Tag Archive for: family travel

Our family’s happy place: the beach

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Building teepees at Eagle Cove.

Building teepees at Eagle Cove.

We’ve been on San Juan Island about a week now, and while every day has been different, all of them have had at least one thing in common: A trip to a beach.

Beaches are our girls’ happy place, a surefire spot to make them happy and keep them that way.

On some beaches, they’ve walked the shoreline looking for cool shells and beach glass. On other beaches, they’ve used driftwood, seaweed, and bull kelp to build elaborate forts (or, if I’m helping, teepees). When we hit one beach at low tide, the kids beeline for the tidepools and peer down into worlds of sea anemones, sculpins, and hermit crabs. Another day, when we hit the beach at high tide, they grabbed their shrimp nets, waded out up to their knees and tried to catch us “dinner.”

These kids adore the sand and surf so much you’d think they grew up in a coastal zone (they didn’t; we live about 30 miles inland). As a fellow ocean-lover, I can understand the appeal and appreciate the sense of wonder and joy.

Our best beach day so far has been at Eagle Cove, a locals’ beach I remember from my days on the island as a twentysomething. We’ve been there three times already; we’ll probably visit another three or four times before we head home. At low tide, the beach stretches out a half-mile. Gentle waves lap at the sand. The sides of the cove frame the Olympic Mountains across the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

This is the beach where L discovered chiton shells—since that moment of discovery she has collected approximately 3,486 of them. It’s also the beach where R found her first cache of beach glass.

We’ve played ball on this beach. We’ve built fairy houses there. One day, while the kids were lounging with Powerwoman on a blanket, I took matters into my own hands and dragged driftwood from the back of the beach to build a shelter in which the girls could play cards.

Weeks from now, when L and R look back on this trip, despite the Orcas and the red foxes and the bald eagles and the ice cream every day, I bet they remember the beach best of all.

And I won’t blame them one bit.

You can go back again, with family

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I call this, "Orca Window."

I call this, “Orca Window.”

I was hunched over the sink washing dinner dishes when I saw them through the kitchen window—first the telltale blows, then black triangle-shaped dorsal fins rising from the surface of the water.

“Orcas! Orcas!” I screamed. “Girls, get out here! There are orcas!”

This was the moment I had dreamed about, the very instant when my kids would see the namesake animals of this blog and come face-to-face with the marine mammals that had eluded me for the first 24 years of my time on Earth. Put simply, this was why we had come to the San Juan Islands in the first place: To see these very whales.

It took a few minutes for L and R to understand and appreciate the gravity of the situation. First they couldn’t see the whales from the living room of our vacation rental. Then they complained about how “small” the animals appeared. Only after I pointed out a baby did they start to come around.

And come around they did. They sang songs about the Orcas. They vocalized like Orcas. They pretended to be Orcas and chased each other around the living room. They requested Kindle books about ‘em, too. (Subsequently, they have asked to go to the local whale museum so they can learn even more.)

The San Juans have represented a special place for me since 1999. That summer, after a few years of living in the concrete jungle of Manhattan, I decided I needed to experience some open space. I never had seen Orcas in the wild, and knew there were some resident populations of the whales out here in the Pacific Northwest. So I bought a plane ticket to Seattle and a passenger ferry ticket to Friday Harbor. And I improvised the rest.

Over the course of two weeks that first summer, I lived in my tent and worked off my cell phone and a laptop from a coffee shop. I also kayaked a ton and saw literally hundreds of Orcas. The next summer, I came back for three weeks and did the same stuff. In the summer of 2001, I came again (that time with friends).

That middle summer, after one of the most intense animal encounters of my life, I vowed to bring my family here someday, and promised to make sure my kids wouldn’t wait as long as I did to see Orcas in the wild.

Which is what brought us here this year. It’s also what prompted us to rent this house—the house sits along the southern tip of the Island with a commanding view of the confluence of Juan de Fuca and Haro straits. I knew this was a spot where we’d be able to see whales without getting in a whale-watch boat. I was right.

We’ll be on the Island for a grand total of 13 days, and, already, the kids (and Powerwoman, for that matter) are saying they never want to leave. Whales! Beaches! Lakes! Mountains! This place has it all.

