Once your kids move past the compliant pre-teen ages, it
becomes more challenging to find ways to engage them without hearing that
they’d prefer to “chill” with their friends, play Xbox, or spend endless hours
on Facebook or texting on their phone. These teen-tried trips will hopefully motivate you to
convince your teens that there’s a world out there with lots of interesting
things, and that it’s really worthwhile to give up some personal time to be
with your parents (ugh!), doing something that your parents (ugh! again) have
suggested.
My sons, Elias and Evan, now well past the teen years, have
become world travelers with definite tastes and preferences. We’d like to think
it’s in part because of all the travel they did when they were younger. Here
are some of their favorite travel destinations in the USA.
A Trip to Cali – That’s what my kids call going to
California.
For them, California is another country.
Los Angeles is the country of the Lakers and the beach;
San Francisco is cable cars and the Golden Gate Bridge. Anything in
between is just pretty and filled with expensive cars. But it's all Cali.
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St. Regis, San Francisco |
Two hotels of the
Fairmont Hotel group make for great stays, the
Fairmont Miramar in
Santa Monica (close to LA) and the
Fairmont San Francisco on Nob Hill. Both are great with kids, as
well as with adults, and both have wonderful locations.
A bit easier on the legs is the beautiful
St. Regis in San Francisco, sitting closer to the water.
In
Santa Monica,
you’re right across from the beach and within a reasonable drive of pretty much
everywhere you need to go in LA (although you’ll spend lots and lots of time in your
car here – there’s no subway to help you out).
While you might crave some of LA’s finer cuisine, the kids will love the
kitschy In-N-Out Burger or Fatburger drive-ins. For a dose of fun history,
include a visit to the La Brea Tar Pits (with interesting indoor and outdoor
exhibits about the animals and fossils stuck in the tar here).
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Santa Monica |
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Heading back to the beach, the Santa Monica Pier and its rides are favorites,
as is watching people rollerblade and play basketball in Venice. If you can, take a ride up Pacific
Coast Highway towards Malibu to see the sunset.
If your kids give you a lot of grief about the enormously steep hills in San
Francisco, they’ll love the cable cars that climb and descend with people
hanging off the sides. The city has put
into service a number of cars from cities in the US
and Europe, and you might find yourself
staring at real ads in Italian instead of English.
Be sure to go to the Presidio to see the Golden Gate Bridge, but also find
someone who can show you
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Lombard Street, San Francisco |
how to drive underneath the bridge – my kids thought it
was amazingly cool (so did I). And the
kids’ hands-down favorite? Crooked Lombard Street,
still one of the “wonders of the world,” according to the teen set. They also
appreciated some of the architecture in the city, particularly the “Painted Ladies”
houses with their creatively mixed palette of Victorian confection.
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Elvis Watches over Tupelo |
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Mississippi: Going Down to the Crossroads |
The Gulf Coast – Do you have kids who love music (or movies)? A trip through the
Mississippi Delta may be just the ticket. Even if they haven’t heard too
much of Elvis Presley’s music or the blues, they’ll come to understand how
both influenced the rock ‘n roll world on this trip.
Tupelo
is where Elvis -- a product of the blues -- was born. It’s hard not to get caught up in the infectiousness
of Elvis here.


When you visit the Tupelo Hardware Company, where Elvis bought
his first guitar, and you see Elvis pictures all over; when you eat a crispy,
fried hamburger at Johnnie’s Drive In and sit on Elvis’s bench, again with
photos of “The King” everywhere; when you go to Elvis’s birthplace and marvel
that he grew up in a two-room house – that’s when you start to “get it”: this
town is a shrine.
If you’re lucky, you’ll see singing Elvis impersonators, too. Combined with a trip to
Memphis to visit Graceland (be sure to sit in Elvis's booth at the Arcade Restaurant and take the fabulous musical Mojo tour with
Backbeat Tours), or a path that traces the
Mississippi Blues Trail with stops in Clarksdale and Greenwood (from the movie "The Help"), you can create a musical and film-oriented vacation
that’s a rich cultural immersion.
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Shack Up Inn |
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Rock and Blues Museum, Clarksdale |
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Abe's BBQ, Clarksdale |
If your kids like the outdoors, Tupelo’s Natchez Trace Parkway is a wonderful
place to hike, throw a football, and visit the nearby Buffalo Farm. There
you’ll see the world’s only albino buffalo and other animals like zebras and
lions. Plus you’ll be entertained by an authentic Native American guide who seems
to be a veritable giraffe “whisperer.” For the car fan, the Tupelo Automobile
Museum has a knockout collection of Dusenbergs, Corvettes, Packards, and a car
originally purchased by Elvis himself. The collection is so big that the
displays change frequently. For adventurous eaters, Mississippi has its intrigue: there are fried green
tomatoes, fried peach pie, cheese grits, biscuits and gravy, and some of the best waffles we’ve ever tasted. And, of course, BBQ is a way of life.
