the only way for to manage as a dad has been to take his wife and two daughters with him. With this blog, Matt shares some of the insights he’s gleaned along the way, as well as tips, tricks, reviews and other fun stories.

Making Up for Lost Time

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Back in action here in California.

Back in action here in California.

Eating Fro-Yo at our neighborhood sweet shoppe. Climbing rocks at the playground with the fossilized ammonites. Listening to the wind chimes on our back patio. Winding up the butterfly music box.

These are just some of the activities our daughters talked about when they longed for home during the four months we spent in London.

They also happened to be some of the first things we went and did upon our return.

We’ve been home more than six weeks now, and the must-do’s are still flowing freely. Every morning, L insists on donning one of the princess dresses she had left at home, just because she “missed them.” Every afternoon, R likes to do the same with those of her bead necklaces that didn’t make the trip.

On one level, these rituals are as much part of the re-acclimatization process as they are touchstones; by reconnecting with the stuff they loved most before we left, the girls are getting more and more accustomed to the notion of being home.

On another level, L and R simply are rediscovering their stuff, a process that is, at the same time, comforting and fun.

(R, upon “finding” a stuffed Pooh in her room last week, exclaimed, “I got Pooh!”)

If you think about it, we grownups engage in some of the same behaviors. The entire time we spent in London, I (literally) dreamed about coming home and eating a giant burrito; when we finally got back to our home in Northern Sonoma County, that’s exactly what I did. Powerwoman had her fantasies, too; four months of anticipation made a massage from her local masseuse even more relaxing.

The lessons here are to give in to these very natural longings, to let our kids miss their stuff.

You’ve heard the (British) phrase, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” right? Well IMHO, the best ways for us parents to help kids return to “normal” after a family trip are to encourage them to miss their stuff back home and indulge them with the chances to make up for lost time.

If we’re doing things right, effects of the process will be twofold: relief in the short-term, followed by a renewed desire to get away again down the road.

What do you look forward to doing or eating upon returning from a long trip?

New Entry on the Family Travel Wish List

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Doc + Sofia = Heaven, for my kids.

Doc + Sofia = Heaven, for my kids.

Believe it or not, my daughters keep their own version of a Bucket List—a running list of places they want to go (or go back to) over the course of their lives. The list has entries such as “Cats” (a make-believe land that L has created), and “HBG” (a local bar that R loves). It also mentions Hawaii (a destination they love). And Las Vegas (because Daddy writes about it so much).

After this past week, the list also now includes Disney Junior Play ‘N’ Dine at Hollywood & Vine at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Orlando.

The reason for this latest addition: News that two of their all-time favorite Disney Junior characters—Doc McStuffins and Princess Sofia (from “Sofia the First”)—have joined the star-studded cast.

According to a blog-post release from the Disney Parks Blog (which kicks ass, by the way), the two characters, along with Handy Manny and Jake from “Jake and the Never Land Pirates,” interact with kids and sing familiar songs. The post goes onto say that Doc and Sofia actually have special roles in the musical revue.

Word on the street is that Doc and Sofia debuted on Sunday. From my perspective, the move represents another aspect of a growing effort from the Walt Disney World Resort to appeal to preschoolers and toddlers—an age group that’s often glossed over when creating immersive experiences for kids.

As the father of two kids in this age group, I welcome this push with open arms. Now Powerwoman and I just have to figure out when we can get to Florida to check things out!

Dublin State of Mind

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R investigating pebbles at Newgrange, outside of Dublin.

R investigating pebbles at Newgrange, outside of Dublin.

Nearly three months have passed since our pod surfaced in Dublin, Ireland, as part of our 4-month stint in London. Thanks to scheduled delays in the publishing world, however, some of my articles about the experience were just published this week.

The first story, for Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts’ “Have Family Will Travel” blog, spotlights the specific experiences the four of us had as guests of the Four Seasons Hotel Dublin.

The second piece, for the Expedia ViewFinder blog, is more a general look at Dublin for families.

Both stories feature text and photographs from yours truly. Both pieces include colorful references to the specific experiences the four of us had in Dublin—the first stop on our 10-day family vacation to Ireland.

