Tag Archive for: vacation with kids

A Little Help from Some Friends

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Three of the four musketeers, in a common pose.

Three of the four musketeers, in a common pose.

As much as I despise the word, “staycation,” we’re big fans of family travel to destinations within a 1- or 2-hour drive of our home.

Partly this is because we live in Sonoma County, California, IMHO one of the most beautiful places on Earth. It’s also because Powerwoman and I believe strongly that you don’t have to go far to experience the wonder of something new.

We put this philosophy into practice over the holiday weekend, when good friends from Central California—a family of four with two daughters, ages 5 and 3—came to visit. They arrived Wednesday night. And from that point until late Saturday, we had a Peter Pan-like panoply of adventures without ever leaving the county.

The activities themselves were fun—especially on Friday, when the eight of us took a private tour of Safari West, a private animal park with giraffes, zebras and hundreds of other animals, just down the freeway in Santa Rosa.

But what was even better was watching the girls play and laugh and bond by just being girls.

They shared cookies at a French bakery. They waved flags at a Fourth of July parade. They splished and splashed in an inflatable kiddie pool. They danced to a ragtag folk band at a local farmers’ market.

Sure, my kids had done most of this stuff before. But they’d never done the stuff with friends, and that factor enhanced each experience acutely.

This reality has been true for me, as well.

My fondest memories of that trip in high school to Acadia National Park revolve around hiking solo with a buddy who tagged along for the adventure. And as a younger child, the best parts of summer trips to Cape Cod were the lazy days with a childhood pal (and her brood).

Last night, a few hours after we parted ways, my Big Girl looked at me with sullen eyes and stated, “Doing stuff was more fun with [my buddy’s daughters] around.” In that moment, I was reminded of something we all should remember: Traveling with family can be transcendent, but traveling with family and family friends can be even better.

Lessons in Family Travel Preparedness

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Our recent family road trip along the western side of Oahu certainly was filled with surprises.

Some of them were pleasant—on the way from Disney’s Aulani Resort & Spa to Ka’ena Point State Park, we spotted a pod of dolphins frolicking in the surf and pulled over to watch them for a while.

Others , however, were not. Like the archaeological site that was closed due to vandalism. (Remember, Powerwoman is an archaeologist; ruins are regular stops on our vacations.)

And the flat tire that we picked up outside of Waianae.

Spotting dolphins, before the flat.

Spotting dolphins, before the flat.

I’ll spare you the details of how we got the flat (to be frank, none of us really knows). The important stuff: The rear driver’s side tire on our rented Chevrolet Equinox croaked, we called AAA, and the four of us spent three hours at a roadside McDonald’s waiting for a tow truck to come and pop on the spare.

(At this point, you’re probably wondering why I didn’t just fix the flat myself. Let’s just say that I’ve learned the hard way that rental car companies don’t trust you to fix stuff that goes wrong with their cars, and if they find out that you did anything outside of you contract to the vehicle—anything at all—they will charge you. Exhorbitantly.)

(Oh, also, the rental car company could have come to fix the tire. But they estimated a six-hour wait.)

Ultimately, the encounter was nothing but a hiccup in an otherwise fun and fruitful trip. Still, the experience offered lessons in preparedness for family vacation road trips. Here’s a sampling:

  • If you’re planning on doing any major driving with the kids while you’re away, be sure to sign up for AAA Plus or Premier Service (or an equivalent) before you go. No, the three-hour wait time wasn’t ideal, but they did come and fix the flat for free. Had the damage been worse, they would have towed us back to Honolulu for free as well. When traveling with the kiddos (or solo, for that matter), It’s nice to know that you won’t get stranded.
  • Since space isn’t an issue, take the time to pack extra arts and crafts for the kids, just in case. If your children like sports, toss a ball in the vehicle as well. If you find yourself with a few extra hours to kill, these sorts of additional diversions certainly can’t hurt.
  • Triple up on healthy snacks so you’ve got enough to go around in case you end up staying out longer than expected. (We could have ordered just about anything from the McDonald’s at which we were stranded, but, quite frankly, Powerwoman and I don’t like our girls to eat that crap. We gave them blueberries and grain crackers instead.)

