I’d like to interrupt my series of London posts (don’t worry, I’ve got lots more planned) to share something that is currently going on in Mother-Of-All-Trips land. I’ve been thinking over the past few days about the amount of traveling I’ve done since last August. There was of course the annual trip to Vermont, followed by a long weekend in New York City in September. Come November, we were in Vermont again and then over the Christmas holiday we took a quick trip to Philadelphia and Bethlehem, PA. That was followed by skiing in Vermont and sunning in the Bahamas (both in January) and then spring break in Los Angeles and Phoenix in April. With May came a weekend in Lancaster and June had a journey to Virginia Beach and Washington, DC. This was all followed by two weeks in England in July. All of this travel, with the exception of one night in Arizona, was done in the company of at least one of my children.

Here’s a fact though, an honest one: Right now I don’t want to walk to the end of the driveway with either of my boys.

I’m not going to generate a tedious list of all the things that they are each doing to make me (and Matt) feel this way, but trust me, they are far from being the ideal traveling companions at the moment. See Teddy and me looking so happy on that tandem bike? It looks like fun, but in reality he’s not pedaling 60 percent of the time. And my legs are tired.

I’m sure this is just some normal developmental phase for each of them – for Teddy it might be the anxiety of going off to full-day kindergarten in a few weeks and for Tommy it’s probably just a normal 8-year-old desire for independence and testing of his parents. But the two of them experiencing whatever these phases are at the same time is like the perfect storm of wearying behavior.

So.This week, the first full week of three spent in Vermont, the boys are each going to attend a separate day camp. From Monday until Friday they will be gone all day doing all kinds of fun things in the company of other children (and under the supervision of other adults). I’m not going to share what Matt and I will be doing. But I assure you, it will not involve words like “Don’t do that!” or “Why would you act that way?” or “Just stop touching your brother and sit on your hands!”

It’s a happy fact that this blog contains hundreds of posts that concern themselves solely with the pleasures of traveling with children; I expect that before I’m done it will hold many more, including some about our last week here in Vermont when we all reunite and Teddy and I ride that bike together trying as hard as we can to keep up with Tommy who as always will be flying along ahead of us. After a week off I am confident that will once again be a dreamy prospect.

What are your Monday dreams? Please feel free to share them below. Questions? See About Monday Dreaming.

Oh spare me, Clark, I know your brand of family fun. Tomorrow you’ll probably kill the desk clerk, hold up a McDonalds, and drive us 1000 miles out of the way to see the world’s largest pile of mud! – Ellen Griswold, National Lampoon’s Vacation

So I know you’ve been waiting to hear about my road trip in that cool car from the Vacation movies. That’s right folks, the Wagon Queen herself, headlights and all. And you know what? It was a heck of a lot more fun than a pile of mud.

Of course that’s partly because HomeAway.com (proud owners of the car –and did ever a company own a more random thing? I’m not sure) didn’t stop with giving us a ride in the car. For three nights in June, they put me and Tommy up in several of the many vacation properties they rent online, the first of them in Sandbridge Beach, Virginia, south of the Virginia Beach boardwalk.

I wouldn’t say that Sandbridge was convenient to the Norfolk Airport, which we flew into (it took over an hour to get to our condo, although that was also because our driver got lost, one of several taxi fails on this trip) but I think there may be a reason for that. This was our view out the window of the condo:

Sadly we didn’t get to frolic on this lovely (and quiet) beach because it rained the one morning we were there. Despite the gloomy weather, Tommy did take a dip in one of the condominium’s gorgeous pools, which was surrounded by a huge patio full of large gas grills and comfortable chairs and tables. And when it really started raining we made the best of things (easy to do) hanging out in our condo and playing Uno on the balcony.

The distance from civilization is a clear asset here: I could see loading up a car with food (and if that car happened to be a huge 1983 station wagon, all the better), beer, and suitcases with bathing suits and little else in them and spending an entire vacation swimming, playing cards, and cooking meat outside. Or perhaps lounging around the living room.

But like the Griswold family, we couldn’t stay in one place – we had a mission to find family fun. Later that morning, after the clouds had burned off, John and Stephanie (known collectively as “The Truckies”) showed up with the car. Neither they or it disappointed. John’s first words to Tommy were “Dude! You’re a Phillies fan! I knew we’d get along,” thus cementing the kind of love and loyalty demonstrated only by 8-year-old boys and puppies. And Stephanie laughed at all of his jokes and was untiring in her willingness to do Mad Libs.