It’s always a treat to have my work published, but these types of pieces are particularly fulfilling. For starters, they offer unique perspectives on our experiences in faraway places. Second, the posts give me the opportunity to mix anecdotes and narrative with service—a mash-up that, IMHO, is what makes travel writing fun. Finally, the articles appear on two of the blogs I respect most.

Anyway, to reiterate, you can read the pieces here and here. Enjoy! Spread the word! And please, keep reading.

What Young Kids Remember About Family Travel

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Will L even remember tracing this ammonite?

Will L even remember tracing this ammonite?

For our family, travel is a mix of experiences, good and bad. We bond. We oooh. We aaah. We negotiate who sleeps where at bedtime. We fight over who gets to sit in the buggy. We weather meltdowns. And we never stop seeing new stuff.

Inevitably, however, Powerwoman and I ask ourselves: How much of all of these experiences will L and R remember?

It’s a question I’ve heard often—both from friends and foes. Those who share our commitment to family travel ask the (rhetorical) question in the context of how worthwhile the effort really is. Those who oppose it? They just blather on about how children only care about themselves, never the things they experience in the outside world.

This past week, on an assignment for a client (story coming soon!), I got to dig a little deeper into the issue during an interview with a child psychologist. And the answers shocked the hell out of me.

The expert, Dr. Michele Blume, basically said that, biologically speaking, kids don’t have the capacity for explicit memories until they reach 3 years old. She added that even after that, kids usually don’t retain more than “flashbulb memories” (memories of very brief snippets of an experience, individual moments) until after they turn 5.

Thankfully, before I nearly choked on my coffee at the notion that we’ve been going about it all wrong, Blume added that there’s more to memories than biology.

“What’s overlooked [in the case of kids and family travel] is the importance of implicit memory, the sensory experience,” said the psychologist, who is based in Hermosa Beach, Calif. “The sights, sounds, tastes and smells of being in a new place with mom and dad, interacting with the new environment and having fun as a family has an impact later on; affecting how they feel about themselves, how they feel about themselves in the world, their curiosity in new situations, and how they adapt to the world.”

Blume went on to say that far too many parents use family travel as a teaching experience—a situation that could overwhelm young kids. While sharing knowledge is important, she argues that moms and dads should make it a secondary aspect of a vacation, not the main event.

“Learning doesn’t have to be about the Eiffel Tower or something specific like that,” she noted. “When you ask them questions about what they’re seeing around them, it should be more about the experience of being there with mom and dad, together, and less about something [to which] they might not even be able to relate.”

Finally, Blume noted that the very best thing a parent can do for his or her child on a family trip is to make the new seem familiar.

“At a young age, children are learning about the world and how to regulate themselves in it,” she said. “Parents operate as an external modulator of their child’s nervous system. If parents can create constancy and predictability externally, then a child can take in the new environment because it seems safe to do that. Knowing your child and being attuned to [his or her] needs can go a long way to making [family travel] more fulfilling and enjoyable [for everyone involved].”

To what extent do you feel your kids have remembered family trips from their younger days?

Hope for Family Travelers on Planes

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Kate. Photo by Shanell Mouland.

Kate.

The Internet has been abuzz this week with praise for a tear-jerking essay from Shanell Mouland, the woman behind Go Team Kate.

The story was titled, “Dear ‘Daddy’ in Seat 16C,” and was published Jan. 9. In it, Mouland recounts an anecdote from a recent flight with her 3-year-old daughter, Kate, who has autism. Details of the story are irrelevant here (honestly, I encourage you to gather some tissues and read the piece yourself). The bottom line: The dude who sat next to Kate was just a really good human being.

Over the course of the multi-hour flight, the guy smiled at the child. He engaged her. He let her touch his computer. He even played turtles with her. And at no point did he make it seem as if Kate or Shanell were annoying him or invading his personal space. He was just a good guy.

I loved the story for a number of reasons.

First, as a parent, it’s uplifting to hear about a stranger going out of his way to be kind to someone else’s kid. Second, as a supporter of the autism community (I’ve done work for AbilityPath), it’s wonderful to read about someone treating a child on the Spectrum with the kind of patience and respect these children deserve.

