Our trip around the world is still a ways away. In the meantime, we’re not sitting still! One of Heather’s lifelong dreams is to travel to Scotland. As I understand it, her maternal grandfather’s roots are of Scotland’s famed (infamous?) Campbell clan. So, after many years or wistful wishes, she in her inimitable way, she “made it happen!” We’re off in July and spending 11 days in Scotland and another 4 in London. For a small country, there seems to be a lifetime of places to explore so in one month, I’m going to do my best to see everything we can in 11 days!
Archive for the 'Family Travel' Category
31
May
10
Scotland
29
Mar
09
Spring Break Road Trip
We don’t need big fancy vacations to make us happy – we’re equal opportunity travelers. Our planned road trip to North Carolina and Tennessee to visit family and friends is proof of that. It’s also proof that this economy is making nearly everyone reconsider what will be cause enough to part with their so-called disposable cash (in our case more appropriately defined as credit card debt!)
We’re planning to spend a few days in Charlotte, NC with my brother and sister-in-law. I’m not doing too much planning for that as it sounds like they’ve got it covered. After leaving them, we’re got a few ideas on where to go:
Asheville outside ideas:
- Must go to the Biltmore Estate
- Chimney Rock has more to do than just climbing to the top
- Grandfather Mountain looks to be a bit more low key with a swinging suspension bridge
Gatlinberg outdoor ideas:
- Great Smoky Mountain National Park
- Gatlinberg Aerial Tramway and mountaintop amusement park
Gatlinburg indoor ideas:
- Ripley’s Aquarium - We visited one near Myrtle Beach and it was fantastic!
- I really can’t see us going here, but how could I resist posting a link to Cooter’s Place
- Gotta eat at Fannie Farkle’s - home of the foot long hand-dipped corn dog!
- Who could resist the Bacchanalian temptations of the Smokey Mountain Winery?
If we get stuck for ideas (which actually never happens) these sites have a good list of attractions:
There’s really nothing wrong with the official Fiji tourism web site per se. But I have to admit that 2 things bothered me after spending less than 3 minutes on the site. The first is that the video I happened to start with had some phrase about the Fiji Islands formerly being known as the cannibal islands, although the nice gentleman narrating the video assured me that nothing could be farther from the truth today. Oh-kay. Then, I watched as second video and while it had all the right clips, I found myself thinking that laying on the beach, snorkeling, getting a massage and eating some good food is really the same thing that I could do at one of over a hundred places. Why would I travel half way around the globe to do that?
I’m trying to like this place, I really am, but I’ve found little written about the more authentic visits to the South Pacific Islands. On one blog I found a guy bragging about all the sharks he had seen. Grrreatt… Then when I clicked the like I say this person’s underwater pics of the amazing creature along with what looked to be pics of a moray eel and a puffer fish. Where do I sign up to have my family swim with this kind of sea life? Great for Discovery HD TV, not so great for little kids just learning to swim. If the other post didn’t get you revved up to go, just read this one and don’t miss the last sentence.
I don’t want to bash what I’m sure is an absolutely lovely country so here are a few of the good things I found. If you’ve got something good to add, for heaven’s sake, don’t hold back!
Waterfall and cave tour on Coral Coast
Here is a reasonably priced vacation rental for about $800 per week. I don’t think we’d stay here for more than a week so it’s not a bad option at all.
I’ve got to admit that this place kind of intrigued me – if I was looking to see what it would be like to be stranded on a remote desert island with minimal accommodations that is.
11
Mar
09
Samoa
Samoa is the first place that has really got me thinking about spending some time in this region. While I was in the Navy, I met a young Samoan man who raved about his home. He was one the most genuine people I have ever encountered and that experience makes me believe what I have read about the Samoan people. They have even branded their way of life – Fa’a Samoa.
The official Samoan Tourism web site is a good place to start. This site has a good description of the largest Samoan Island – Savaii.
Based on numerous reviews the Savaii Lagoon Beach Resort looks like a nice price to stay for about $100 per night. Of course that’s a little more than we’d like to spend, but when I find a place like this it helps put my mind at ease that there would be a somewhat reasonably place for us to stay.
Let’s be clear that I am talking about Samoa, not American Samoa. Not that have anything against American Samoa, but we’re looking for a more authentic Polynesian experience and American Samoa is well, just too Americanized from what I have read.
11
Mar
09
Travel Family – Aiken/Widom
The self-branded Aiken/Widom family has a really nice collection of information from their unique version of the around the world family trip. Their approach seems unusual in that they broke their travel up into 4 distinct segments including “traditional traveling”, sailing and hiking. In between they returned to their home in the states to resupply/recharge. They also provided an estimate of $33,000 per person for a year. However, it appears as if this was done without RTW tickets, spending several months in expensive Europe, opting for more expensive options, i.e. sailboat rental and diving and during the time of a very weak dollar.
