So in case you hadn’t noticed, because perhaps it snuck up on you, next week begins the holiday travel season. My first-born (who is now on the downward slope of nine heading for ten so fast it makes my head spin) was half a year old for his first Thanksgiving and Christmas. At that time, blogs were in their infancy and I also hadn’t quite reached the stage in my relationship with the Interwebs that I automatically sought parenting information there. Which is to say that I never once looked up anything online about traveling with small children at the holidays. Some of this may have been hubris because we had taken a six-week road trip with Tommy during the preceding summer and I thought I knew it all. Some of it may have just been willful ignorance. And some of it may have been blinding fatigue.

In any event, I don’t remember seeking advice about planning or packing or gear or any of that – we just piled things into the car and went. Looking back now I realize that we had enough with us to amuse, clothe, and feed a flotilla of babies. My methodology was less “what essentials should I bring?” but “why shouldn’t I bring diapers for a month? Give me one good reason!”

I do wonder now at our fearlessness and energy. For Thanksgiving that year, we drove 9 hours each way to and from Vermont. And this was only a warm-up for Christmas, when we drove (in our small, smelly, stick-shift Saturn sedan) from Delaware to Wisconsin and back again. If you’re counting, that’s about 14 hours each way, probably more like 17 if you add in stops for nursing and diaper changes and so forth. My favorite part about this latter journey is that Matt and I decided there was simple no way we could go for ten days without Tommy’s exersaucer, which he loved to play in. So we actually borrowed a box to strap to the top of the car for the sole purpose of carrying this unwieldy piece of equipment. Could we have borrowed one in Wisconsin? Purchased one and donated it to a church for less than we paid in extra gas? Simply done without for that vacation? I’ll never know the answers to these questions, but I do know that the poor handling of the car gave us something to bicker and complain about for the duration of the drive.

It’s obvious that I didn’t need any travel advice!

Now that my children are older, it is in many ways much easier to travel with them. They are both used to long car trips (as I think I’ve made clear here, we started them young) and complain little even during marathon sessions on the New Jersey Turnpike when things have slowed to a crawl. They don’t require nearly as much special gear – huge car seats have been replaced with small boosters, there are no bottles or jars of baby food to think about, and diapers are of course a thing of the long-ago past. And (Hallelujah!) they can both read to themselves.

But if the physical side of family holiday travel is easier, the emotional side is less so. Like me, the boys now have memories and expectations. They want things to be the same from year to year – even when that is not possible. And they now pick up on the inevitable tensions that arise when lots of family members who don’t share the same opinions about much of anything are under one roof for days at a time. I love our holiday trips. But the shedding of baby gear has not necessarily meant that they any less complicated.

In any event, I’m grateful to all of those wonderful bloggers out there now telling parents how best to travel with their children at the holidays. There are so many amazing and practical tips that truly will make your life easier! But I still stay that the most essential pieces of holiday travel advice I have to offer those of you with little ones are these: Fear Not and Live In The Moment.

For ultimately, no matter what you forget, or how runny your child’s nose is, or whether or not naps get missed, or even if you have to listen to hours of yelling in the car, you will inevitably be glad that you went and you will remember and by grateful for the good and simple things. As I page through the photos of Tommy’s first holiday season and see him pictured with loved ones, especially those who are no longer with us, I know that this is true. And there is part of me that longs for that time, when I indulged in hours of worry about his sleep schedule and the ability to find the right brand of organic baby food, when wrapping paper was a toy, and when the holidays were distilled into the simple essence of a baby’s smile.

So we’re all in the thick of it now, preparing for the holidays. Whatever and however you and your family celebrate, you are likely headed for some vacation from school and work next week, an ideal time for some fun family outings. Better still, with all of the holiday doings, there are likely to be loads of fun options in your community. The only problem of course is that everyone else has the same idea, which can lead to that holiday trifecta of crowds, chaos, and crabbiness.