Finally, as a blogger, I love the bigger picture. At a time when airlines get kudos for segregating family travelers and passengers seem to enjoy ganging up on those of us who travel with kids, this story was a welcome breath of fresh air, a feel-good example of the reality that there still are some people who fly the “friendly” skies.

The piece left me feeling hopeful that maybe, just maybe, the prevailing attitudes about family travelers on airplanes can soften and change.

We just need more people like the Daddy in 16C. And we need to hear more stories like his.

Bitten by the Bug

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The Villano Family: Coming to a hillside near you.

The Villano Family: Coming to a hillside near you.

My friends warned me. They told me that after spending four months living with my family in London, I’d come back yearning to get the kids out on the road again ASAP. They joked that we’d all catch “the [travel] bug” and return to Wine Country, only to liquidate our assets and start a nomadic life.

Heck, one buddy bet me we’d never actually come home.

While I’m proud to announce that the gambling friend lost, the other predictions haven’t been too far afield. And the fallout has caught this family travel blogger by surprise.

Things developed rapidly over the last few weeks. The day after we got home (Christmas Eve day), my wife and I swore we’d keep our girls in one place for a while. We informed the girls of our decision and they seemed to be on board. L, our older daughter, went so far as to declare that she did not want to step foot in an airplane for “at least a few months, or ever again, unless it was a plane that went somewhere cool.” R, the younger sister, agreed in her own way, stating that airplanes were loud and her ears didn’t want to hear them again for a while.

We held these beliefs for at least a week. Then, just about the moment we were completely unpacked, everyone’s perspective began to change. During a session building Legos, I told the girls about the Legoland Hotel and they insisted we book a trip. Then we started looking at flights for a trip to Texas. And we discussed a trip to Walt Disney World. And we started planning a trip to Lanai.

These were just the family trips. At the same time, we grown-ups were making plans of our own.

Powerwoman started planning a solo trip to help her best friend shop for a wedding dress. I lined up work trips to Los Angeles, Seattle, Las Vegas, and San Diego, to name a few. Then my wife and I recruited the grandparents to watch the girls so we could fly back to New York.

In a span of two weeks, we Villanos went from a policy of “No New Trips” to booking nearly 10 of them. And I’m sure there’ll be more.

No, we’re not planning on selling the house and hitting the road for good (though there is a high likelihood we’ll take an RV to Yosemite National Park this spring). But we *did* catch the family travel fever, and especially while our girls are still young, it’s a wonderful affliction to have.

How quickly after a big family trip do you plan your next escape?

Red Thumbs Up

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Looks funny; packs a punch.

Looks funny; packs a punch.

No matter how many times I read the statistics about the dangers of distracted driving, no matter how many public service announcements I see and hear, I still occasionally am guilty of texting, status-updating, Tweeting and Instagramming behind the wheel of my moving vehicle.

It doesn’t happen often. And it rarely, if ever, happens at home. On the road, however, especially when I’m traveling with my family for work, sometimes I realize I’m that guy who’s staring into his phone with kids in the back seat.

And that’s never, ever OK.

This is precisely why I have embraced a new campaign out of Colorado to get parents to stop distracted driving once and for all. The program, dubbed “Red Thumb Reminder,” is the brainchild of an advertising executive at San Francisco-based Evolution Bureau. The premise is simple: Paint your thumbnail red so every time you pick up your phone while driving, all you see is a big red sign reminding you to STOP.

Steve Babcock, the man behind the campaign says on the program website that he was inspired by his daughter’s technique of tying a piece of yarn around her finger to remember something for school.

Whatever the inspiration, it works.

Maybe it’s the flash of red. Maybe it’s the notion of utilizing a slightly heavier thumb. Maybe it’s all in my head, I don’t know. The bottom line is that during the few hours I’ve spent with a red thumb on the wheel of my truck, I haven’t even had the URGE to pick up my Smartphone.

This campaign is great news for family travelers. Safety is the No. 1 issue on a road trip, and being mindful of avoiding distracted driving will keep us safer. Furthermore, the more we embrace this idea, the more we discuss the dangers of distracted driving with our kids, the more careful (we can hope) they will be when it’s their turn to get behind the wheel later in life.

Another benefit: The less distracted we are when we drive, the more focused we can be on the experience of the journey itself. From a family travel perspective, this is almost as important as being safe. Both are gifts worth protecting at all costs.

