Jun
19
Long car trips can be challenging even for adults. The scenery can seem changeless for hours on end and can make the most patient people slightly irritable…. Our last car trip to Surfside Beach, SC for a family vacation was about 5 to 6 hours each way. This really isn’t that bad (it could have been 12 hours…) but with a 7 year and 14 year old we planned out quite a bit to try to make it a bearable trip. Realize that you should consider the personality of your children in planning activities for a long trip, every child is different and some things may work for a longer stretch than others.
May
19
File this under tips…. We have three cars even though we only have 2 adults that drive. One of our cars is an older sporty Nissan Pulsar that does not have a backseat suitable for a baby carseat. It’s our spare for when another car is in the shop and it get’s pretty good gas mileage, so when the prices go up one of us will likely drive it for a bit better mileage. We have a subaru wagon (outback sport) that is our newest vehicle (1999 if I recall correctly.) It can fit us all in, but things are cramped by the time we get all our stuff in. (Suitcases, cooler, etc.) For this reason we got a luggage rack style carrier a few years ago which was before our youngest was born. Now with two kids and the requisite clothes/toys/playpen to sleep in/etc….. we’ve outgrown the subaru for vacation time.
Apr
19
I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I do have quite a bit lined up here to write about our recent trip to Surfside Beach, SC. For those of you that don’t know Surfside Beach is just south of Myrtle Beach, SC. We just got back yesterday and have mostly finished unpacking and getting ready to get back into the routine of things. Now, in some ways it will be good to get back into the swing of things, although overall it was a good trip.
We stayed in a nice condo in the Surfwatch building. It was nice to be on the top floor, we had a nice balcony view of the beach and ocean and the kids had fun. Fortunately we were all over the stomach bug that we got the week prior to heading down. (We thought we may have to delay the drip a bit.) But, all went well, we got the rental van and loaded up. Now, if you’ve traveled with kids, you know that it’s easy to bring EVERYTHING along. I’ll try to talk about the in-car entertainment in another post because there’s just so much I can talk about in one posting.
Jan
10
Off Season Travel
Filed Under Tips
Off Season travel can be a good gateway to GREAT deals. Hotel rooms in January or usually cheaper to come by as is gas, air fare, most anything. The catch is vacation time from school or work.
It can be a good idea to keep an eye out for those times of year when not as many people are traveling to try to cash in on the travel deals, but it’s also worth thinking about WHY people aren’t traveling that time of year. January wouldn’t be a great month to go to a water park in Minnesota, let’s face it!
Dec
10
Home For the Holidays
Filed Under Tips
It seems that with the kids out of school there’s a LOT more energy abounding over the Christmas holidays. I suggest you consider this the period of time that you take a vacation in your own neck of the woods and go out and do a few “touristy” things to try to burn off that energy.
It’s funny so many of us never visit the tourist attractions that are in our own back yards.
Nov
10
Maggie Valley Microtel Inn
Filed Under Reviews
February/March in the mountains we just felt like we needed a quick getaway. A long weekend. Since our 6 year old really likes to swim, a place with an indoor swimming pool would be a big plus. Also, we don’t want to be on the road too long, just an hour or hour and a half, especially since we’re traveling with a 6 year old and a newborn. So… the Microtel Inn in Maggie Valley, NC is our stop. There are a lot of things to like about this nice quiet, clean little hotel. For us, the indoor pool made it our destination, but they do have some nice amenities.
Nov
1
Coleman 13×13 RidgeView Tent
Filed Under Camping
This is going to be an “extended use” review of our Coleman 13 x 13 Ridge View Tent (part number 9271H133D or Part no. 9271H133 depending on which part of the paperwork I look at). We got this tent maybe three or four years back for about $150. We’ve camped out in it several times now and it’s had yearly setups in the back yard during the summer. (We went camping about three times to Cherokee. (The KOA there is one of the nicest camping grounds in the area.) This summer we had no plans to take a real vacation. This was mostly for financial reasons and for travel with an under one year old. Anyway, our oldest loves having the tent up and around early July I was putting it up for the season. They suggest that two people set it up, but I’ve always been able to manage the setup myself. Erecting the poles is the trickiest part and this time, one of fiberglass pole segments just splintered from one end to the other. I got a bit of fiberglass in my hand and doubted I’d get the tent up at all. After a little though I duct-taped the segment that had splintered and managed to proceed with the setup. Today I took it down - yes November 1st….
Oct
10
Unfortunately with this years leaf season starting up, there are still large segments of the Blue Ridge Parkway that are closed to traffic. North of Craggy Gardens Picnic area is still closed to traffic.
The National Park Service site has information on the Blue Ridge Parkway including closings.
Unfortunately, many people are taking the detour signs which have them exit the parkway near US 70 in Asheville, when there are several more miles of parkway before the closure. (Ox Creek/Bull Gap) in the Weaverville area is the last road off the parkway before you get to the picnic area at Craggy Gardens.
Sep
25
Good luck if you’re looking for gasoline in Western North Carolina this week. Here is a page that may help you locate gasoline in the Asheville, NC area. I do hope that this doesn’t find too many people stranded in the mountains! This has been the worst gas shortage I’ve seen (worse than the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina which drove up gas prices and had many stations running empty.)
Jun
15
Traveling with Kids…
Filed Under Tips
Traveling with kids is not for the faint of heart. It seems like an outing to dinner is a big event, a bag for the baby. Another bag with toys, extra food and other things to entertain the older child… Packing light is a thing o the past. So, here are the things you might think about. For older children, one extra SMALL bag for toys. (We use an old duffel bag style, but fairly small.) Let them pick out a few things that they would like to take with them. (You might suggest a few items too.) If you’re traveling by car then you may need to think about things to entertain along the way such as music or if you have a portable dvd player that’s good too. Although…
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