Tag Archive for: vacation with kids

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?

‘Smartening Up’ the Family Trip

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One great poet; one great vacation

One great poet; one great vacation

It would have been easy for us to play off last week’s trip to Grasmere, in England’s Lake District, as an extended goodie run.

After all, one of the reasons we traveled there from our vacation rental outside of Penrith was to visit the Grasmere Gingerbread Shop, a tiny little bakery that has used the same recipe for the better part of the last 200 years.

But the town also is the final resting place of poet William Wordsworth, and both Powerwoman and I really wanted to pay respects and see his grave. So we did what any travel- and poetry-obsessed set of parents would do: We whipped out the Wordsworth in an attempt to get the girls excited for our true modus operandi.

At first, they resisted. Then, following a reading (parts) of “Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” and some of the “Lucy Poems” (including “Strange fits of passion I have known”), they softened a bit, and actually started having fun.

By the time we actually made it to downtown Grasmere, both kids had been exposed to a healthy dose of Romanticism (I’m talking about the approach to poetry, not the notion of Mom and Dad being all lovey-dovey). And they thoroughly got into it.

As we walked through the cemetery toward Wordsworth’s grave, L whipped off some poems of her own, referring to herself as “Tennyson,” another poet we mentioned during the lesson.

R, of course, mimicked her sister, celebrating her accomplishments by chanting the word, “poem.”

For the rest of the trip (three more days at that point), the girls created dozens of their own poems—engaging in a sort of toddler rap. Every time they came up with one they liked, they mentioned Wordsworth and other poets about whom we had taught them. Some of the biggest winners were recited 40 or 50 times.

We certainly didn’t expect the trip to become such a celebration of words; we were just sharing some history.

Still, for us, the lesson was simple: Even if you think the kids might be “too young” for something, you never know when new information might strike their fancy, when a little knowledge might take them a long way. Powerwoman and I liken this to “smartening up” a vacation. In our experience, it can enhance even the quickest and seemingly boring vacations.

Sure, there’s a chance this new information will go straight over their heads. But by not sharing it, you risk the kids learning less about the new experiences they have. And in our family, that simply isn’t a risk we wish to take.

What sorts of knowledge/information do you attempt to pass down to your kids while traveling?

How to Find Amazing Family-Friendly Vacation Rentals

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Our backyard at Riverain, in England's Lake District.

Our backyard at Riverain, in England’s Lake District.

We’re near the end of an epic week in England’s Lake District. A big part of what has made this visit unforgettable: Where we’re staying.

On paper, we’ve rented a 3-bedroom “cottage” in the tiny town of Blencowe, about five miles outside of Penrith, on the northern edge of Lake District National Park. In reality, however, we are staying in part of a restored and renovated circa-1700 carriage house, one of the structures that flanks a castle-like manor house that dates back to the 1500s itself.

Our rental has heated floors, an incredible wood-burning fireplace and those tiny windows that you find in pretty much all castles and stone buildings from hundreds of years ago. On the grounds: A rushing stream, hundreds of sheep and acres upon acres of rolling hills.

Did I mention the place is costing us less than $225 per night?

In celebration of our find, Powerwoman and I put our heads together last night and came up with a list of tips for how to find killer family-friendly vacation rentals. Here are the highlights.

Tip 1: Book with Experts
In today’s age, many family travelers book on AirBnB and call it a night. If you’re lucky, the place is nice. The problem, of course, is that you might not be so lucky. Instead of winging it, we almost always opt for a vacation rental service. These services require property owners to keep places to a high standard of quality. They also are more than willing to help out if something goes wrong. For this trip—and for other trips to rural England—we used Rural Retreats, which is based in the Cotswolds. When we went to Ireland earlier this year, we went with Elegant Ireland. OneFineStay is another service about which I’ve heard great things.

Tip 2: Confirm there’ll be kid-friendly stuff
Some rental entities prattle on about how their properties are “kid-friendly.” What this means, however, can vary widely depending on where you go. We always like to call or email in advance and make sure the place we’re going has access to a) a crib b) stair gates and c) a high chair. If the place doesn’t offer this stuff—or if they can’t guarantee they’ll get it for us—we look elsewhere.

Tip 3: Follow the hampers
It’s standard operating procedure among the best vacation rental services to provide visitors with food hampers to supplement grocery items they’ll buy for the duration of their stay. The worst of these baskets amount to nothing more than snacks. The best of them provide the ingredients for multiple meals. In our experiences, baskets from Rural Retreats have supplied us with ingredients for the first dinner in the house, as well as a number of days of snacking. The best basket we’ve ever had: The one from Elegant Ireland, which contained freshly-baked bread, and all of the ingredients for multiple Irish breakfasts.

Tip 4: Go off-peak
Busy times at most vacation rentals are like busy times at hotels—if you’re able to find availability, the price points likely are astronomical. Instead, try building your vacation around off-peak times. Over the years (especially in Hawaii), we have saved big bucks scheduling trips around only one weekend instead of two. Another strategy we’ve used: Traveling from Tuesday or Wednesday to the following Tuesday or Wednesday (this was how we rolled this time around). Time of year is huge, too: Check websites for peak seasons, then book around them. Finally, be open to sacrificing location; a few miles away from the tourist hotspots could save you hundreds—if not thousands—down the road.

