“Can my three-year-old and my mother-in-law truly enjoy the same island at the same time?” That was the question a client asked me last spring, after spending weeks having no idea how to make the days work for everyone. It is the question at the heart of nearly every family vacation in Maui itinerary I […]

Every parent who types “is the French Quarter safe for kids” into a search bar at midnight is really asking something bigger: Can this trip be wild enough to feel like a real adventure and still safe enough that she can relax. After twenty years of building family vacation in New Orleans itineraries that families […]

Every guidebook you have skimmed has hinted, gently or not so gently, that the Galapagos is not really built for children. Yet, every one of them is wrong. Galapagos with kids is not a compromise trip. It might be the best one your family ever takes. I once watched a six-year-old freeze mid step, grinning […]

The question always arrives the same way, usually a few minutes into our very first phone call. A mom lowers her voice like she is about to confess something and asks me, what are the best hikes on the Big Island of Hawaii. After all, she already knows her family cannot survive a whole week […]

You can spend eleven months planning a family trip and still lie awake the night before, wondering if you have made a mistake. That is the strange, wonderful truth of all trips, including a Galapagos family vacation. A Galapagos trip is one of the most researched trips a parent will ever book. And it is […]

Your eight-year-old will not stop asking if a ghost is real, and you are going to love that you cannot give her a straight answer. That is the whole draw of haunted towns in the south. History here does not sit quietly behind velvet ropes. It leans over your shoulder on a dark street. It […]

Your daughter has her nose pressed to the cabin window before her shoes are even on, watching a medieval town square drift past like something out of a snow globe. Plus, you unpacked your suitcase and are happy you won’t need to do it again during your trip. That is the first morning of a […]

Most people assume the desert closes for the season the moment the temperature drops. That assumption is exactly why the smartest travelers have the whole region to themselves every winter. A southwest winter vacation is not a consolation prize for missing summer. It might be the best version of this landscape you will ever see […]

Here’s the question every parent asks me before they’ve even booked the flights: Can one island really work for a toddler who naps at noon and a teenager who wants a real adventure story to bring home? After planning enough Kauai trips to lose count, I can tell you the answer is yes, but only […]

Somebody is going to cry before you cross the Oregon border, and it probably will not be the kids. That is the truth nobody tells you about a family getaway on this coast of the United States. The tears usually belong to the parent who packed too much into one day and forgot to breathe. […]