But before you say Bah Humbug and decide to spend the week between Christmas and New Years holed up at home watching The Sound of Music on TV, let’s take a look at what you can create memorable and fun times for your family. Here are some tips for making the most of your holiday outings with children:

• I’m all for spontaneity – just not during the holiday season. If you can, buy tickets in advance. Nothing can deflate an outing more quickly than arriving at the promised location only to find that you have to stand in line for an hour. And are you planning a meal in a nearby restaurant? Make reservations.
• Call ahead and find out what the busiest times are likely to be so you can avoid them. In my experience arriving as early as possible is the way to miss the crowds (ten minutes before opening is optimal).



• Dress for the occasion. Those Christmas outfits might be cute and will look great in photos but you’re unlikely to get any good pictures of your child if he or she is uncomfortable. Is it cold? Layers are a key to success in any outing where you might be going from outside to inside and back again. And it never hurts to pack an extra hat and pair of gloves.
• Don’t try to do too much. Sure you could visit the toy museum, the decorative candy cane exhibit, and the local light display in the same afternoon, but if all are crowded you’re likely to end up losing your holiday cheer.

  

• Beware of redundancy. Even if your child loves trains, Christmas trees, and Santa, there are probably only so many decorations and model layouts that he or she will look at happily. In particular, think carefully about museums that wouldn’t interest your child ordinarily – the simple addition of some Christmas trees may or may not change young minds.
• Don’t forget the joys of simplicity. A walk to look at some decorated windows and Christmas trees followed by a special treat (do you remember how good hot chocolate tastes when it is topped with whipped cream?) can be just as much fun as an outing to a museum followed by a restaurant meal – and has the added benefit of being easy to schedule and inexpensive. Add even more fun to your walk by making it a scavenger hunt for Santas, angels, elves, and the like.

And the single most important tip for making holiday magic with your kids? Relax and enjoy yourself. Smile when your children smile. And do this in spite of delays, stormy weather, crowds, and whatever else the holiday gods may throw your way. You won’t regret it, I promise.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that an American woman in possession of the good fortune to live in Australia must be in want of hyperbolic exclamations over the native animal life. (Hey, if I’m going to crib, I’m going to crib from the best.)  But in all seriousness, I’ve lived here for four years and still can’t get over how crazy native Australian animals are. And I’m not even talking the biped types. Kangaroos. They really exist in the wild and everything. And don’t get me started on platypuses. Or my personal favorite in the marsupial family, the echidna, which looks like a really adorable porcupine with a platypus snout.

Right. There is a point to all of this, besides establishing that Australian native life has the ability to reduce my prose output to baby-talk gibberish. In October of 2009, we took our first expedition as a family of four, spending a week in South Australia. After a relatively brief couple of days in Adelaide, the capital city, we drove on down to Kangaroo Island, a place where rare species outnumber humans (there are only 4,400 permanent residents on the nearly 100-mile landmass).

Traveling with young children can be a delicate balance, or at least it is for our family. We typically thrive in places that are outdoorsy enough to accommodate our free-range older daughter, Jessica (who was four at the time of this trip) but settled enough to provide food and accommodation that’s above basic yet not so swanky that they blanch at the sight of a rough and tumble foursome completed by baby Lily (then six months). Kangaroo Island fit that description perfectly.

We stayed in the largest town of  Kingscote, about an hour’s drive from the ferry landing terminal at Penneshaw. Because of the girls, we chose two hotels with serviced apartments, which proved to be a mixed bag. One apartment was so execrable as to defy description, and we ended up fleeing at around 10 p.m. for a hotel room. Happily the other, in the Acacia Apartments, was the total opposite, and it’s where we stayed for the majority of our visit. No gratuities were exchanged for this comment – I just highly recommend the place!

Although Australia is a land dominated by summer, it does extend far enough south such that flocks of Little Penguins make their appearance on the shores of the southeastern states. So on our first day on Kangaroo Island, we took a nighttime guided tour of the penguin nesting grounds on the shores of Penneshaw. As we were oohing and aahing over the unbelievably adorable sight of tiny penguins waddling around the rocky beaches and honking and squeaking as they settled in for the night, Jessica told us “And you know what the penguins are saying? What a cute human exhibit on the wooden benches. And the little blonde girl humans are sooooooooo adorable.”