What are your secrets for finding great family-friendly vacation rentals?

Like a Virgin

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Little R, loved every minute on the high-speed train.

Little R, loved every minute on the high-speed train.

We’ve relocated to Northern England for the better part of the next week. Some of the items on the agenda for the coming days include hiking, reconnecting with (some of my wife’s distant) relatives, and baaaa-ing at the sheep in the pasture out our door.

Of course our girls also will spend significant amounts of time talking (and, undoubtedly, drawing) about how we actually got here: One of the high-speed trains up from London.

We took the ride with Virgin Trains, from Euston Station up to Penrith, a city in the heart of England’s Lake District. Because we sat in First Class, we had reserved seats, a table, all-you-can-eat food (including a stellar breakfast service), and porter help with the bags. Because it’s Virgin, the girls also received “Kids Bags”—backpack-sized satchels full of games and puzzles to do while we were en route.

To say the girls made the most of the experience would be an understatement.

R was the bigger fan; she spent at least 90 minutes of the 3-hour trip peering out the window or asking about Thomas the Tank Engine (a natural association, given our activity).  L liked the train too, but was scared a bit by the rocking.

(Overall, we managed to survive just fine until about ten minutes before departure, when R threw a tantrum and knocked a full cup of tea into my crotch, and L threw a tantrum just go be like her sister.)

Still, the verdict is that train travel trumps airplane travel because a) you can walk around as much as you’d like during your ride b) you can look out the window and see more than simply clouds, and c) first class is something average families actually can afford (it cost us a grand total of about $300 for all four of us, round-trip).

Don’t get me wrong, traveling by train isn’t perfect.

In Europe, where railroads can go up to 125 mph, motion sickness can be a real issue; L felt sick pretty much every time she looked out the window. In the U.S., where we (inexcusably) lack the same sort of high-speed rail they have here, train travel can take a while.

From our perspective, after two consecutive excursions from London involving train travel, the rails provide a nice alternative to airplanes.

Beside, trips are always better when the getting-there is part of the fun.

From the perspective of a family traveler, what do you like best about train travel?

4 Family-Friendly Aspects of Life in London

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R, at a London coffee shop, with some house toys.

R, at a London restaurant, with some house toys.

We’re nearing the end of our time here in London (we leave Dec. 23; I can’t believe it either), and I’ve spent the last few days reflecting on some of the most family-friendly aspects of life here.

Yes, I know the health care is free and higher education is dirt cheap (especially for residents). But I’m not talking about that kind of stuff. I’m talking about the family-friendly aspects of life that make visiting this great city with kids easy. Here, in no particular order, are my faves of the faves.

The playgrounds are awesome.
I’ve chronicled the awesomeness of the playgrounds here before, and I’ll do it again and again (probably until I sell a story about it to a major glossy newsstand magazine). Play areas are well-kept. Play structures are new. Ground surfaces are soft so kids don’t get badly hurt when they fall. And each playground boasts activities we simply don’t see at home: the Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Playground in Hyde Park has a pirate ship kids can play inside, while the one at St. Stephen’s Church Garden has a zipline. Of course my favorite aspect of London playgrounds is that many of them have on-site cafes. This means we moms and dads are never too far from a hot black Americano.

Coffee shops give kids free stuff.
Did somebody say coffee? One of my other favorite things about London is that almost every coffee shop in this fair city treats kids like royalty. So long as the grown-ups in your party buy drinks, the kids in your party receive a free drink of their choice. Most places—Pret a Manger and Caffe Nero among them—offer something called “babyccinos,” essentially warm milk with a splash of cocoa. Other places will go so far as to make the little ones pint-sized decaf cappuccinos. When I’m out and about with L and R, I usually opt for simplicity, and just request child-sized take away cups of cold milk. Whatever you order, these freebies are a nice touch.

Public transit treats parents with kids like rock stars.
The vibe toward families on buses and trains in other cities is simple: You’re on your own. Here, however, whenever I board the bus or the Tube with the girls, people are incredibly accommodating and eager to help. They give up their seats. They help carry the stroller up steps. They actually make eye contact with us, and they smile. Overall, I have found the bus system more child-friendly than the Tube; every bus has a separate area for buggies—a nice amenity, especially on those days when I’m schlepping all over town with both of my kids. (Of course when I’m traveling with only one of the girls, and I’ve left the buggy at home, double decker buses also offer the best attraction in town: Watching the city pass by from the front seats of the top level.)

Restaurants are prepared…and welcoming.
So what if kids aren’t allowed in most pubs after 7 p.m.? Most restaurants in this city are incredibly welcoming toward families with young kids, and just about all of them are prepared with kids’ menus and crayons or colored pencils to keep the little ones happy until their food comes. Heck, one of our favorite places in our neighborhood even has toys for kids to play with. Back in the U.S., I’m notorious for lugging a backpack full of paper and pencils everywhere, just to make sure we’re covered. Here, so many places have it covered that I’ve actually started leaving the art supplies at home. It’s nice to have one less thing to worry about. It’s also nice to know Powerwoman and I can count on enjoying at least a few moments of every restaurant meal in peace.

What sort of family-friendly features do you look for in a travel destination?