And the car. If you’re of a certain age, do you remember how wide cars used to be? I bet you don’t. Do you remember how springy the seats used to be? I bet you don’t. Do you remember that smell of oil and must and whatever happened to be rolling around under the seats and in the back? Close your eyes, and let me take you back to 1983. Even the radio seemed to channel the era, playing nothing but Journey and “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” (When it didn’t emit the most alarming high-pitched electronic scream I’ve ever had the, er, pleasure, of experiencing.)

The nice people at HomeAway had no particular agenda in Virginia Beach except to show Tommy a good time. I was too distracted by the fact that I was actually riding inside the Griswold Family Truckster to pay much attention as we rode down the main drag one block off the beach from the boardwalk, but that’s OK, because Tommy was keeping his eagle eyes open. When we parked the car and asked him what our agenda should be, his immediate and obvious response was “Eat sushi. Then play pirate mini-golf.”

And lo, perfectly serviceable sushi was to be found at Soya. Between the four of us we ate a more than healthy number of rolls including the Volcano – shaped as named. When we had depleted the city of Virginia Beach of a good portion of its tuna, salmon, and (I think) scallops – it was hard to tell in some of the rolls – we all turned to Tommy who knew exactly where a super pirate-y adventure was to be found.

So we said ahoy to this guy:

And I played a very hot and competitive 18 holes of mini golf with these scurvy dogs:

Come to think of it, I never did find out who won. John? You still have that scorecard?

And what comes after a long round of mini golf in the hot sun? Oh yeah, that’s right, ice cream with tons of rainbow sprinkles!

And a ride on the self-proclaimed “Biggest Inflatable Water Slide in the World.”

All of this was just about the most simple kind of slightly tacky and not-too-expensive family fun you can have at the beach of course. But the best part to me was actually free. It was spending the better part of the afternoon standing with Tommy in the waist-deep water facing down the biggest waves with grins on our faces, salt on our lips, and our hands clasped. Some day he will remember only that he got to ride in that crazy car. But I will remember the way his hand felt in mine as the water lifted our bodies. (And that I got to ride in the crazy car.)

The farmers market and concert we were supposed to attend that evening got rained out suddenly and ferociously, and the four of us ended up taking a very damp refuge in one of the many seafood restaurants along Virginia Beach’s main drag (honestly, it was not especially memorable and I didn’t bother to write the name down). I think we may have all smelled like the car a bit. Certainly we were already old friends: Tommy and John watched the Phillies play the Yankees and Stephanie and I chatted and then they took us home to our beautiful condo where I opened all the doors and windows and listened to the waves until I fell asleep.

And I hope you’ll read more about my trip in the Wagon Queen Family Truckster in these posts:

Colonial Williamsburg (and beyond) in the Truckster
Your top 5 questions about riding in the Truckster answered

Disclosure: Our entire trip, including giant slide rides and rainbow sprinkles on our ice cream, was paid for by HomeAway.

Yes, I realize that it’s Tuesday and even almost Wednesday in some parts of the world, but since I actually had this dream on Monday and just didn’t find time to record it, I’m going to give myself a pass.

This past weekend I was at a conference with many other travel bloggers. One of the things you realize pretty quickly when you get into a room full of people like that is how many different ways there are to travel, a diversity that’s of course reflected in the many different websites. There are the mature travelers, the solo travelers, and those who travel in pairs. There are the luxury-resort travelers, the spa travelers, and the twenty-dollar-a-day travelers. There are gear heads and hikers and cyclists. There are political travelers, environmental travelers, and foodie travelers, to say nothing of travelers like yours truly who are just trying to figure out how get as many places as possible with their kids in tow (and who may or may not be married to people who don’t like to camp. But that’s another post).

One of the things that really seized my imagination was all of the young faces I saw in the crowd, kids in their twenties who have just set out on their own. Their presence made me realize something I wanted to be true, but wasn’t sure of, namely that I have a deep hope in my heart that my children will take time to travel before they have commitments or mortgages or children themselves. I want them scruffy and sandaled, carrying backpacks, sleeping on friends’ floors, drinking beer and meeting new people wherever they go. I want them to miss trains, go for days without showers, and grow beards so that I don’t even recognize them. I want them to climb mountains and dive off of cliffs into the ocean. I want them to encounter the other and have the other encounter them, to explore many different foods, cultures, and landscapes. I want them to experience the limits brought on by fear and fatigue but also the absolute freedom of having no set agenda and no one to report to.

When I saw how happy these travelers looked, how friendly they were, how willing to engage with the world, it made me realize that even though I know I’ll worry, I want both my kids become nomads for at least a little while.