Of course, viewing animals is no match for getting up close and personal with them, which we did at the Pardana Wildlife Park. A privately owned animal park run by a husband and wife team, the Pardana Wildlife Park features, among other things, a small paddock where you can feed Kangaroo Island kangaroos (hey, when in Rome, right?). The kangaroos on the island are on the smaller side – they grow about waist-height and this particular bunch were placid, probably from the regular feeding as much from the sunny, warm weather. At this time, I have a warm, personal empathy for marsupials, being as how I wear the younger heiress in a sling for convenience and ease of transport. I swear some of the females in the bunch gave me the “you too?” look.

Other animal-related highlights to be found on Kangaroo Island:

• Daily pelican feedings off the docks at Kingscote. Every day around sunset, a local resident comes out and feeds pelicans. You can gather around and get pretty much up close and personal with the birds, which are both a.) larger than I expected and b.) comical. The guy doing the feeding buys out of his own pocket and canvasses the crowd for a $5 per person payment; for the entertainment you get and the man’s knowledge of the pelican breed and this particular flock, it’s not bad value.
• Seal Bay Conservation Park. A pristine beach so lovely it’ll make your throat ache, and also home to herds of seals. You can either go for a tour directly on the beach with a guide, or take a walk down a boardwalk that gets you within a couple hundred yards of the creatures. We opted for the boardwalk because the beach tour lasted an hour and once you start, obviously, you can’t stop the tour; that kind of stricture can be dicey with a young family.

This trip was our first as a family of four, and much to my relief Lily follows in her older sister’s footsteps as an eager and mostly flexible traveler. Having said that, I really don’t think you can find an easier destination to find delight, but either way, it was a perfect first vacation as a foursome.

Rachel Alembakis is an expat American living in Melbourne with her husband and two daughters. She’s not sure whether she’s a cautionary or celebratory tale about what happens when you go to a bar and meet an Australian man.

The other day I was sorting through some old papers of my mother’s and I found this picture taken for my very first passport when I was not quite nine years old. I don’t remember having it taken and was surprised to see that I’m not wearing my glasses – perhaps the thinking was that my face needed to be visible? I love how expectant I look in this picture, ready for what lay ahead. I no longer have the passport itself, which bore only two stamps – Italy and the United States. It was to be over ten years before I took a foreign trip again, as a junior in college. But this little girl looks to me like she’s ready for anything.

It’s possible that this photo is a reject and that the one in my actual passport was different. If you’ve ever taken a very young child to have their passport photos taken, you know it can be a tricky business. Their heads are small and it can be hard to get positioned properly so that the powers that be will accept them. And of course even the most beautiful child can be turned into a washed-out thug by the lighting and the screen they are sitting in front of. (See this post if you don’t believe me.)

I like to pull out all our passports occasionally and look at the stamps in them, fingering the visa that let me get into India, remembering that early morning in Heathrow when a kind agent saw baby Tommy and let us move to the front of a monstrous line and where the young man who imprinted our three little blue books said a cheerful “alright then!” releasing us to the embrace of a black cab and London rush hour traffic. After our trip to England this summer I’ll have to get mine renewed, and even though I’ve got no immediate plans to travel overseas I’m going to do so right away.

Even when I have no foreign travel planned, I will always have valid passports for everyone in my family. Because to me a valid passport is the heart of all travel dreams, representing possibility, adventure, and the unknown. On a gray, cold March morning I love knowing that if I wanted to I could pick up the boys from school, drive forty minutes to the airport, and fly us to Aix or Capri or Buenos Aires or Bali. I know we won’t be eating sushi under the cherry blossoms in Kyoto this spring, but I love knowing that we could should the opportunity present itself.

What are your Monday dreams? Please feel free to share a link to your own inspiration below, making sure you link directly to your post, not your site’s homepage and that you link back to this post. Questions? See About Monday Dreaming.