Also, if things go wrong, remember to keep your cool in front of the kids. Especially if they’re little (read: under five), the only reason they’ll get stressed by the situation is if they think you’re stressed. This means no panicking. It also means no snipping at your partner, and no yelling at deceitful customer service representatives (unless, of course, you can do so in a private spot).

Years from now, we’ll all be joking about the flat tire on that crazy day in Waianae. Hopefully, if you ever encounter similarly bad luck on the road with the family, you’ll be able to laugh about it someday, too.

What is the most unexpectedly stressful travel situation you’ve endured with your kids?

Balancing Work and Family Travel on the Road

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Yours truly, working the cameras from HI.

Yours truly, working the cameras from HI.

As many of you know, Wandering Pod is only one of the things I do professionally; I actually earn a living writing about family travel (and business, technology, education, science, gambling, and other stuff) as a full-time freelance journalist.

This means that many of my family’s trips are work trips for moi. It also means that a big challenge on every trip for me is figuring out a delicate balance between time for work and time for family fun.

On some trips, finding that balance is easy—if we’re doing an overnight on which I’ve got only one assignment to report—I can scribble notes here and there but otherwise can relax. On other trips—those during which I’m juggling multiple assignments for various clients in different industries—equalizing the work/life equation is a constant struggle.

No matter how crazy a trip gets, I do have a few rules.

First, I always try to involve the girls in reporting. When we’re out and about, I explain to them what I’m writing about, and ask them to give me feedback on what they experience. I do this because I think it helps foster a sense of curiosity. I also want them to understand the effort that goes into creating original work (in case they ever weigh the potential benefits of cutting corners).

Second, even if I’m working my tail off, I try to log my screen time away from the girls. At night. In the early morning. In an independent coffee shop around the corner from the hotel. My thinking here is simple: They see plenty of me standing here in front of the computer at home, and I don’t want their lasting memories of me on the road to be me in front of my netbook or Galaxy tablet.

Finally, I make it a priority never to stress about work on the road. For my kids (and, really, the four of us as a unit), travel is an adventure; I don’t ever want it to feel like a chore.

I rarely am shy about sharing these rules with others; during lectures and other speaking engagements, these form the bulk of my presentations. In recent weeks, however, a few friends have asked me to supplement these strategies with everyday “secrets” to successfully managing work and family travel. Here, then, in no particular order, are my top five tips for juggling a little better.

  1. Spread out. One way to keep work and family interactions separate when traveling is to keep them physically separate. For me, this means spending extra money for additional space. Sometimes I’ll book a suite with a separate room in which to work. Other times I’ll opt for accommodations with a large balcony. When options are limited, I’ll go for a standard room and improvise in other ways. I’ve been known to turn the bathroom into an office for the night. (As an aside, from a tax POV, if you’re spending more on a room for space to work, you can deduct more of your hotel expense.)
  2. Communicate with your partner. Especially when you’re traveling with the whole family, it’s important to give your partner an honest AND REAL-TIME sense of what your daily workload is going to be. In our family, this means a daily debriefing on a) what assignments I need to tackle b) how much time each will require and c) when it would be most convenient for everyone for me to work. These chats help keep Powerwoman and I working as a team. They also enable her to figure out how and when she can plan solo time at the gym or spa.
  3. Focus. With distractions such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, we modern humans have plenty of outlets to procrastinate and waste time online. When you’re trying to balance work and family travel, however, you can’t afford to be so profligate. To minimize distractions when we travel, I force myself to spotlight one task at a time, avoiding diversions such as email or social networking until I’ve met my deadline for the day. If I’m having particular trouble concentrating in the room, I’ll change the scenery, spending a few hours in the hotel lobby or the business center.
  4. Flex your schedule. Just because you’re grappling with work on a family trip doesn’t mean you’ve got to do so during normal business hours. My solution: I write at night, after Powerwoman and the girls have gone to bed. This works for two reasons: a) It helps me keep writing time and family time separate and b) Life is a lot quieter when everyone else is snoozing. Of course this strategy isn’t applicable when the “work” involves conference calls. Also, if I wasn’t a night owl, I probably wouldn’t be able to roll after midnight. Nevertheless, the point here is that schedule flexibility is your friend.
  5. Say, ‘No.’ Perhaps the best way to balance work and family travel is to minimize the balancing you have to do in the first place. This means thinking carefully about every assignment you allow to creep into your time on the road. In some cases, it also might mean rejecting certain opportunities, or requesting to push deadlines far enough away from your trip so the work won’t conflict.