I won’t lie: Partly I want this for my kids because I never did it myself (and who’s to say I won’t join my children for part of their journey if they choose to take it?). But I also think I want it because I believe that the best way to learn how and why to help save the world is to see it in all its fragile beauty. And when I did an internal check it made me feel great to realize that I would be ready to embrace my children’s travel dreams, whatever they end up being. Because that is the kind of parent I want to be.

So what are your Monday, er I mean Tuesday, dreams? Please feel free to share them below. Questions? See About Monday Dreaming.

You might not know it from looking at my blog, but there’s been a lot going on around here lately. First there’s my guest post about Vermont at Momtrends. Then, there’s the launch of Best Family Travel Advice (have you stopped by to ask a question yet?). I’ve also been planning for our upcoming trip to England and today I’m heading off to New York City for the Travel Blog Exchange conference. So I guess it’s not surprising that I haven’t had time to share the tales of the two and half days we spent in the Homeaway Griswold Family Truckster. Until I have time to tell the full story next week I thought I’d do the next best thing and post a photo of Tommy and me stuck in the stocks in Colonial Williamsburg where we spent a hot and whirlwind few hours checking out wigs and oxen and moveable type.

This weekend I’ll be meeting, listening to, and learning from, some of the best travel bloggers out there. I’m looking forward to returning inspired and full if ideas to make The Mother of All Trips even better. And in addition to telling my Truckster tales, next week I’ll be revealing our full England itinerary and talking about some of the new traveling strategies I have in mind for this trip. Until then, hope you have a great weekend.

For Photo Friday at Delicious Baby (whom I will see this weekend – yay!).

This Monday is actually a day of realized dreams for me, as a project I’ve been working on behind the scenes for some time has finally come to fruition. I’m so pleased and proud to announce the launch of Best Family Travel Advice – the place online to get your family travel questions answered by parents who love both to travel and to share their knowledge with the world.

How does Best Family Travel Advice work? It’s simple really. You have a question about anything related to family travel – say how to baby-proof a hotel room, where to go out to eat with kids in Boston, or how to survive a family reunion. Simply visit the site and plug your question into the banner that’s at the top of every page. Questions will be reviewed by the team and will be answered in posts on the site (we’ll be sure to e-mail and let you know when the answer to your question is live).

So who will be answering your questions? That’s the best part! I’ve work with Amie O’Shaughnessy of Ciao Bambino, Michelle Duffy of Wandermom, and Jennifer Miner of The Vacation Gals – all of them wise and seasoned family travelers in their own right – to assemble a crack team of family travel bloggers. These are the real family travel experts who have been in the trenches and have tons of insight and information to share.

And while you’re at the site asking your question, take a look around to see some of the questions that the experts have already answered. From cruises to car trips, packing to Paris, we’ve already got some great information that will make traveling easier and more fun.

So here’s my Monday Dream: That everyone who reads this post will visit Best Family Travel Advice and ask some questions. And then, I hope they bookmark it, subscribe, and consider it their own insider source of family travel answers. Kind of like a good friend who knows all the best places to go and what to do when you get there. (Oh, and to really fulfill my dreams maybe you’ll follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.)

What are your Monday Dreams? Please feel free to share them below. Questions? See About Monday Dreaming.

1. Oil and old car, with a side of fries.
2. Those are lap belts.
3. That? Oh, it’s just a little rain leaking in.
4. Aunt Edna is around…somewhere.
5. The seats are surprisingly comfortable.

And here’s a bonus answer: The truckies are for Awesome with a capital A. John should write a book titled How to Talk to An Eight-Year-Old Boy and Stephanie is as nice as pie and willing to do Mad Libs. They took good care of me and Tommy in Virginia Beach and our day included sushi, mini-golf, and a giant inflatable slide. More to come later – I don’t seem to have much Internet access. Maybe I have returned to 1983? Is that Christie Brinkley passing us in a convertible?

And I hope you’ll read more about my trip in the Wagon Queen Family Truckster in these posts:

Wagon Family Queen Truckster stop one: Virginia Beach

Colonial Williamsburg (and beyond) in the Truckster

Disclosure: Our entire trip, including giant slide rides and rainbow sprinkles on our ice cream, is being paid for by HomeAway.

So tomorrow I turn 40. And I won’t lie – that feels like a big number to me. Don’t know why, but it does. Maybe it’s because I can actually remember when each of my parents turned 40. Or maybe it’s because I’m now officially more than twice the age of most of the students I see walking around our college town. I’m also old enough that I was already a teenager when National Lampoon’s Vacation was released in 1983. I actually don’t remember where I first saw it (certainly not in the theater, since I’m pretty sure the racy content would have made my mom forbid it – she was strict) but like everyone else I have always loved the movie in all its quotable and silly glory.

