We were playing in the playground at a local park when a new addition to the expat scene started the interrogation. He grilled me about local schools. He asked for my favorite local restaurants. He went so far as to inquire about my favorite Tube stop, my favorite bus line and my preferred neighborhood bodega. […]
Considering that I come from a long line of New York Yankees fans, I geek out pretty dramatically about (legitimately) storied sports franchises. I’m also a big believer in checking out the home stadiums of these teams—sometimes even if there’s no game being played—just to glimpse the hallowed ground. As a parent, I’ve tried to […]
My debut article in Scholastic Parent & Child magazine hit newsstands this week. The subject: Kids’ passports, and everything you ought to know to prepare for taking your little ones abroad. The story, titled, “A Parent’s Guide to Passports for Kids,” offers advice on everything from custody issues to renewal timing. It hinges on the […]
The big question in our flat this week pertains to enrolling L in school during our time here in London. Do we or don’t we? Powerwoman and I continue to go back and forth. Some parts of the equation are simple. Yes, we took our 4-year-old out of her second year of preschool to be […]
I’m proud to call Expedia one of my biggest clients (I contribute to their Expedia Viewfinder blog), and to celebrate Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, Expedia has joined forces with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, giving everyone a chance to donate to a great cause and take a trip of a lifetime. As part of […]
I have seen the playgrounds of the future on the streets of London, and they all have one thing in common: Cafes. No, I’m not talking about tiny kiosks that sell nothing but candy bars and bags of chips. I’m talking full-on, honest-to-goodness cafes. With fresh food. Ice cream. And, best of all, espresso machines. […]
Just because an article is witty and well-written doesn’t mean it’s good. Case in point: a recent piece on Huff Post Parents that paints family travel in a playfully pejorative light. The writer, Steve Wiens, asserted in the piece that traveling with kids is more of a “trip” than a “vacation.” He alleged that family […]
Many of my travel writer friends are wiser and more eloquent than I, and Carol Cain, of Girl Gone Travel (and a fellow Expedia Viewfinder blogger), is one of them. Earlier today, Carol took time from her busy travel schedule to dash off a beautiful post for an inside baseball-type Facebook group for fellow travel […]
Especially when kids are young, family travel forces them to see, smell, hear, taste and touch things they never have seen, smelled, tasted or touched before. Most of the time, these new experiences go swimmingly and everybody oohs and aahs over how cute it all was. Sometimes, however, new stuff can trigger a DEFCON-1, global-thermonuclear-war […]
We’ve only been in London for a week at this point, but if I eat another French Fry (or “chip,” or whatever you want to call those crispy demons), you might have to roll me down the stairs to catch the Tube. Yes, traveling with kids is wonderful for a host of reasons. How this […]