For me, however, San Juan Island has something even more meaningful: Memories. I forged the first set here at a time in my life when I was totally alone. Now that I’m back on the islands surrounded by family, I get the opportunity to make new ones with the people I love most in the world. I can’t think of a better gift for any of us.

You know you’re on family vacation with young kids when…

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Sisters playing with perlers. 6 a.m.

Sisters playing with perlers. 6 a.m.

1. You wouldn’t be caught dead in a restaurant without paper and crayons.
2. You order that second Manhattan at dinner to go so you can drink it up in the room during books and songs.
3. You implore loved ones to use “inside voices” way more than you’d like.
4. You hear—and share—more poop and pee jokes than you’ll admit, even to your best friend.
5. You and your partner snuggle up in bed at 8 p.m. to watch separate movies on separate mobile devices with headphones (so as not to disturb anyone in the next bed).
6. You use Suave watermelon shampoo/conditioner on your own hair AND YOU DON’T GIVE A SHIT.
7. You listen to the same playlist in the car over and over and over and over again.
8. You consume French fries (and ice cream) at least once every other day.
9. You are awakened before 6 a.m. every day, usually to officiate an argument.
10. You have an adventure on each trip to a public restroom.
11. You (reluctantly) accept that the process of applying sunscreen takes more than 15 minutes.
12. You tip servers more than normal to assuage your guilt for leaving such a mess.
13. You relinquish all semblance of privacy in the bathroom (or otherwise).
14. You explain new stuff you encounter. In great detail. Frequently.
15. You step on small toys (or Perler Beads) daily, and cannot bring yourself to curse about it when you do.
16. You find yourself justifying how pasta really is its own food group.
17. You have to call housekeeping for help to replace marker-stained pillowcases.
18. You visit every toy store in a five-mile radius of your destination.
19. You realize museums and playgrounds are unbeatable diversionary tools.
20. You expand your family limits to include a litany of stuffed animal friends.

Special needs, yet just like us

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Meghann Harris, courtesy of The New York Times

Meghann Harris, courtesy of The New York Times

I always am encouraged when I see articles geared toward parents of special needs kids who love to travel. The fact that these parents prioritize travel is wonderful; that reporters actually pay attention to them is something even better.

Naturally, then, I was delighted to open up the Travel section of The New York Times this weekend and see a Q&A with Meghann Harris, the founder of SpecialGlobe.com. The site is a travel website for families with children who are on the autism spectrum and have other physical and cognitive challenges. In short, it’s a great resource for special needs parents who want to travel but don’t know how.

The Q&A, written up by Rachel Lee Harris, is short and sweet; it details a bit of history about how the site was founded, and offers insight on the day-to-day challenges of traveling with a special needs child.

Personally, I don’t care how long or detailed the piece is: It raises awareness, and that’s huge.

I discovered SpecialGlobe.com while researching an article for one of my clients—a nonprofit that focuses on educating and informing parents of children on the autism spectrum. I was moved then and I’m moved now. Families with kids who have special needs travel just like families with “ordinary” kids; the special needs families just look for different things. It’s about time we started including these families in the overarching conversation about family travel. Thanks for broadening the discussion, NYT.

Managing siblings on a family road trip

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peaceful parentSummer’s almost upon us, which means it’s time (at least in our family) for road-trips. In families with siblings—again, like ours—long hours in the car often mean yelling, whining, arguing, and fighting for the kids. This, in turn, means headaches, exasperation, and a need for Chardonnay for the grownups.

Thankfully, Dr. Laura Markham has some advice. Markham, a child psychologist, also is author of Peaceful Parent, Happy Siblings: How to Stop the Fighting and Raise Friends for Life (Perigee; May 2015). She has an action plan for parents dealing with bickering kids in the backseat. I caught up with her recently to discuss some of these tips.

MJV: Why is it that road trips seem to bring out tension among siblings?

Laura Markham (LM): You need to recognize that everybody is out of their comfort zone when you’re on the road. Everybody is prone to being a little more irritable. It’s not the regular routine. People are having to accommodate needs of other people in the family more than they have to do normally. If we start from that premise, we have to have more patience. It will be better for everyone.

MJV: What can parents do ahead of time to prepare the kids for how different it will be?

