I’m over on Family Vacation Critic, a fun subsidiary site of Trip Advisor, talking about why my family traveled to Portland, Oregon last summer during our 2-week Pacific Northwest road trip adventure. It wasn’t the doughnuts, although they were delish, and it wasn’t Portlandia (I still haven’t seen that show), […]
Do you have a family travel bucket list? Of course you do! Even if not formally written down, there are places within the U.S. you long to visit. Places you see when you close your eyes and wish upon a star to be…anywhere else. I bet I can name a […]
For those, like us, who’d never been to the Big Island of Hawaii before and who, like us, had a very specific and extremely idyllic flowery vision of what Hawaii would look like upon arrival, the drive from Kona’s outdoor airport to The Fairmount Orchid can be more than a […]
Thinker Toys in Carmel-by-the-sea, a coastal Northern Californian town every bit as precious as its overly-hyphenated-name would lead you to believe, has a massive stuffed bear doling out free hugs to any and all who enter, to those of any age who find themselves in need of a bit of […]
I’d never visited Las Vegas before the summer of 2013, so I don’t know personally of the Strips’ glory days, neither the beloved Rat Pack era (of course) or the decades that followed, when themed casinos dominated Las Vegas Boulevard. There are remnants of that latter period on view today, […]
A wise man once said, “you haven’t lived until you’ve lived on a houseboat.” Okay, I have no idea if anyone, wise or otherwise, ever said that. But some wise fella should’ve. I know that Conor Oberst once sang, “We should move to Sausalito Living’s easy on a house boat […]
Let’s start here. Avoid the $30 parking fees and the tourist spots of Fisherman’s Wharf and The Ferry Building like the plague. Can you deal with that? Can you handle saying ‘no’ when people back home ask you if you went to Fisherman’s Wharf? And they WILL ask. Listen, nobody […]
Sure, Disney is nice, and is probably still the glittery gem of Southern California family travel destinations, but there’s a red ruby brick located about an hour south that deserves its own place in your future vacation construction. And there’s no time better to visit LEGOLAND California than on New […]