Like any website worth its salt these days, they also have a blog, and here you’ll find the KidsMobile, which “stops” every week in a different city offering lists and tips from parent bloggers who’ve been there, done that, and likely written about it. This week the city is Philadelphia, and I was lucky enough to join with some other great writers to share my insider suggestions. So without further ado, here’s the full KidsMobile post. If you’re looking for great things to do in Philly with your family, look no further than these lists!

Trekaroo families have voted and this is where the cards fell for 2009:

Top Activities for Kids in Philadelphia – voted by parents

Best Kid-friendly Hotels in Philadelphia – voted by parents

Some of our star Philadelphia families are some fun-loving mom bloggers and they’ve assembled their list of recommendations that no visiting or local families should miss.

Mara brings you her list of Off the Beaten Path Kid Activities in Philadelphia. This mom got bit by the travel bug early in life and has not stopped traveling even after having two boys, now 4 and 7. In fact, when their eldest was just one, they visited 6 states, 3 countries and 2 continents. Read about their family’s adventures and admire her wonderful photos on Mother of all Trips

Lynn, a Philly mom of a tween and a teen, knows exactly where to head to keep them engaged and excited. Here’s her family’s list of favorite Teen-friendly Activities in Philadelphia. Lynn is the mom behind For Love Or Funny where she keeps a light-hearted view of life as a parent. Amidst her humor are some gems of wisdom.

Heading to Philly with young kids? Melissa is your go to mom with her list of Top 10 Things to Do in Philly with Young Kids. Melissa is the voice behind Girlymama where she brings us the inside scoop about products that young moms would be interested in. From shoes to food to places to visit, Girlymama will tell you what she thinks and give you opportunities to win some trendy fashion and gear.

Linda has a wonderful guide for visiting Historic Philadelphia by foot with Kids. This is a mom extraordinaire who has traveled through big and small towns all the country with her 4 kids. If you need advice about how to have a lifestyle of travel with a large family, she’s your go-to gal. Follow her adventures on her fantastic blog: Travels With Children

Amie O’Shaughnessy of Ciao Bambino brings us some Phildelphia: 5 Kids-friendly Activities. Ciao Bambino is a one of Trekaroo’s favorite partners because we share a common passion – inspiring families to travel. Ciao Bambino provides vetted reviews of the best accommodations when traveling with children of all ages around the world.

Other Philadelphia Resources:

• 135 Activities for Kids Around Philadelphia
• Kid-friendly Hotels in Philadelphia
• Best Attractions for Kids Who Love Trains in Pennsylvania

Next stop, the city where the First Family resides – Washington DC.

The Trekaroo KidsMobile is a blog carnival with a twist. It’s designed to provide a unique opportunity for mom and dad bloggers to be featured on Trekaroo while

1) expressing their unique point of view

2) getting a web of link exchanges.

Join us for one of our next stopovers.

I love this post because to me it reflects the essence of what traveling with children teaches you about patience, expectations, and yes, even your own dreams for what a trip will be. Certainly it is one of my dreams to see the Great Barrier Reef before it vanishes – perhaps if I’m lucky I’ll get to do it in Rachel’s (and her daughters’) very good company.

It’s been almost exactly a year since we went to far North Queensland, on the northeastern coast of Australia, for a holiday. We went for many reasons – a trip to balmy tropical climes, and a celebration of a momentous piece of news for us – I was pregnant with our second child, our daughter Lily, who is now nearly five months old.

I’ll say from the outset that Cairns and its environs – our home-away-from-home for the week we were there – are a touring family’s paradise. Australians are good travelers, and they also make very professional hosts in return. Infrastructure is geared for making people of all ages happy. No town is too small for a park with picnic benches and coin-operated gas-barbeques, and most places you book are more than willing and able to welcome even the most energetic children.

On this special trip, we decided to splurge on our accommodation and ended up in Palm Cove, an upscale resort town about 20 minutes outside of Cairns’ airport. We went for a serviced apartment at the Angsana Hotel; the photo above was taken from our room there. Suffice it to say that it was luxe (three pools! Free family cocktail hour!) without getting into a full laundry list of how and why it differed from the seven or so years of backpacking travel experience my husband and I had before having children.