So when HomeAway.com contacted me and asked if I’d like to take part in their Great American Road Trip, I said yes. What is the Great American Road Trip you might ask? Well, it involves driving a reconstruction of the famous Griswold Family Truckster all over the United States, checking out various roadside attractions, and staying at different HomeAway rental properties along the way. In addition to the fun factor – I mean the Truckster! – this trip is a good fit because I often use online services like HomeAway and VRBO.com (which is now owned by HomeAway) to book vacation rentals when we travel. In fact we’ll be staying in a VRBO property in London this July.

I won’t actually be driving the car – HomeAway has hired some youngsters, aptly given the nickname “Truckies” to do that. (Learn more about them here and read about where they’ve been so far here. And yes, they are each about half my age. Not to keep harping on that or anything.) And in the tradition of the series of movies, the road trip has more of a rough outline than an exact agenda.

So at this point what I know for sure is that Tommy and I will be flying to Virginia Beach on my birthday and then making our way up to Washington, DC in the Truckster over the following several days. Where will we stop? I’m not sure, but when we do, there will be photo ops with the car, so stay tuned if you think you’d like to have your picture taken. I’ll be posting updates about our trip here and also on Twitter. And if you can’t make it to Virginia this week but would like to see the car in your neck of the woods this summer you can help decide the Truckster route. And check out this chance to win a $5000 family vacation.

So today I’m dreaming of moving into my 40s in a way that is completely unique, more than a little goofy, and hopefully designed to keep me young at heart. What about you? Please feel free to share your link below.

Photo courtesy of HomeAway.

Disclosure: Homeaway.com will be covering the costs of our trip – although I’m not sure yet exactly what they will be!

One of Teddy’s preschool classmates who heard about our upcoming trip to England loaned us an adorable book called Katie in London by James Mayhew. In it, one of the lions in Trafalgar Square (oh how I love those lions!) comes to life and takes Katie and her little brother Jack all around the city. They see all the sights you’d expect – Saint Paul’s, the Tower of London, the Globe Theatre, Buckingham Palace – and also take a ride on the London Eye.

So we read the book together a bunch of times and talked about the pictures and what Katie and Jack saw. It was generally agreed that the Tower Bridge would be a lot of fun to see and that like Katie and Jack and the lion we wanted to enjoy an ice cream in St. James’s Park. Then we asked Tommy and Teddy to choose what they’d most like to do while we’re in London. The verdict was unanimous: The Eye was by far the coolest thing and not to be missed.

Now, the Eye is not the type of thing I normally would go for. It’s a manufactured attraction with no particular history (although I was shocked to realize that of course it’s celebrating its tenth anniversary – remember when it was called the Millennium Wheel?). Also, it’s not cheap, although you can save money by booking tickets online and purchasing them for the entire family. It’s likely to have a long line, especially during the height of tourist season, which is when we’ll be there. And finally there’s the fact that the London skyline isn’t exactly one of the world’s greatest, hardly worth the trouble for a view of it. But I completely understand the appeal to the kids – what child in his or her right mind wouldn’t want to ride on the world’s tallest Ferris, er, observational wheel?

Also, since the boys are going to get their fill of churches, museums, and historic sites on this trip, I’d like to let them pick one attraction that’s all about pure frivolity. I’m thinking I’ll plan our visit to the Eye toward the end of our London trip. We went to the Eiffel Tower on our last day in Paris when the boys had a real sense of ownership of the city and it was really fun for them to pick out landmarks we had visited. Today I’m dreaming of their excitement and wonder as we rise high above Big Ben.

On another note, I’m also of dreaming that my planning for our England trip is done. Because frankly, I haven’t really started it yet and it’s weighing on my mind since we leave in 36 days. And typing that sentence just made me realize that’s in 5 weeks. Yikes! Time to get serious. Guess you’ll be seeing some travel planning posts coming up.

What are your Monday Dreams? Today is a holiday in the United States and if you’re anywhere near your computer I commend you and hope that you’ll share using the form below. Questions? See About Monday Dreaming.

We just got back from a very quick (as in less than 24-hours) visit to nearby Lancaster, PA and it’s got me in the summertime mood. A road tripping kind of mood.

Road trips for me mean loading up the car and setting off, often for weeks at a time. They mean trying out local diners and ice cream. They mean evenings full of “look-at-me’s!” in hotel swimming pools. They mean hours and hours of reading aloud and making up stories. They mean stickers, invisible pen books, and games of Twenty Questions. They mean having my seat kicked repeatedly. They mean seeing far-flung friends and family. They mean exploring new places. They mean unexpected detours. They mean lots of time together to talk and ask questions and bicker and just breathe the same air in the same small space.