To get involved with the Red Thumb Reminder campaign, follow it on Twitter and like it on Facebook. (Just don’t follow or like on your phone while you’re driving, OK?)

Non-Tech Options to Pass a Long Flight

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R's window after 10.5 hours in the air.

R’s window after 10.5 hours in the air.

We’ve been home in the U.S. now for almost two weeks, and we’re just about settled back into the swing of things. We’re (almost) all unpacked. The kids have (just about) gotten over their jet lag. The lot of us has rediscovered our love for the true American pastime: Driving cars.

All of this has helped Powerwoman and I glean some healthy perspective on the logistics of our return. In particular, we can’t believe how easy the flight home really was.

Allow me to reiterate: The flight home was 10.5 hours. And our kids rocked it like pros.

Before I share the secrets to our success, it’s worth noting that we are not raising our children to be technology addicts. Yes, we allowed them to watch a few shows on their Kindle Fire devices over the course of the trip home. But this screen time was by far the exception instead of the norm; generally speaking, we used “Doc McStuffins” and “Peppa Pig” as rewards for good behavior at other times on the flight.

For the most part, our strategy comprised three tenets: Arts-and-crafts, story time and geography.

The arts-and-crafts was a no-brainer; both girls exhibited a true passion for creativity during our time in London, so Powerwoman and I made provisions to indulge this interest on the plane. We started with stickerbooks. We moved on to basic coloring (I pre-packaged two Ziploc bags with crayons and markers for each of them so they wouldn’t fight).

At cruising altitude, I broke out the window clings and let each girl decorate her window (we were sitting window-middle, window-middle in two consecutive rows; an intentional effort to divide and conquer).

Later in the flight, when R took the first of her two brief naps, L and I made paper-chain necklaces for each of the flight attendants—gifts that scored us free wing pins, free drinks (Scotch for Dad; milk for daughter) and enough special treatment to make the Big Girl feel like a VIP.

We interspersed art time with story time. This didn’t only comprise books on those aforementioned Kindles; Powerwoman and I took turns telling stories and encouraging both girls to make up their own. Some of this make-your-own-story play was open-ended; we also mined ideas from Rory’s Story Cubes, a product about which I blogged last fall.

Finally, we passed time on our LHR-SFO flight with interactive geography lessons. Using the real-time map feature on the seatback television screens, we prompted the girls to describe what they saw out the window and match it up to where we were in the arc of our flight.

Through this method, L learned once and for all that Greenland isn’t green, and that Nunavut (one of her favorite words to say) is covered in snow. R was able to distinguish mountains from plains.

Looking back on the flight, perhaps the only hiccup was that L didn’t actually nap until about three minutes before we disembarked. With all of these fun activities to keep her occupied in mid-air, perhaps that partially was our fault.

What are your secrets for surviving a long flight when traveling with young kids?

Jet Lag Exorcism

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L and her Legos. Sometime between 4 and 6 a.m.

L and her Legos. Sometime between 4 and 6 a.m.

We contemplated bringing in some priests this week to save our older daughter from the mysterious entity that had possessed her.

Then, after enduring L’s hitting and kicking and scratching and biting and screaming and writhing around like a maniac, Powerwoman and I realized it wasn’t a demon that possessed our girl, but instead just a really horrid case of jet lag.

We should have seen it coming. That first night—Christmas Eve, actually—she woke up for the day at 2 a.m. On the three nights that followed, she woke up at 4 a.m. In between, the child fought naps as if she were an ultimate fighter and they were an opponent in UFC 168. It was a recipe for cataclysmic disaster.

Everyone told us coming home from England was easy. Stay awake until 8 or 9 p.m. the first few nights, they said, and catching up on the eight hour time difference will be a cinch.

For the grownups, this advice rang true. For the kids, however, it was easier said than done.

I mean, really, how does one force a child to “stay awake,” especially when she is falling asleep on her feet, at the dinner table, in the car, and just about everywhere in between? At what point does the whole drive to beat jet lag become inhumane? What’s more, with kids who are so sensitive to subtle changes in the sleep schedule to begin with, to what extent is it worth bending over backward at all?

