Family Travel

Read more about the article Christmas Tours in England and Scotland

Christmas Tours in England and Scotland

From the glistening, frosted landscapes to bustling Christmas markets on cobbled squares and carols carrying on the breeze, the UK is the ideal place to celebrate this very special time of year. Every destination is dressed with its finest decorations. During your Christmas Holidays in the UK you will make memories for a lifetime and you will bring back home the best traditional Christmas presents. Travelers looking for a different Christmas experience are in for a delicious and visually enchanting treat when visiting the UK from late November until Christmas each year. With so much charm, fantasy, and tradition, a trip to the UK during the Christmas season is bound to inspire awe in any traveler, and luckily there are several tour options available to allow you to make the most of these Christmas-wonder-lands.

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Read more about the article Christmas Tours in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland

Christmas Tours in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland

Come explore Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, home to imperial palaces and fairy-tale castles, Bavarian villages and Baroque cities, the mysterious Black Forest and the snow-capped Alps. This is storybook Europe, where half-timbered inns painted with festive flowers lean over quiet country roads, and the Gothic spires of castles rise from craggy bluffs above the Rhine River.

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The view of the Columbia River Gorge from the Vista House in Corbett, Oregon
The view of the Columbia River Gorge from the Vista House in Corbett, Oregon

The Columbia River Gorge and Hood River, Oregon

Our next destination on our Summer Road Trip was the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon. We decided that the town of Hood River would make a great base for our adventures in the area, and it turned out to be a much better destination than we had originally hoped for, as we found vineyards, orchards, waterfalls, and amazing viewpoints around every turn.

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Badlands National Park
Badlands National Park

Beyond Mount Rushmore: Southwestern South Dakota

The area west and south of Rapid City is home to several national and state parks as well as the famous and frequently photographed Mount Rushmore. While Mount Rushmore draws a huge number of visitors every year, visiting this area and skipping the rest of the region would be like swinging through Paris to see the Eiffel Tower and visiting nothing else. The park areas around Mount Rushmore include large tracts of land where Bison roam freely, one of the largest caves in the world, unique geological landscapes not found anywhere else in the world, and fun cultural and historical attractions.

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Badlands National Park, South Dakota
Our campsite in Badlands National Park, South Dakota

What to Pack for a Camping Trip with a Toddler

Planning a weekend camping trip with a young child (or more than one) can be a real challenge, as we know. So when we set out to take a multiple-month road trip across the country, our tripathalas (the region of the brain devoted to travel) went into overdrive for several weeks. How can we possibly do this? We can't just take a tent and some toys! We actually have to keep another human being alive!

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Chicago
Chicago as seen from the Sears Tower

Chicago For Kids

The first stop on our summer road trip was Chicago, and it didn't disappoint. Since we were traveling with our three year old daughter, we wanted to make sure that we provided plenty of entertainment for her instead of just dragging her around to the major sights that most grown-ups would want to visit.

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Epcot, Disney World, Orlando, USA, Spaceship Earth
Spaceship Earth at Epcot, Disney World, Orlando, USA

How much planning does it take to visit Disney World?

It's the quintessential trip for a young family, almost a writ of passage. For us, it was one of those things before we had kids that we'd sworn we'd never do. Kind of like our plans to feed our child an organic unprocessed diet, provide her with only educational toys, and of course, no screen time. But here we were, driving down to Florida, our child staring at her tablet and munching on a fruit bar as we headed down I-95 to the happiest place on earth.

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Uluru, Australia
Photo By Tourism Australia

Experience the Indigenous Side of Australia

The Aboriginal peoples of Australia are considered one of the world’s most ancient living cultures. With a history dating back more than 50,000 years, their culture is rich with spirituality and wonder. Their deep connection to the land is showcased through their rituals, art, dance, music and Dreamtime stories - the time when their ancestral spirits created the land and all life. A trip to Australia wouldn’t be complete without experiencing at least some of the cultural activities of the Indigenous peoples. Sure, Australia has beautiful beaches, the Great Barrier Reef, the Whitsunday Islands, and so on – but there’s a lot more to offer when you get a more cultural and historical perspective.

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Luggage
by Andew Stawarz

Packing Advice from Expert Travelers

I asked a group of experienced travelers how to go about packing for a trip. When I reached out to this intrepid group of travelers for their advice, one key theme emerged: take only what you really need. Also, I asked them about the common concept of "packing light." I asked these travelers if they pack light, and most said they do, but many still struggle with the concept. So how do we pack light and what does that really mean? What have these expert travelers learned over the years, and how can we benefit from their advice?

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