I don’t actually have any serious road trips planned this summer other than our usual day-long drive to Vermont and back. But today I’m dreaming of that moment (I’ve called it “the driveway moment” before) when the car is packed, the kids are in it, and we’re off on a new adventure where we’ll count the miles and look at license plates and marvel as the scenery changes.

I’ve linked to lots of my road trip stories, but I wanted to draw your attention to the series I wrote last summer offering my top road trip tips (not to be brag, but I do think I know a thing or two):

• Eating on the road
• Be a little sneaky
• Music, music, music
• A detour can be your friend
• Don’t underestimate driving times

And if you’re looking for more travel tips, check out this opportunity to download some free travel books – and help donate money to spread clean drinking while you do it.

What do road trips mean to you? And what are your Monday Dreams? Please feel free to share them below. Questions? See About Monday Dreaming.

Before our recent trip to Los Angeles I was contacted by Smart Destinations and offered a chance to test drive their Go Cards, which offer free admission to 40 different attractions and museums. I was intrigued by the idea of making one purchase and then having free admission to a number of museums and attractions.

What these cards offer is a certain amount of flexibility. I know that they would make me likely to check a museum or attraction out, even if it’s just for an hour, because I wouldn’t be worried about “wasting” the admission fee. In situations where there are three or four things you’d like to see that charge admission, are close to each other, and don’t take a lot of time to experience, the cards can save you money. They can also work if you’ve got one day where you visit one very expensive day-long activity and then spend the next visiting a couple of attractions, although the savings may not be huge. For example, in Los Angeles, you could purchase 2-Day Go Cards for a family of four for $340. If you spent one day at LEGOLand and then the next day visiting the Los Angeles Zoo and the Autry National Center of The American West (which are across the street from each other in Griffith Park) and then made the relatively easy drive down to the Hollywood Museum, by my calculation you’d save about $30. Obviously, the more you manage to pack into each day, the more you save. But in a city like Los Angeles, which is really spread out, this can be difficult to do.

You might also lose money if you find that your children are too tired or overwhelmed to take in more than one thing. We used our Go Cards to get into the Aquarium of the Pacific. I had thought that we’d also see the Queen Mary and maybe take a Long Beach Harbor Cruise – the cards offered admission to both. But the boys were so tired that we ended up having lunch, walking around the Long Beach waterfront, and calling it a day. If we had purchased the cards, we would have spent $220 just to go to the aquarium. And the tally for the three things I wanted to do was only $183, so the card would only have made sense if we’d also used it to perhaps do something that evening like visit the Santa Monica Pier where we could have ridden the rides at Pacific Park for free. On a different day we might have been able to do all of these things, but even if the kids weren’t exhausted it still would have been a lot to pack in.

For this reason I think that single-day cards don’t make sense for families with very young children (whose admission to museums and attractions may be free anyway) or on trips where jet lag is likely to be a big factor.

You’ll also want to make sure that the attractions you want to see are included with the Go Card; the Smart Destinations website makes this clear; the cards themselves also come with a booklet listing the included attractions. Obviously they are only a value if they get you into the things you want to do anyway. And if you’re not the type of person to do advance planning, they may not be the best investment for you, as my experience shows I think the best way to use them efficiently is to know at least roughly what you will do each day.

With all that said, I will definitely take a look at these cards when I’m planning future trips because now that the boys are getting older we do tend to fit more things into a day than in the past. However, I will be careful to compare prices and make a plan of what I realistically think we can see and do before I make a purchase. Smart Destinations sells cards in 14 locations in the United States and Canada; in some cities (New York and Boston included) they offer what they call an Explorer Pass. Unlike the Go Cards, which are good for admission to dozens of attractions but are limited to a certain time period, Explorer Passes let you purchase admission for anywhere from 3 to 10 specific attractions or museums and gives you 30 full days to see them – you can even customize which ones. If you’ve got three things you know you want to do (for example, in Boston we’d definitely do the Fenway Park Tour, the Museum of Science, and the New England Aquarium), the Explorer Passs could offer both savings and flexibility in terms of when you did what.

Looking for more travel planning tips? Check out this opportunity to download some free travel books – and help donate money to spread clean drinking while you do it. I’d also like to remind you that this week I’m offering a chance for one lucky reader to win a family vacation package in San Antonio, Texas. It’s super easy to enter, I promise. See this post for details.

Smart Destinations provided each member of my family with one 1-Day Go Los Angeles Card, with a combined value of $220.