Thankfully, today, our kind, creative and loving child reclaimed her body and we called off the exorcism. What we learned over the course of this past week: There’s no way to predict how jet lag will affect your children, and there’s no way to minimize the effects of it on your kids.

I guess I could couch this epiphany another way. Last decade, Sportscaster Dan Patrick coined the phrase, “You can’t stop him, you can only try to contain him.” Patrick meant for those words to describe athletes who left their opponents helpless on defense. He could have been talking about jet lag in relation to kids.

Next time we complete an international flight, we’ll just resign ourselves to a few days of parenting hell. At some point, it has to get easier for all of us. Right?

What are your suggestions for minimizing the effects of jet leg on kids?

Family Travel Lessons from Life in London

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The rest of the pod, running to another adventure.

The rest of the pod, running to another adventure.

By the time this post is published on Monday, our wandering pod will be somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, well on our way back to California after four months in London.

If you’ve read this blog during our visit, you know we’ve had some pretty spectacular experiences. If you haven’t read it, allow me to summarize: The last four months undoubtedly have changed our lives, and also have given us a new appreciation for a variety of aspects of traveling as a unit.

Here are some of the things we’ve learned:

Family travel isn’t always rainbows and unicorns
So many blogs like this one focus only on the positives. And there are thousands of positives to traveling with kids. That said, allow me to be the first to tell you: Sometimes, traveling with kids REALLY SUCKS. The kids get cranky. You get stressed. You fight with your spouse. The cycle starts again. We had our fair share of miserable moments during our stint overseas. My advice: Focus on the good stuff; keep perspective on the bad stuff and you’ll survive.

Discipline is hard on the road
All parents know that when kids act up, they need to be disciplined. The challenge? Disciplining them is harder when you’re away from home. How do you give a time-out without the time-out corner? How do you roll when the kid throws a temper tantrum in public? How constructive is it to deprive them of their favorite things in a new place? Answers to each of these questions will differ for each family. But the questions themselves prove there is no easy way to tackle these issues.

Sleep is relative
At home, each of our daughters has her own room. At our flat in London, the kids shared a room. This meant that at some point every night, R would cry and wake up her sister, who would come and sleep with us. We always were hesitant to send L back to her bed for fear of further disrupting R. The bottom line: All bets are off when it comes to kids’ sleep schedules on the road. It doesn’t really matter when they sleep or where they get their REM cycles. So long as they do.

‘Eating well’ is subjective
Powerwoman and I consider ourselves proponents of healthy eating. We push vegetables. We try to limit sweets. During our stint in London, where food options were limited and the kids were pickier than they are at home, we lowered our standards. Suddenly slices of raw pepper qualified as “vegetable,” and frankfurters qualified as “protein.” We rationalized these decisions by acknowledging that the moves were only temporary. Our reasoning: On the road, the No. 1 goal should be just making sure your kids eat.

Public transportation is your friend
Buses and trains did much more than shuttle our family from Point A to Point B; on days when one or both of the girls had trouble behaving, public transportation vehicles served as the ultimate distractors, quashing tantrums before they even began. L was mesmerized by the Tube, while R preferred the “double-bus.” In both cases, the girls reacted to the public vehicles as if they were rides at an amusement park. No, this won’t work for every kid. But it certainly is worth a shot.

Overplanning is for amateurs
There were days during our 4-month visit when I had lofty goals of hitting two or three different tourist destinations/attractions in an afternoon. Not surprisingly, I failed to meet my objectives every single time. The reality: Moving around a city with two children takes a lot longer than you think it will. They’re slow. They eat a lot. They like to go off-script and explore things you never suspected they’d want to explore. The best way to prepare for this dillydallying is to resist the urge to over-plan, and focus on one thing for each day.

The last lesson we learned in London pertained to how we parents judge ourselves. The gist: We need to cut ourselves some slack. Yes, there were days when our kids were the loudest kids on public transit. And, yes, there were other days when we were too tired after a week of schlepping to bring the kids to the local playground or museum. Neither case was cause for the suspension of our licenses as mom and dad. We learned that making ourselves crazy about apparent failures as parents only sapped our energy to parent the way we should. Furthermore, in the scheme of things (at least from our experiences), we weren’t failing as badly as we thought.

What practical lessons have you learned about family travel over the years?