Somewhere around the second afternoon, most parents finally stop bracing for the meltdown that never comes. That is the quiet surprise sitting underneath every Netherlands family vacation: The trip you expected to manage becomes the trip you get to enjoy instead. You packed the spare shirt. You packed the tablet loaded with three seasons of […]

Your child will study one of the most impressive glaciers in North America for about four minutes before asking what’s for lunch. I learned this while standing in front of Mendenhall Glacier, watching a child take in a wall of blue ice with roughly the same enthusiasm he usually reserves for a rest stop. And […]

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 […]

Nobody dreams about standing in a roped off line for forty-five minutes just to take the same photo three hundred people took before breakfast. Nobody books a flight, packs three generations of luggage, and coordinates six different work schedules so that everyone can spend the trip elbow to elbow with strangers, waiting their turn to […]

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 […]

The temple bells were still ringing when the fog lifted off the mountainside. I remember standing there in a courtyard outside Taipei thinking that nobody back home would believe this was Taiwan. That’s the part nobody tells you. Some of the best things to do in Taiwan never make it onto a postcard. This island […]

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 […]

A grandmother is barefoot on the bow of a small wooden boat. Her sunglasses pushed into gray hair, laughing at something her nine-year-old grandson just said. All while her daughter and son-in-law sit two feet away doing nothing but watching the coastline slide by. Nobody is checking their phone. Nobody is negotiating what happens next. […]

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 […]