Look, I don’t for a moment pretend to have all the answers. And, to be frank, after four full years of experience juggling work and family life away from home, sometimes I still really screw things up (let’s just say this month’s Hawaii trip was *not* a paradigm of balance).

At the end of the day, your top priority when engaging in family travel should be just that: family travel. For everything else, hopefully some of these insights can help.

What are your secrets to balancing work and family travel on the road?

Baby Steps with Behavior on Planes

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R, during happier times en route.

R, during happier times en route.

The meltdown came with about 75 minutes left in our flight home. Somewhere over the Pacific, thousands of miles east of Honolulu, where the flight began, R, our baby, went berserk.

We weren’t entirely sure what set her off. Perhaps it was exhaustion. Perhaps it was a slight-but-noticeable change in cabin pressure. Perhaps it was the sight of the setting sun from above the clouds, a beautiful-but-blinding spectacle that, to her 20-month-old eyes, must have been bright and shiny and cool and scary all at the same time.

Whatever triggered the freak-out, the poor girl went nuts. I mean, NUTS.

Shrieks. Tears. Kicks. Slaps. At one point, she was crying so hard we thought she might puke. At another point, she “went boneless” in the middle of the aisle like only babies can. (Some of you might call this “pancaking.” If you’re David Stern, perhaps you prefer the term, “flopping.”)

For 15 minutes, we were that family—the one with the wailing kid, the one that family travel-haters love to hate.

In the middle of the insanity, I looked up to count dirty looks. I lost track after 16.

And they were all unjustified. It’s not like we were just sitting there drinking free Mai-Tais, blatantly abrogating our responsibility as parents. I tried shushing R first, and when it became evident she didn’t want Daddy, I handed her to Powerwoman and tended to L (who was having a psychosomatic/jealousy freak-out of her own). My wife took the baby and walked to the rear of the airplane, where she bopped her in the galley until calmness returned.

Yes, my baby was a raving lunatic for 15 minutes during our flight home from Hawaii. You know why? BECAUSE SHE IS A BABY. As I’ve written previously, when you fly with children, it almost a given that, at some point during the flight, they will act like children. This is not a catastrophe. It’s biology. It’s reality.

It’s also a perfect reason to focus on the positives. Little R, the object of 15 minutes of ire, also was a little angel for 4 hours and 15 minutes of that same flight. By my math, this means she cried for 5.5 percent of the trip home.

For any parent, this kind of performance is a resounding success. And until the kiddos are old enough to know better, we’ll take all the forward progress we can get.

Luxury Hotel Bathrooms: The New Nurseries?

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Our "nursery" at the Trump.

Our “nursery” at the Trump.

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 means bringing tents to create rooms within the room. Other times it means crafting folding room partitions out of couch cushions.

For at least part of the time on our most recent trip to Oahu (we got home late Tuesday after 10 days away), it meant something else: During our stay at the Trump International Hotel Waikiki Beach Walk, we turned a second bathroom in our one-bedroom condo into sleeping quarters for little R.

By day, this room served its usual purpose—because it was close to the front door of our unit, we utilized the luxurious walk-in shower to rinse sand off our feet after days at the beach.

By night, however, we transformed the john into a nursery, complete with stuffed animals on the (closed) toilet seat, a sound machine on the sink and a giant crib on the tile floor in the center of the room.