I appreciated several of their comments regarding the appropriateness of the trip for a 10 and 12 year old, the fact that the kids did just fine with home schooling and that there ARE other families who are doing this. It’s these areas where I get the most questions so hearing this from an experienced family is quite encouraging.
11
Mar
09
South Pacific
March is tentatively planned for the South Pacific. Although the islands of the South Pacific cover about the same area as so much of our world, I hadn’t really considered them until my wife suggested that we go there. At first, I wasn’t sure that it made sense from an economy standpoint as I expected a stop on these islands would be very costly from a transportation perspective. Unless we took a slow boat from China, flying is really the only practical option. But as I’ve learned more about RTW fare options, stopping over here actually seems quite practical. Now the question has turned to where should we go in the 3 million square mile area?
I expected that the task we be difficult form the perspective of how we would narrow down our decision to just one island or group of islands. Then I get the 1,000 plus page Moon Handbook for the South Pacific and quickly realized the difficulty of the task. One doesn’t just choose any old island thinking that every South Pacific ocean island is of the garden variety paradise. What I’ve discovered so far is an amazing diversity of cultures and experiences. Perhaps most surprising is that I haven’t yet fallen in love with any one place. Maybe I’m being too picky but I’ve either been turned off by malaria, bugs, lodging expense, limited options or cultural practices that I’m not sure my kids are ready for.
18
Feb
09
New Zealand – South Island
My uninformed opinion that the South Island would be more interesting to visit was validated by this excellent post from the Travellerspoint web site. I’m was intrigued by the Magic Bus but it may be more geared for the backpacking set. Another way to get around would be by train, but a 4 day, 3 night trip looks like about $1,100NZ per person. Too pricey, but you can check it out for yourself at Rail New Zealand.
14
Feb
09
Family travel web sites
I’m going to try what I call a mini-post. There’s probably a web definition out there already for this, but this is what I’ll call it. A mini-post is a post that contains very little information, but contains a nugget of information that I just couldn’t resist. With very little time and a whole lot of curiosity I often come across great information on the web but have only a few moments to capture it before other duties call me a way. We’ll see how this concept goes with this first mini-post:
Through the website How to Travel Around the World I found a great set of links in their FAQ section. The site is mostly focused on the backpacking set, but it did have a great little list of families oriented world travel sites. Here they are:
14
Feb
09
Trekaroo
I was encouraged this morning by a new site called Trekaroo. It turns out that we aren’t the only family who finds it difficult to get real, objective family travel advice. Trekaroo is in its Beta phase, but it has promise. Think Trip Advisor for families. While Trip Advisor has great unbiased travel reviews and a rating for appropriateness for families with children, its hard to limit your searches to family information. Trekaroo on the other hand is geared solely for family travel and approaches everything from that perspective.
The site has a few limitations in its early phase. The first is that there is relatively low coverage of the US. Information is organized by state and type of activity but they currently have only a few states covered. I’m sure that this will expand over time as the user generated content takes off. The other limitation for my own slefish perspective is that it does not cover any travel outside of the US and that is the primary focus of this blog. Shelly Rivoli writes a good review of Trekaroo here. I also have to give the Trekaroo folks credit for their Facebook group. Although it’s becoming a fairly common thing these days, I applaud them for opening up their creation to comment and interactivity. I joined and plan to follow up with subsequent visits to see how the discussion is going.
10
Feb
09
New Zealand – Christchurch
When I think about New Zealand, I think abut the jaw dropping scenery that so wonderfully set the scene for the Lord of the Rings trilogy. While the there is a temptation to look at the “tourist attractions” first to get a feeling about the place, I try to avoid doing that. I’m more interested in the people and the country than the attractions. After all, we’ve got every kind of attraction here in NJ and I don’t have to take a year off to go see them. While I’m sure that there are attractions in New Zealand, my vision of our visit to this place is much more about experiencing the land.
New Zealand is divided into two main islands, north and south. The North seems to be much more cosmopolitan, although wild at the same time. However, I’m drawn to the southern island for it’s mountains and beauty. The main city there is Christchurch with a population of about 350,000. When I visited the official tourist site, the picture on the home page made me gasp. Once I saw the picture, I just had to look into accommodations. To my pleasant surprise the exchange rate on the dollar is about 2 to 1. Sweet! Upon further investigation, New Zealand offers holiday homes called “bachs.” There is a great site called BookABach that specializes in these types of accommodations. I started looking at some of these places nestled in what appear to be relatively accessible mountains and my jaw dropped again. The average price for a 5-8 person home was about $250NZ per day. Double sweet! Check out a few of these listings on the southern island.