North Queensland is probably most famous for the Great Barrier Reef, that archipelago of coral reefs so beautiful as to make you think you were dreaming. I’d never seen it before, and, if climate change experts are correct, there may not be much time left to see it. Due to warming oceans and increasingly acid waters, the reefs are dying and may be bleached out boneyards by the middle of the century. Selah.

In planning this trip to Nirvana-with-an-Aussie-accent, we had naturally assumed that we would take a cruise to the Great Barrier Reef and indulge in some snorkeling. It was a reasonable presumption – we all love swimming; we also tried snorkeling in our local pool just to familiarize the then-three-year-old Jessica with how the tube works, and she took to it, well, yes, like a fish to water. And she’s healthily obsessed with Finding Nemo. It should have been a recipe for success.

There’s just one detail I must mention: my family lives in Melbourne, the least-beach-y capital city in Australia. Melbourne is many things – fashion and food, culture and the Melbourne Cup (the country’s equivalent of the Kentucky Derby) but it is not – repeat not – an iconic beach-going city. We live in the northern suburbs as well. As a result, we don’t spend much time in the ocean. This small fact has critical implications to this adventure.

There are a plethora of possibilities if you want to snorkel or dive the Great Barrier Reef – full-day, half-day, various destinations, various packages. My gut instinct was that a half-day expedition was going to be enough, a supposition confirmed by the very helpful concierge at our hotel, who told us that visitors with young children usually found a half-day package sufficient. We opted for the Big Cat Green Island Cruise, which is a 45-minute voyage from Cairns’ reef terminal.

I’d like to tell you about the beauty of Zee Deep, replete with Jacques Cousteau accent and prose. I’d love to tell you that our daughter became an adept snorkeler and swam around the reefs with skill, joy and acumen. But I can’t. Because once we stepped off the boat and onto the beach, masks, snorkels, flippers in hand, my daughter waded up to her knees, braced herself as the warm and gentle waves lapped up over her stomach, looked at the horizon, turned back to me and said, levelly:

“Mummy, I’m not gonna do it. This pool is far too big.”

So Jess and I sat on the shore and let the waves lap our feet. She used her flippers to dig a hole and build a castle, decorated with shells and twigs. My husband started out, hoping that if he went out, Jess would be inspired to follow. Ten minutes later, he came back, reporting that he’d seen a nurse shark right under his feet.

Jess looked up from building her castle and said “There’s definitely no way I’m swimming in that pool.”

Who’s going to argue with that? So in the end, we went on the semi-submersible boat and saw Nemo and his friends from behind a thick screen of glass. And it was beautiful. Magical. I had tears in my eyes in mingled awe and misery, thinking that this precious ecosystem may not exist when Jess is old enough to bring her children here. Jessica squealed with delight, and proceeded to sleep through the second half of the tour. It was enough, and it was perfect.

Travel Tips for Cairns:

Cairns is a city that has put a lot of thought into how to best attract and please all sorts of travelers. For the outdoors-loving family, the parks are a.) free and b.) not to be missed. Two in particular were a real hit: Muddy’s Playground and the Esplanade Lagoon, an artificial beach with salt water about 2 feet deep, overlooking the ocean. Being mindful of the dangers of too much sun exposure, both of these parks feature generous shading, park benches and tables. I think we visited the playgrounds on three separate days.

Rachel Alembakis is an expat American living in Melbourne with her husband and two daughters. She’s not sure whether she’s a cautionary or celebratory tale about what happens when you go to a bar and meet an Australian man.

Monday Dreaming note: I’ve decided this week not to use Mr. Linky, because I haven’t been very happy with how it looks or works. If you’d like to share your Monday Dream, please leave a comment about it below; if it’s the most recent post on your blog and you enter the url, a link to it will automatically appear with your comment. Or you can manually include a link in the comment itself. I’m going to explore other options for a linking widget for future weeks. Questions? See About Monday Dreaming.

