Nobody warns you that planning a family trip to Montreal turns your kitchen table into a small, loving war zone. One person wants a Ferris wheel. One wants a nap. A teenager will not budge unless there is decent Wi-Fi and something worth posting. I have sat at that exact table more than once, holding […]

“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 […]

Your child goes quiet mid-sentence, stopped cold by nothing more than steam curling straight out of a crack in the earth. In that instant, you understand exactly what people mean when they say this place does something to kids. That is the real story of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park with kids. The part no packing […]

Somewhere between booking her mother’s plane ticket and typing “can a nine year old handle a five hour car ride” into Google at eleven at night, every woman planning a multigenerational trip to Scotland hits the same wall: Will this trip work for everyone, or will someone come home exhausted instead of happy? I think […]

Somewhere between the fortieth open browser tab and the group text where nobody can agree on a single island, most family trip planning quietly falls apart. You are trying to make everyone happy: The toddler who needs a nap by two o’clock. The teenager who will only put her phone down for something with a […]

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 […]

Forty-five minutes. That is how long our tour guide gave us to stand in the middle of the most beautiful Christmas market square I had ever seen. I had a glass of hot gluhwein warming one hand and my father in law’s arm resting on the other. Despite what the guide thought was a long […]

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 have just unpacked your last suitcase from your summer vacation and someone in your family has already asked when you are going back to Cape Cod. I hear this every year, usually before the last load of beach laundry is even done. That question is exactly why I never wait until spring to start […]