When R was ready to go to bed, we pushed the crib toward the shower so we could swing the door around, then pulled it back and closed the door part way (to minimize disruptions).

Overall, the strategy worked beautifully. Behind the partially closed door (and with the help of those simulated crashing waves), R was able to sleep soundly while her sister, Powerwoman and I puttered about the rest of the condo. Because the bathroom had a bit of an echo, when R woke up in the middle of the night from the pain of new teeth, we were able to hear her cries without the aid of a monitor.

(In case you’re wondering, L can sleep through anything. She takes after me in that department.)

No, having our baby sleep in the bathroom at a five-star property wasn’t ideal. And I’m sure the marketing gurus at the property will cringe to read about how we improvised to get everybody some much-needed sleep.

The bottom line: It worked.

When you’re on the road with small children, practical trumps fancy-pants every time. The sooner we embrace this credo, the better off all of us will be.

What are some unusual sleeping solutions you’ve tried on the road with your kids?

What Does ‘Family-Friendly’ Really Mean?

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Daddy and daughters, enjoying the view.

Daddy and daughters, enjoying the view.

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 child (and two years traveling with two of them), Powerwoman and I have become firm believers that every family trip should include at least two or three activities and outings that we would do even if we didn’t have kids in tow. Sometimes, we might hit up a happening hotspot. Other times, we might check out a historic church or archaeological site (my wife is an archaeologist).

Saturday, here on Oahu, we dragged the kids on a 2-mile round-trip hike along the paved Makapu’u Lighthouse Trail.

The girls did fine for the first half-mile or so. Then the heat got to L. Upon her request, I carried her for about a quarter-mile. From there, we put her in the stroller and I carried R. This meant that one of us was carrying a child for the duration of the hike.

For some, the additional burden of schlepping 25-45 extra pounds might have detracted from the overall experience.

But for us, having the kids with us while we took in sweeping views of the Pacific Ocean and the windward side of Oahu made the hike even more epic. We watched waves. We spotted little red-headed birds. We marveled at turquoise waters. At one point, we even spied Molokai and Maui in the distance (this was particularly exciting for L, who is fascinated by Hawaiian geography).

Sure, by the time we got back to the trailhead, the girls were ready for a big lunch and long naps. And, yes, they might have been a bit more tired than they would have been otherwise. But considering L was still raving about the views at dinner, I’d say the experience made quite an impression.

These impressions, this sense of wonder, is the main reason Powerwoman and I travel with our kids. We know they can get these experiences doing typical family stuff; we also know they can get them doing certain grown-up stuff. Working to achieve a balance between these two approaches makes vacations more memorable for all of us.

Vacationing with the Spawn of Satan

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Calm, after one of the storms.

Calm, after one of the storms.

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 to Oahu. From the moment we landed until almost exactly three days into our trip, L’s “spirit of Aloha” included prolonged temper-tantrums, hitting, biting and more hideousness.

In short, my older daughter was a demon.

As you can imagine, managing her during this dark period was challenging to say the least. We had plenty of the typical traveling-with-a-4-year-old negotiations (“If you eat three spoonfuls of corn, you can color in the giant coloring pad”). We also grappled with yelling, mood swings and paranoia. Minding our little spawn of Satan even had physical ramifications; because the child loves to scratch limbs when she’s frustrated, my biceps look like I’ve been attacked by a small mountain lion.

Thankfully, Powerwoman and I persevered through the misery until L’s behavior improved.  Here are some of the secrets to our (recent) success.

