met my sister and her young kids who joined us from Phoenix, Arizona. We stayed in the park from opening until closing! It was a blast!

But my kids don’t have those memories. They are not coming to Disneyland with happy nostalgic feelings like me. They don’t remember the first time they went on Star Tours, and they aren’t having giddy feelings waiting in line to “experience it again.” This is their first time! This will be their memory!

Sure, they might know Disney characters and the Disney Channel. But they just don’t yet have a frame of reference for Disneyland. I wish I would have stopped to plan out their experience a little more thoughtfully. This was, after all, their first time there and will serve as the basis for all future Disneyland memories. I could have helped that unfold a little better if I had been less anxious about beating the crowds (which came from the right place, I assure you – realizing that my four year olds and my five year old were not going to stand patiently in long lines), and if I had been more anxious about wowing them with the things that would actually wow them – like the castle or ToonTown or meeting princesses or becoming a Jedi.

We eventually got there on this trip, but it was completely unnecessary to scare the Disney out of one of them to begin with. A little more thought about the memories I was hoping to create and a little less thought about the memories I already had might have gone a long way during our first Disneyland adventure.

You can bet our second Disneyland adventure will be different. 

Airfare Sale through Travel Zoo - $72 and up!

Quick heads up: Travel Zoo has posted a nationwide airfare sale. $72 and up. If this list includes your starting and stopping points and you can travel midweek, you can get a great deal (which is, sadly, rare in this flying day and age). Check out the sale and then subscribe to Travel Zoo's e-mails for a regular heads up on good prices for fun getaways (and local attractions, too).

BTW, I am not associated with Travel Zoo. I just like it and am therefore happy to share it.

Road Trip Tip: Map It!

I found this little nugget in an e-mail I received from babycenter.com. A fun tip submitted by a reader. We are doing an epic road trip this summer to Canada. I do believe maps will be in order.

"When we took a recent trip, I printed out a few maps for our daughter so she could get a sense of how far we were traveling. I highlighted our route and drew landmarks on the map about every 60 miles or so. I knew that she loved it when she asked me if she was going to have maps again for an upcoming trip." — Kris

Love it. I can see expanding this idea. Maybe the kids check off each landmark as we pass it? Maybe we make a special mark for the places we will be stopping for a break or a little sight seeing? Maybe we make it a bit of a scavenger hunt? Maybe we add some local trivia about each landmark? What other ideas do you have for using maps to make your road trip more entertaining and engaging? 

Gear Sale on Zulily

Sale on Zulily today -- Vacation Ready: Travel with Kids. While I thought most of the products were good, reasonable – if not obvious – travel items, there were a few stand outs. I have never tried these products, but I really would if my kidlets were still small enough to use them. They sound fabulous! (And when the Zulily sale is over, I'm sure you can google these items to find them elsewhere.)

TOTEaTOT: This clever little tool allows you to attach a car seat to your carry-on luggage – with the child in it! Makes running through the airport a new experience. Just be careful that what you give your child to play with while you are running is also somehow attached. I’m picturing sippy cups and teething rings strewn in your path…

Tie Chair: Think slip-cover high chair. Made of fabric, the Tie Chair slips over the back of a chair and has a method to tie the child to the chair. If you have the kind of child that can actually be tied down (in a non-abusive, not totally inappropriate way), then this might work great for keeping Johnny happy at the many restaurants you will frequent on vacay. (Or at grandma’s where there is no high chair….) But it does look like the kind of thing that if you have an escape artist, then you’re out of luck.

FlyeBaby airplane baby seat: This looks awesome! It’s a hammock style seat/swing that you attach to a stored tray table and the baby lays facing you into your lap (securely strapped in, of course). This looks like a must-have for lap babies. It looks like it might be best for smaller infants, but if you’ve got an older infant who needs to be napping during the flight, I would guess this would be very helpful.

Over-the-seat organizer: I have seen these before. They fit over the back of the front seats and hang in front of the child. Zulily has one style available in a few colors. It was a good price, so I looked closer. My only complaint with this particular one was the lack of a large pocket. My kids would have coloring books or reading books or even big toys (like a stuffed animal) in the car. This one had good pockets for sippy cups or water bottles, but no large pocket. I have seen these at One Step Ahead, so for me, I would keep looking. But I am totally sold on the concept!

Inflatable bed rails: I have these. They are a must. They are offered on this Zulily sale, but I got mine at One Step Ahead. They are so great. Because they are inflatable, they are easy to pack.  With our three kids, we line them up on a hotel bed horizontally and stick one inflatable bedrail at the end so the last one doesn’t roll off. Works perfectly. (I’ll be sad when the kids are too big for this. It’s so handy, and pretty darn cute….)

There were several other interesting items on this travel sale, as well. I would love to know if anyone has experience with any of the items I mentioned. Can you recommend them or warn against them? I’d also love to know what other must-have travel items you have discovered. Do tell!