LM: Talk about the trip, for starters. It’s so exciting! Tell them you’ll be stopping along the way. Ask them what sorts of things they’d like to see. Whether it’s a big thing like Niagara Falls or a little thing like a park you find on the map. Have the conversation before you ever get in the car, and talk about what it’s going to be like in the car. That will help prepare them for what’s coming.

MJV: To what extent should parents communicate with the kids about their concerns regarding the trip?

LM: It’s a good idea to ask if anybody is worried about the car trip. One kid may say he’s worried he’ll get carsick. Another might say she’s worried sister will always get to listen to her music, or that she’ll get bored. This process is important because you’re bringing some consciousness to it so the kids can understand this is something from which they can learn.

MJV: How should parents adapt their roles or discipline strategies on the road?

LM: The parent can see him or herself as a facilitator of kids learning the skills to live together and work things out in a civil way and express their needs without hurting another person. You can’t expect kids to be perfect at this, that’s why they practice.

MJV: At the first sign of discord in the backseat, what should you do?

LM: Try to get your kids laughing by saying something ridiculous.  Make yourself the object of the humor, so they’re not laughing at each other. This also helps your children work through the universal fear that they themselves might get laughed at.

MJV: What if the kids use hands on each other?

LM: Stop the car. You can’t drive safely when the kids are screaming or hitting and you’re upset. You don’t have to say a word. Just pull the car off at the next exit, pull off safely onto the shoulder, turn off the car, and regain your composure. Then, intervene as calmly as you can to set limits, connect, and defuse the tension.

MJV: Any other tips for parents embarking on road trips with their kids this summer?

LM: Calm yourself. The kids are going to act up; if you stay calm, they’ll calm down more quickly. Also, remember to listen to the right things. If you pay attention to kids’ needs and emotions and respond to those instead of trying to respond with punishment, it will make a huge difference. Let them feel like you’re hearing them. Making them feel like you understand them. That will help them calm down and re-engage in a more productive way. That means a better trip for everyone.

Puke on the family trip

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A calm scene before Retch No. 5

A calm scene before Retch No. 5

When we booked this family vacation to Los Angeles, it was supposed to be about togetherness, birthday celebrations, and outfitter-driven activities for all ages (available through my client, Expedia). So far, however, the trip largely has been about something entirely different: puke.

As in, vomit, throm, throw-up, retch.

All of the puke has come from poor little R; she caught a flu bug from her sister the day before we left, and somehow has managed to throw up at least—I stress, at least—once a day every day of the visit. (Lucky for us, she didn’t actually throw up on our transit day, but she did poop her pants on the plane, due in part to bad diarrhea.)

Today’s episode was by far the most dramatic. After a wonderful day celebrating L’s birthday at the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, we got back to the hotel and handed the car to the valet guys just in time for poor R to throm all over the porte cochere.

Both Powerwoman and I can handle the smell and cleanup of vom on the road—we both like to drink, and L puked a bunch when she was younger so we’ve had plenty of practice.

That said, what remains difficult about vom management are basic logistics. Who stays back at the hotel with sick child? How long can the free parent be free before trapped spouse starts to feel antsy? What in the hell do you feed a sick kid on the road when everything requires effort to obtain?

Another challenge: Persevering in the face of awkwardness with restaurant staffers after your kid throws up in a booth during breakfast and it takes the crew 15 minutes to respond with a mop. (Fellow traveling parents, I would have cleaned it up with individual wipes but the host wouldn’t let me! Also, um, ewwwww.)

Perhaps the biggest challenge is dealing with the sick child directly. She’s whiney. She’s pathetic. She doesn’t want to move anywhere. And if your kid is anything like mine, she probably doesn’t want to be touched, either.

I’m not complaining here, I’m just saying the whole vacation-with-a-sick-kid is a different ball of wax.

My advice? Be ready to be flexible. Discuss a backup strategy with your traveling partners in advance, just in case. Be willing to eat a lot of room-service toast. Finally, remind yourself that sick kids on family trips are the exception, not the norm; as religious folks likes to say, this too shall pass.

The moaner next door

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The calm before the moans.

The calm before the moans.

Sometimes you bring the kids to family-oriented hotels and it’s all about penne with butter and crayons and stuffed animals. Other times you bring the kids to grownup-oriented hotels and the kids hear a woman moaning loudly in the next room and ask if you should call the police to help her.