  1. Ignore. It’s tempting to be excessively hands-on while traveling, but the best way to handle freak-outs still is to ignore them. Yes, this meant that my child was the one screaming like a banshee outside the Ali’I Luau at the Polynesian Cultural Center earlier in the week. It also meant that each of her major tantrums passed quickly, like tropical squalls.
  2. Be stern (when necessary). There’s a time and place for discipline on the road, and that time and place is different for every family. For us, it all came down to being kind; we raised our voices when L was being intentionally hurtful (usually to her sister), but otherwise kept an even-keeled, almost saccharine tone.
  3. Communicate. When one of the kids is having trouble behaving on the road, Powerwoman and I make a concerted effort to talk with each other about parenting strategies. I admit—I tend to analyze stuff too much (um, hello, I’m a blogger). Nevertheless, it’s always a good idea to remind your spouse that you two are teammates. Then, of course, you must play like them.
  4. Remember the big picture. There were times in the early part of this week during which I contemplated flying home early with our offending daughter. Then my wife reminded me: We have two kids. From that point on, for R’s sake, I redoubled my commitment to engineering a FUN vacation, knowing that, eventually, L would come around. Sure enough, she did.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t pass along the stuff that *doesn’t* work. No. 1 on my list: Sarcasm. The few times we applied it with L, she neither understood nor appreciated it as a concept. The use of sarcasm also can be debilitating for the grownups. Yes, in the heat of the moment, Powerwoman and I would ask rhetorically, “Is this really happening right now?” Looking back, though, the question itself was just hot air; the truth is that L’s bad behavior was happening, and the only way we could get past those hiccups was just to continue exploring.

Another no-no for me (and I’ve mentioned this before): The screen as a babysitter. In our family, we believe in disconnecting when away, which means minimal screen time of all kinds. Believe it or not, old-school alternatives such as crayons and paper, books and stuffed animals are just as good today as they have been for generations. Even for kids acting like the spawn of Satan himself.

What types of strategies do you implement when our child acts like the spawn of satan on family trips?

Aloha Mickey, Here We Come!

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R getting ready for the flora of the Islands

R prepping for the flora of the Islands

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 of the place from afar.

This piece, for instance, from Babble, offers a good overview. And this one, by my friend and fellow Expedia Viewfinder contributor, Kara Williams, is particularly good for budget-conscious travelers. Finally, this one, from Inside the Magic, does a great job of walking would-be visitors through portions of the resort.

We’re headed to Aulani for three main reasons.

  • Together, my wife and I have visited Maui, Kauai and Hawaii Island a total of 13 times since we got married on Maui in 2004, but we’ve only been to Oahu once.
  • L and R (and Powerwoman, for that matter) are big fans of Disney Parks and Resorts, and since our last Hawaiian vacation comprised a lengthy stint on a ranch in the middle of nowhere, we figured the girls would appreciate a completely different type of experience.
  • I’m under contract to write a few pieces about Aulani, and I also am updating the Hawaii 2014 guidebook for Insight Guides.

As it turns out, this Wednesday (June 12), I’m also hosting a Google+ Hangout on Air from Aulani. I’m hosting the event on behalf of Expedia. The subject: Disney Parks and Resorts. During the 45-minute event, I’ll be interviewing three Disney ambassadors about three resorts:  Aulani, Disneyland and Walt Disney World.

For more information about the Hangout on Air, click here. To participate in the event, simply go to Expedia’s Google+ page on Wednesday from 1 p.m. until 1:45 PDT; there, you’ll be able to watch the event live and comment to ask questions.

Meanwhile, stay tuned throughout the next two weeks for dispatches and insights from the field!

Waging War on Meltdowns in Mid-Air

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The cache; Hawaii or bust.

Part of the cache; Hawaii or bust.

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 for a five-hour flight en route to (two weeks on) Oahu, I’m attempting to pull a page from The Old Man’s book.

My task: To orchestrate a sufficient number of in-flight diversions/distractions for our uber-active and constantly-in-motion toddler, who has not flown since she learned how to walk.

Generally speaking, I believe family travel is best experienced when adventures happen organically. On airplanes, however, especially when you know your kid is going to have a rough time, a little bit of planning goes a long way.

I’ve decided to break down the four hours of cruising time (that is, everything but the 30 minutes during take-off and landing) into eight 30-minute segments. I like this strategy because the notion of spending 30 minutes on one task before moving to something else seems to match R’s attention span pretty well. What’s more, this same strategy worked with our older daughter on (much longer) flights to and from Europe.