The quirky
Shack Up Inn in Clarksdale is a
distinctive lodging experience for all and a glimpse into the life of a
sharecropper. Or choose the family-friendly
Quality Inn in Tupelo with
its indoor swimming pool and convenient breakfast buffet.
If the beach beckons, finish your trip with a stay at the Beau Rivage Resort and Casino in Biloxi. Although the kids won't be able to enjoy the fast-moving night scene, they'll love the miles and miles of warm, white-sand oceanfront and its easy biking path.
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Beach and Beau Rivage Resort, Biloxi |
American History Brought to Life
Philadelphia
is rich in both tradition and intriguing activities. Particularly inviting as kids
learn more about the signing of the Declaration of Independence and other
Patriotic events, Philadelphia’s
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Independence Hall |
Liberty Bell Center and Independence Mall offer a walking introduction to
American history. When my kids got tired (or were lazy, as teens sometimes
are), we hired a horse and carriage to take us around Philadelphia’s cobbled
Center City before heading North to the city’s beautifully zoned museum area.
Here the wonderful, enlightening Franklin Institute and its rocket, airplanes
and other scientific paraphernalia provided hours of educational amusement for
everyone.
Our favorite splurge hotel,
The Ritz-Carlton, continues the city’s historical
orientation with accommodations in the former Girard Trust Building on Broad
Street.
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Ritz-Carlton, Philadelphia |
If the kids are curious about university life, the
Sheraton University City at the
University of Pennsylvania is right on campus and convenient to some of the
city’s iconic cheesesteak and hoagie shops.
More history waits in Boston, home
of the Boston Tea Party and the Freedom Trail, a walking tour that links many
of the important landmarks in revolutionary history. Add to that the Museum of
Science and the Hayden Planetarium with its IMAX dome theater, and you have a
city that entertains kids 365 days a year. During the warmer months, Boston’s
offbeat Duck Tours (now copied in other cities) got everybody laughing as the
World War II amphibious vehicle, sometimes painted to look like a Red Sox advertisement,
cruises along the Charles River after meandering through the city’s narrow streets.
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Massachusetts State House |
Kids will love the goldfish in their room at Boston’s boutique
Nine Zero,
a Kimpton hotel, and the
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Nine Zero |
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Nine Zero bedroom |
fireplace at the
XV Beacon. From both, it's a quick
walk to the Massachusetts State House (great stairs and gold dome), Faneuil Hotel, and the Boston Commons, more kid favorites. If
you have baseball fans in your family, book a room overlooking Fenway Park at the
Commonwealth Hotel in Kenmore Square. On game days, you’ll
swear that you can hear the crowds sing “Sweet Caroline” when Big Papi (David
Ortiz) gets up to bat. The hotel is
seconds away from stands hawking Fenway franks (a must with relish and mustard) and the Kenmore Square T-stop (the subway).
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XV Beacon room |
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XV Beacon |
Now That We’ve Outgrown Disney
Teens never seem to tire of
Las Vegas, no matter how many times you visit.
Las
Vegas has a skyline that invites both kids and adults
alike to play. With fountains that dance to music, indoor “skies” that change
according to the weather, and a scaled-down replica of New York City with an
outdoor roller coaster that dips among the buildings, Las Vegas is arguably a
playground limited only by your imagination. For nighttime activity, Cirque du
Soleil offers kid-priced tickets to Mystère and O, two shows that my kids
absolutely adored.
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Valley of Fire |
In happy juxtaposition with Las Vegas’s man-made attractions lie the wonders
of the desert, the product of billions of years of nature. Hiking through Red Rock Canyon or rock scrambling in the Valley of Fire
provide a panorama of color to perfectly complement the colors of the city’s
neon-infused architecture. Nearby Hoover Dam was also a mind-boggler for the
kids and an easy day trip from the city.
Of all the hotels that we’ve visited here, the kids’ two
favorites are the
MGM Grand and
Mandalay Bay. Both have great swimming
pools and lazy rivers, and Mandalay Bay even has a beach and wave pool. Both also
have a long variety of restaurants, and the endless walks through the casino to
the guestrooms gave the kids some real glimpses into what grown-up life could
be. Mon Ami Gabi at Paris Las Vegas was a great place to savor French cuisine
while watching the steady stream of people cruise the Strip. We also liked P.F.
Chang’s China Bistro at Planet Hollywood when we wanted to get away from the
hotel scene.
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The Strip, Las Vegas |
great swimming pools it's totally true
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot. Got so much added information for my trip from this and a much needed boost in confidence for a bike ride in this chilled month.
ReplyDeletewho owns sidewalk in front of house