One of our daughters—L, the older one—is a heavy sleeper. The other, R, wakes at the squeak of a mouse. As you can imagine, when the four of us hit the road and spend nights in standard hotel rooms, this mismatch can create some dicey situations around bedtime. Our solution: We get creative. Sometimes this […]
One could make the argument that the overall experience of family travel is dramatically different from the sum takeaways of, say, romantic or adventure getaways designed exclusively for grown-ups. Still, just because you travel with kids doesn’t mean every vacation activity must revolve around them. After four years of traveling extensively with at least one […]
When everyone in the family is behaving relatively well, family travel can be one of the most fulfilling experiences as a parent. But when one of your children is in perpetual meltdown mode, a family trip can be downright awful. Powerwoman and I lived this nightmare for the first three days of our current trip […]
I mentioned in my last post that we leave Sunday for two weeks on Oahu. We’re spending the first part of the trip at Aulani, a two-year-old resort that represents Disney’s foray into the Hawaiian market. No-one in our family has visited Aulani yet, but a number of reviews have helped me get a sense […]
From now until Sunday morning, y’all can refer to me as the General George S. Patton of family travel. The now-legendary military leader, who fought in the European theater of World War II, was renowned for his strategy, his tactical precision, and the way he prepared his troops for battle. As we Villanos get ready […]
I’m proud to announce my involvement with a new travel blog from Expedia. The blog, dubbed Expedia Viewfinder, launched today, and aims to give readers extensive coverage from around the world, as well as insights for travelers across a variety of categories. One of those categories is family travel; I’ll be covering it from a […]
Magnus Ver Magnusson has nothing on me. Sure, the dude has won four of those “World’s Strongest Man” competitions. And, yes, he can do crazy-ass stuff like drag a car with his bare hands and lift kegs full of lead (or something like that). I’m sure he could even bench-press all 185 pounds of […]
Family road trips require Mom and Dad to multi-task like nothing else. We must entertain the kids! While driving! And listening to Demi Lovato! While keeping ourselves awake! Many of us parents must master another skill, too: The art of changing diapers in the car. For me, this last skill is the ultimate challenge—the Everest […]
Call me old-school. Call me a Luddite. Heck, go ahead and call me a loser, I don’t care. I like paper maps. And I plan to share this passion with my travel-loving kids. No matter what. The maps are sort of everywhere. Each child has one on the wall in her room. We raid the […]
The June issue of Conde Nast Traveler is jam-packed with suggestions about places to take the family on vacation this summer (and beyond). While I take issue with the feature’s headline (sorry, folks, but no vacation involving the vagaries of children ever is “foolproof”), I think the piece is a solid collection of service-oriented destination […]