This morning the garbage man will pick up a dented, green Chicco umbrella stroller with a broken footrest. It’s hard to open and even harder to close and for this reason we are not giving it away but are discarding it.

I bought this stroller in May of 2003 as we were preparing to leave on our 13-month journey with baby Tommy. I think I paid 38 dollars for it. I was looking for something portable and light, yet also sturdy; a stroller that would serve us well in both the city and the country and would fold up easily. It fit the bill on all counts.

Since its purchase the stroller had been to around the country and across the Atlantic Ocean, to a list of destinations that includes Boston, New Haven, London, Rome, Florence, Madison, Kansas City, Austin, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Burlington, Paris, Philadelphia, Washington, Manhattan, Baltimore and Chicago.

The stroller has been through airport security dozens of times; has traveled down the longest escalator in Europe at the Angel, Islington Tube stop; has ridden double-decker buses and trains; and has climbed to the Piazzale Michelangelo. It has served as crib and highchair when duty called and it has carried backpacks and coats when no one wanted to ride in it.

It has seen the Tower Bridge,

The Boboli Gardens,

Venice Beach,

and the Îsle Saint-Louis.

But despite all the walking we knew we’d do in New York, we didn’t bring the stroller with us over Labor Day weekend. We really didn’t need it, you see. For one thing, as I think you can tell from these pictures my kids were often more interested in pushing it than riding in it. And for another, I’m a believer that as soon as one is able, it’s best to experience and negotiate the world with one’s own two feet. We have thus become officially a family that travels without a stroller. This feels like a major milestone and is for the most part one that I celebrate.

But this Monday I’m also dreaming of the challenge – and joy – of traveling with my babies. Of negotiating their constant needs in new environments. Of feeling a sense of accomplishment because they actually saw what I wanted them to see and had a nap. Of climbing on the bus and folding up that stroller with one hand while handing a snack to a little one with the other. It was worth every minute and then some, although I’m not sure I always knew it at the time. I know the stroller would back me up, stained and broken though it may be.

What is your Monday dream? Please feel free to share a link below. Questions? See About Monday Dreaming.

This post talks about the challenge of showing someone around the city you live in when you also happen to have small children. I hope you enjoy.

Being the tour guide, not the tourist

I presume myself to be a good traveller, but I’m never sure that I’ve made the leap into being a good tour guide. Having lived in Paris, London and now Melbourne, Australia in the past decade, I’ve had my fair share of visitors, and assuming the mantle of ambassador and minister of culture has always sat uneasily as I have lingering doubts that I’ve really shown guests a good time.

This anxiety that I haven’t succeeded in showing off a home city to its fullest extent (there has to be a German word for this) has only intensified since my first daughter arrived four years ago. Whereas before, I could open up a Lonely Planet, mix in some personal destination favorites and put on a reasonably good show (and, let’s face it, if you can’t conduct people around London or Paris, there’s a real problem), I have the distinct suspicion I’m not exhibiting Melbourne to textbook level. It’s a lower-key city than Sydney, which will absolutely poleaxe you with unbelievable views from just about anywhere in the Harbour. But Melbourne is music venues and fashion, cafes and restaurants, and is the sporting capital of the country (God help you if you don’t have a “footy” team during the Australian Rules Football season; your conversational outlets have just halved). It’s big/small city that I’ve grown to love, and I want to do right by the old girl when people come calling.

When my sister booked a trip that recently ended, I wondered what – and more importantly how – I was going to show her. If you’re wondering what I mean by how, the ostensible reason for her visit is the birth of our second daughter, who is now 3 months old. She’s portable, but I’m a bit whacked out on less than my full measure of sleep and I don’t think I’m up to my Letita Baldrige best. Nevertheless, c’mon – if you’re going to travel 10,000 miles over 24 hours and lose a day in the process, you don’t want to be stuck in the house, adorable niece or no.

So this was my mental soundtrack for at least the two weeks running up to my sister’s visit:

Waddarewegonnado? Waddarewegonnado? I haven’t been out for a big night on the town since last July, just before confirming that I was pregnant. My older daughter is a good sport for travelling, but will she go to multiple museums? Will I let my sister down?