Also, it allows for a certain degree of flexibility, because R undoubtedly will sleep for at least an hour or 90 minutes of the jaunt.

Here are some of the segment activities in my Plan A:

  • Pipe-cleaners and Cheerios for edible bracelet-making.
  • (Washable) Crayons and paper for coloring.
  • Books (that I and Powerwoman will read, of course).
  • Snacks (such as blueberries, pretzels, raisins, and more).
  • Easily removable stickers (for sticking anywhere and everywhere).

Plan B includes similar-but-different ideas: Dozens of Wikki Stix, Play-Doh (in small quantities), a dry-erase activity mat with dry-erase crayons, and glowy bracelets and necklaces, to name a few.

You might notice the absence of videos on this list. It’s because we’re sort of psycho about minimizing screen time for our girls. We’ll be ready with “Baby Einstein” programs and the PBS Parents Play & Learn app if we need them, but we really only plan to use those tactics as a last resort.

If all goes well, we’ll have one or two activities to spare by the time we touch down in Honolulu.

If the trip is a struggle—which, we understand, it could be—we’ll take in stride those dirty looks from fellow passengers and work together to get R through the experience quickly and quietly.

Either way, I’ll stand by my Patton-esque approach. In mid-air, you can never be too prepared to avert a meltdown. Beside, all of the diversions we don’t roll out en route we can save for the hotel room—or the trip home.

 What are some of the tactics you use to distract and/or entertain your kids when you fly?

Family Travel + Fatherhood = Life as a Sherpa

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Par for the course.

Par for the course.

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 my Italian-Jewish self, without so much as breaking a sweat.

That said, there is NO WAY the Icelandic He-Man can carry more crap than I carry on Villano family vacations.

Whenever we go away (and despite my steadfast beliefs in equal parenting and obliterating traditional gender roles), I automatically assume the role of Sherpa, schlepping everything from suitcases to diaper bags, car seats to inflatable pools.

Most of the time, I’m also carrying the baby.

Like competing for the title of World’s Strongest Man, these efforts require a number of sophisticated skills. For starters, they require strong fingers, especially when you’re carrying a grocery bag on each one. Second, they require balance; it’s hard work fumbling for keys when you’re lugging a suitcase and a 20-month old with the other hand.

Finally, being the family bellhop requires a good sense of humor, since inevitably you will find yourself pushing a plastic shopping cart of princess dolls through a crowded airport.

For years, I thought this phenomenon was something only I experienced. Then, this past weekend, at a party celebrating L’s fourth birthday, I found myself in a circle with three other dads, talking about family travel. And the truth came out.

One dad talked of a recent trip during which he was tasked with carrying seven suitcases by himself. “I was holding one with my teeth,” he admitted proudly.

Another Dad joked about the ridiculousness that ensues when he and his wife travel with their twins—and the boys’ twin car seats. “We have these special car seat bags you can wear like backpacks,” he said. “I usually wear one on the front and one on the back.”

The more the four of us shared, the more we all realized we were in the same exact boat.

Which, of course, begs the question: Why? Why is it that family travel + fatherhood = life as a Sherpa? Why does a vacation with kids prompt us dudes to do our best Magnus Ver Magnusson impressions? Most important, if we dads always are carrying the majority of gear on family vacations, why aren’t we more ripped?

I’m not suggesting that our wives carry more stuff. I’m also not saying that we all should hire full-time servants like the family on “Downton Abbey.” Really, I think it’s time we dads got our own television show—the modern-day, daddy-centric version of World’s Strongest Man.

The concept is simple: Over the course of a season, the dad who lugs the most stuff through a busy airport—without dropping it—wins a title.

If the show were serialized, I’d watch every week. And with more practice (which, BTW, totally would benefit my family on trips), I might even compete. If I close my eyes, I can almost see the Wikipedia page now: “Matt Villano, World’s Strongest Traveling Dad.” Who needs a Pulitzer with a distinction like that?