Long time readers will perhaps remember the last time we attempted to learn about whales on a trip: the disastrous whale watch near Provincetown. Everyone was still far too scarred by that experience to attempt another whale watch a mere three years later, but we do still love whales….so we decided to visit the New Bedford Whaling […]
Tybee Island Revisited (Plus a Little Savannah)
I didn’t realize how much I’d missed the beach until I finally made it back to it. We planned a trip to Tybee for Thanksgiving week with Dave’s parents (who live in New Hampshire and who usually come to Georgia for Thanksgiving) back in late summer/early fall–when COVID numbers were fairly low and we had […]
Beaches, Sheep, and a Dog Named Jim: Exploring Connemara with Kids and Teens
Travel dates: June, 2019 I wasn’t prepared for how lovely Irish beaches are. I really have no one to blame for this but myself, since there are pictures on the internet and everything. I had it in my head that they’d likely resemble the rocky coasts of Maine or Atlantic Canada. And, don’t get me […]
A Smoky Mountain Pandemic: Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Townsend, TN
Right now we’re supposed to be at Wayne County Fairgrounds outside of Detroit, spending our last night in Michigan before starting to head south. Back when we finally decided to cancel our big Michigan trip after weeks of going back and forth, we immediately booked a couple of shorter trips closer to home to give […]
Wandering Around Galway with Kids and Teens
I was a little flummoxed by the lack of things to do in Galway during the planning stage of our trip. While Dublin was full of art galleries and museums of all sorts, tours, cathedrals, historic sites, Galway seemed to mostly have pubs and quaint medieval streets. I kept thinking I must be missing something, but, after […]
Exploring Killarney National Park with Kids and Teens, Part One: Ruins and Farms
When we checked in to our hotel in Killarney, the woman at reception asked where we were coming from and, when we told her Dublin, said, “oh, you HAVE come a long way!” It is less than 200 miles from Dublin to Killarney….about a three and a half hour drive. The perception of scale is […]
Two Days in Dublin with Kids and Teens
Travel dates: June 16-19, 2019 Everything I read about Ireland before our trip cautioned me against devoting too much time to Dublin. And, honestly, a quick poll of my family puts Dublin in last place out of our six England/Ireland stops on the trip. But in looking back over our time in Dublin to put […]
Ten MORE Things to Do on Jekyll Island with Kids: Off the Beaten Path Edition
Travel dates: December 27-January 2, 2019/20 (I have lots more Jekyll content in my original things to do on Jekyll post, and this one, and in this podcast that I recorded with RV Atlas) My tombstone could read, “loved islands, hated boats.” There’s probably some deep metaphorical significance there that’s eluding me at the moment […]
A Weekend in Macon, Georgia with Kids and Teens
When we’re visiting a new place, I like to spend a lot of time online (some would say too much) finding the very best things to do there, with an emphasis, if possible, on hidden gem type things that might not make the TripAdvisor top 10. And this is how the 64 foot concrete slide in […]
Bakewell and the Peak District: Exploring England with Kids and Teens
travel dates: June 13-16, 2019 At some point or another in the planning stage of our England trip, we considered just about everywhere in the country as a potential third stop after London and Bath. We eventually landed on Bakewell in the Peak District through some combination of intention, luck, and randomness. We wanted something […]