This mini-angst-crescendo was interrupted about 24 hours before the big arrival by my older daughter, who came up to me bedecked in her nightgown and clutching her toothbrush, and asked, with the gravitas worthy of Walter Cronkite, “Can we please give Auntie Debbie a tour of my crèche? I want to show her my classroom. It’s important.” It was as if she’d switched on a light when I realized that the tour we were going to give may not be featured in a Condé Nast spread, but it was a tour and it was authentically Melbourne.

So “my” Melbourne begins local, with a visit to Ceres, an environmental/educational park with an awesome cafe. Ceres is a localvore’s nirvana – they grow the produce used in the cafe and sell some at their twice weekly markets. I love it because it’s less than a block away from home and the cafe is next to the play area, and they have a scrumptious chai latte. My daughter loves it because she can climb trees and have a babyccino with a homemade chocolate frog.

Like the 24 bus line in Paris, which travels past the Latin Quarter, Notre Dame, and the Louvre all for the price of a normal ticket, or London’s 341 bus line, the 96 tram line here in Melbourne takes you from my doorstep (practically) through the heart of the city and out to St. Kilda Beach, on the bay, neatly bisecting the city’s inner suburbs from north to south. On the way through, you stop by the state parliament building, the Exhibition Building, and go through the central business district and the mix of Victorian, Federalist, Art Deco and modern buildings on Bourke Street. All for about AU$4, and you get the fun of eavesdropping on normal conversation on the way. My tram line.

We did fit in a visit to the National Gallery of Victoria, which had a special exhibition on Salvador Dali. I’d wondered how Surrealism and 4-year-olds mixed, and I’m still not sure; the older daughter was more intent on the kid’s area and the water wall on the outside, and the baby slept in our essential touring equipment – my sling. We also stopped by the Shrine of Remembrance, built originally to honor the fallen in World War I. But we spent far more time in parks around the city that have entered our personal pantheon with family names – The Park with the Maze, the New Park, the Park That We Visit When Mummy’s Running, the Park with the Butterfly Statue, the Park by the Beach, and the Park Where I Had to Use the Toilet but Nearly Couldn’t Find One.

While we didn’t sample Melbourne’s gustatory highlights in the fine dining sphere, we did walk to our local gelato store, GeloBar (hey, even in winter, we’re ice cream people), which is, apparently, rated by critics as one of the top spots for gelato. We kept postponing a trip to the open air Queen Victoria Market, then ran out of time after a leisurely last morning in that included a leisurely feed by the baby, but we went to the Preston Market, where I usually do all our shopping and which I personally believe you can get as many goodies as the Queen Vic, but usually at about half the price.

And yes, Auntie Debbie did get a tour of my older daughter’s crèche – complete with introductions to all teachers and the gift of a complementary work of art from her mixed media collection.

The moral of the story? Something along the lines of, wherever you go, there you are. Wherever you visit me, there I am and there is my city. If you’re lucky, my daughter will draw you a personalized map. Hope you like ice cream, parks and walking.

Rachel Alembakis is an expat American living in Melbourne with her husband and two daughters. She’s not sure whether she’s a cautionary or celebratory tale about what happens when you go to a bar and meet an Australian man.

A bit of background: My children love Scooby Doo with a passion that exceeds all reason. Thanks to YouTube, they actually know the names of all the classic episodes and will compare the various merits of “The Harum Scarum Sanitarium” and “A Highland Fling With a Monstrous Thing.”

As you will see, my husband is quite good at making up what we call “Scooby Stories” to pass the time. The name of this particular one (inspired of course by our trip) was “Scooby Doo and the Haunted Rest Area.” I think he does a very good Shaggy, don’t you?

Amie lives in Oakland, CA with her husband and 6-year-old son. You can also find her on Twitter: @CiaoBambino.

Researching where to stay with kids in Europe is a daunting task. I understand this issue first-hand—my frustration around finding reliable family-friendly accommodations in Europe is what inspired me to launch Ciao Bambino when my son was a baby.