Such was the case earlier this evening here at The Chamberlain, a boutique hotel in West Hollywood.

The four of us are here on assignment for Expedia—an assignment that revolves as much around activities as it does around hotel. We were excited to land such posh accommodations in such a great neighborhood. But, going in, my wife and I knew it would not be a place designed for kids.

So when we started exploring our room, we had to explain to the girls not to stick their hands through the metal mesh screens in front of the fireplace to touch the always-on gas pilot light. And when I took L to the rooftop pool, I had to remind her that meowing like a cat on the giant cabana beds probably wasn’t the kind of behavior other guests would tolerate.

Then came the moaner.

She started softly, peppering guttural grumbles with an occasional, “Oh yeah,” and “Yes!” The screams became more consistent as she and her partner humped their way toward a culmination. When Little R asked me if we should call the cops, our neighbor was screaming words my children still don’t know, and was screaming them in reference to parts of her body that my children still don’t understand.

After I managed to stop myself from laughing out loud at the ridiculousness of the situation, I reassured my kid the woman was just fine. And I *didn’t* call the cops.

Why would I? I mean, good for this woman for having such a memorable evening. And, really, good for the hotel for facilitating that kind of escape. Could I have been outraged that the hotel would allow another guest to have sex loudly in earshot of my kids? Sure. But, IMHO, the hotel did nothing wrong.

At the end of the day, shit happens when you operate outside the typical comfort zone and bring your kids to stay in a place that deviates from the norm. It can be awkward. It can be uncomfortable. But it also can provide a great learning experience for your kids. Beside, it makes for a great story to tell friends.

San Francisco getting better for families, family travelers

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Koret Playground, courtesy of the Chronicle.

Koret Playground, courtesy of the Chronicle.

As a proud member of the bridge-and-tunnel crowd, I’ve always known I have a very skewed perspective on San Francisco. For us, it’s the Big City, a place with endless opportunities to keep our kids occupied, one of the greatest daytrip destinations on Earth.

For people who live there, however, there’s a different reality.

A blogger friend of mine, Amy Graff, recently wrote about this reality for her blog on SF Gate, The Mommy Files. In her post, she outlined 13 things that have made San Francisco a better place for families. Obviously, her target audience was locals—people who live in San Francisco and have kids. But some of the points she made apply to family travelers as well.

Take, for instance, her mention of Koret Children’s Playground in Golden Gate Park, which recently benefitted from $380 million in bonds to improve neighborhood parks. Another highlight in her piece: The new Exploratorium, which is one of our favorite museums in the entire city (and about which a blog post by yours truly is long overdue).

Also worth mentioning: A new law in March 2013 that allows baby strollers on all San Francisco Municipal Transit Association vehicles, except cable cars.

I could go on and on about Amy’s piece, but it’s probably best if you just read it here.

The bottom line: The City by the Bay may not be as wonderful for family travelers as we’ve thought it was, but it certainly is getting better.

Expressing excitement on family trips

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Both girls got pretty excited about this Play-Doh booth.

Both girls got pretty excited about this Play-Doh booth.

We humans express excitement in different ways. Some of us get smiley. Others get giddy. My wife likes to eeek. I, a verbal person, like to scream, “POWER” repeatedly. Then there’s the Big Girl, who conveys *her* excitement by jumping over and over again and stuttering uncontrollably.

I noticed this tendency of my daughter’s on a recent daytrip to San Francisco. She already was excited to be there—my kids have grown up in the country and they love any opportunity to see tall buildings and public transit and trappings of an urban center. Then we came upon a brand new playground off the Embarcadero. The kid nearly flipped her lid.

She was so cranked up, so stoked at the notion of sliding down a new slide and swinging from new monkey bars that she bounced around like a kangaroo.

When we asked her what was up, she couldn’t respond without fumbling over her own words.

As she played, it dawned on me that I’d seen these behaviors before, almost religiously, on every single family trip we’ve ever taken. That’s when it dawned on me that the get-up wasn’t a temporary bout of insanity, but instead just my kid’s way of expressing and dealing with travel excitement.

