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 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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Nobody warns you that the hardest part of planning a Napa Valley family vacation isn’t the itinerary. It’s convincing yourself that you’re allowed to bring the kids. I have stood in that exact hesitation, scrolling through photo after photo of couples clinking glasses on a terrace, wondering if a place this polished has any room […]

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. […]

The waves were already crashing over the rocks by the time a family realized their mistake. They had pulled up to a North Shore beach in December, beach chairs and floaties in hand. They were expecting the same calm water they had seen in a photo online. Instead, they found lifeguards waving people back from […]