Initially, Ciao Bambino offered trip planning consulting services to families traveling to Italy and France with young children. The key value we provided to our clients was the fact that we personally scouted all of what we recommended. This process was valuable because not only did we explore and learn about the wide variety of accommodation categories available, but we also experienced what works for different families … knowing that what works well for some may not work well for others and so on.

Where you will be spending time determines the variety of options that will be available and what you can expect in terms of family-friendly amenities.

Cities

In many European cities finding a hotel that is kid-friendly is particularly challenging because the hotel rooms in historical city centers are smaller. As a consequence, our standard “two double beds” in a single room is difficult to find. This means that even if you want to stay the same room with your kids—you may not be able to find one that easily accommodations four or more people without getting a suite or connecting rooms. Unfortunately, for budget-conscious travelers (pretty much everyone right now), the fact that you need a suite or two rooms drives up pricing.

The trick is to find a property with room configurations that works at a viable price point for your budget.

Apartments can be a good option, but there are some distinct downsides:

1) Many apartments have longer stay requirements (4 or more days).

2) It’s harder to verify quality with a standalone apartment vs. a hotel-type property where you can easily research user reviews. When we planned trips for families, the only consistent nightmares were with apartment rentals.

3) Most stand-alone apartments do not have a concierge service and/or someone that can help you get around, make reservations etc. In a foreign city where you don’t speak the language, this can be very useful.

Equally important for families (particularly those with young children) is location. Walking is tightly integrated in day-to-day life in Europe and it’s fun to walk to restaurants and sights, not to mention taxis are expensive and public transportation is crowded.

In larger cities, it is impossible to be walking distance from every appealing tourist attraction, but you can opt for something that is near at least a few of them and appealing restaurants/shops.

Kid-focused amenities like arrival gifts in cities are nice, but at the end of the day these treats are not what make a property the best option for a given stay (noting that the presence of arrival gifts is a good indicator that kids are genuinely welcome).

The reality is that in a city, you won’t be spending much time in your room. A pool can be a nice perk for sightseeing breaks, although typical properties that have pools in cities are the high-end options and they will be much more expensive.

If you have young children and want to skip bringing a pack-and-play with you, it’s essential that you confirm your hotel can provide one at the time of reservation. This is particularly important for rentals. I get weekly emails from families that have booked an apartment and realize after the fact that the owner cannot provide a crib.

There is an increasing number of apart-hotel type properties in European cities where you have apartment amenities (kitchen and living space) combined with hotel services (housekeeping and a concierge). These properties are ideal for families!

Countryside

Particularly from March-October, the countryside is fabulous venue for families with room for kids to roam. Open space and amenities like swimming pools make it easy to combine sports and playtime with sightseeing—the optimal combination to keep kids happy and engaged. Given that most European families have 5-6 weeks of holiday per year, it’s easy to find “self-catering” accommodations in the countryside.

The planning challenge here is differentiating between all the options to ensure you find the desired quality level in a location that makes it easy to do day trips.

For me, finding a countryside home-base with appealing outdoor spaces for relaxing is essential. I’m pickier than most people about this—I like some kind of flat grass, pristine views, and comfortable seating. Also, there is a wide spectrum of amenities at countryside resorts. Some are more independent in spirit with only a swimming pool as the common space, and others have full facilities with kids clubs, fitness rooms, spas, restaurants etc.

The key is to figure out an overall plan for how you want to spend your days to determine if more extensive amenities are important. Ciao Bambino’s property guide lets users search on kids clubs and pools, in addition to our age-appropriate rating—it’s easy to create a short list of options.

There are so many fantastic places to experience with kids in Europe. It’s no secret that I have an Italy bias—I love the culture, food, and scenery for families. In addition, the extensive tourist infrastructure in places like Tuscany make travel comfortable and easy with kids.

I’ve helped hundreds of families with children of all ages visit Italy and I have to say that there was not one client that returned and wouldn’t do it all over again in a heartbeat. Sure there are travel war stories but the pleasure far outweighs any pain!