The incident got me thinking—where do we learn behaviors for expressing travel excitement? It’s not like Powerwoman or I jump up and down and stutter when we’re on family trips. Why doesn’t my older child eeek like her mother? Why doesn’t she scream, “POWER?” From whom did she get the whole hopping thing?

This, of course, got me thinking some more. How fun it would be to swap excitement expressions a trip! How odd it would be to see a grown man jumping around and stuttering at the sight of the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles. How silly it would be if my kid actually did scream, “POWER.” Or eeek.

We’re headed out in the next few weeks on a number of different journeys and I plan to mention the subject to the kids then. If you see me jumping around and stuttering at an airport, you’ll know why.

How do your kids express their excitement on your family trips?

Stand by your (travel) plan

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The Rossi family (courtesy of TODAY).

The Rossi family (courtesy of TODAY).

By now you likely have heard of the Rossi family—the Pennsylvania family that pulled 9-year-old twins out of school to go and watch Dad run in the Boston Marathon earlier this month.

Had they done this all quietly, neither you, nor I, nor anyone else in the United States would be talking about it. But, well…the dad is a part-time radio personality in his home region, and let’s just say the family didn’t exactly shy away from making the episode into a MAJOR deal.

I’m not going to review all the facts of the case here; you can read some pretty good rundowns online (such as here and here). The CliffsNotes: The parents, Jack and Victoria Rossi, wrote a note excusing their third-graders for the absences in conjunction with the family trip. After the race, the school principal, Rochelle Marbury, wrote a now-famous letter in which she stated that her district “does not recognize family trips as an excused absence.”

What happened next was the unfortunate part. Rossi wrote a response to the letter, posted it on his quasi-public Facebook page (again, people, even with privacy settings, FACEBOOK IS NOT PRIVATE), and the thing went viral. Since then he and his wife have been on talk shows, and the entire episode has de-evolved into a complete shitshow.

In the process, IMHO, we’ve lost sight of the major issue: Should family trips be excused absences?

I’ve blogged about this before (here, for instance), and, considering I travel for a living, I likely will blog about it again. (Heck, we’re pulling L out of a half-day of school next month so the four of us in this family can go on a vacation/assignment.) My take: Family trips are NOT excused absences. But that shouldn’t stop us from taking them if we think the trips are important and worth taking.

This means I don’t fault Rossi for taking his kids. It means I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Rossi’s rationale/reasoning for why he did it. Here’s a snip from his “letter” to the principal:

“In the 3 days of school they missed (which consisted of standardized testing that they could take any time) they learned about dedication, commitment, love, perseverance, overcoming adversity, civic pride, patriotism, American history culinary arts and physical education…They also experienced first-hand the love and support of thousands of others cheering on people with a common goal.”

Heck, as a runner, I’ll even side with the guy for taking his kids because he wanted them at the finish.

But for him to attack the district for failing to bend its own rules, for wigging out because the principal didn’t genuflect at him for being such an “incredible” and “progressive” dad—I have to ask: Who in the hell does this guy think he is?

Choosing travel over school is a personal decision. It brings with it high reward—learning about dedication, commitment, love, perseverance, and all those other things Rossi mentioned in his note. It also carries high risk—kids fall behind on the curriculum, kids miss out on projects, kids may run afoul of school attendance policies. If we as parents aren’t prepared to deal with the consequences of our decisions on this issue, we shouldn’t be making such bold decisions at all.

Put differently, if Rossi was going to have such a problem with the principal’s reaction to the absences, perhaps he should have thought twice about pulling his kids out of school in the first place.

To Rossi’s credit, he told TODAY that he’s not angry at the school for writing the note and recognizes that the principal is “doing what she has to do,” but instead is taking issue with the district’s inflexible attendance policy.

Again, to that I say this: The rules are the rules, and they apply to everyone. Even local celebrities who qualify for Boston.

The lesson here for traveling parents is twofold. First, do your homework and investigate your district’s attendance policy before you pull your kids out for a trip. Second, take ownership of your decision, whatever that decision might be, and be prepared to deal with the consequences gracefully (especially since your kids will be watching).

The Rossi children—like most Americans—probably see their mom and dad as heroes. Sadly, at least from my perspective, the mom and dad are nothing more than a pair of whiners. You made your bed, people. Now lie in it.