Advice for Families when Traveling with the Brood

If you have enough trouble getting your kids out of the house in the morning, dragging them thousands of miles away may seem like an insurmountable challenge. But family travel can be immensely rewarding, giving you new ways of seeing the world through younger pairs of eyes. Europeans expect to encounter traveling families, because that’s how they travel. You’re likely to run into caravanning European clans, including grandparents and babes in arms. Locals tend to love kids, especially in Mediterranean countries. You often find that hotels and restaurants give you an even warmer reception if you have a child in tow. In addition to cooing over infants and toddlers, most Europeans offer loads of encouragement and attention to a teenager struggling to order a meal in the local lingo. Ask for a half portion to fit Junior’s appetite. Your best bet for help with small children may be 3- and 4-star hotels. The babysitters on call and a better infrastructure for helping visitors access the city and its services more than offset the higher cost of the hotel. Still, even cheaper hotels can usually find you a sitter.

When you travel with children, you can usually expect lower rates for them. Most museums and sights offer reduced prices or free admission for children under a certain age (which can range from 6 to 18), and getting a cot in your hotel room won’t cost you more than 30 percent extra, if that. Always ask about discounts on plane and train tickets for kids, too. A number of books that offer hints and tips on traveling with kids are available. Take Your Kids to Europe: How to Travel Safely (and Sanely) in Europe with Your Children by Cynthia Harriman (Globe Pequot Press) offers practical advice based on the author’s four-month trip with her hubby and two kids, along with tips from other familial travelers. Two other books, Family Travel & Resorts by Pamela Lanier (Lanier Publishing International) and How to Take Great Trips with Your Kids by Sanford and Joan Portnoy (The Harvard Common Press; now out-of-print, but worth searching for), give some good general advice that you can apply to travel in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere. You also may want to check out the reliable Adventuring with Children: An Inspirational Guide to World Travel and the Outdoors by Nan Jeffrey (Avalon House), which includes specific advice on dealing with everyday family situations, especially those involving infants, which become Herculean labors when you encounter them on the road.

Familyhostel (800-733-9753; www.learn.unh.edu/familyhostel) takes the whole family, including kids ages 8 to 15, on moderately priced domestic and international learning vacations. Lectures, field trips, and sightseeing are guided by a team of academics. You can find good familyoriented vacation advice on the Internet from sites like the Family Travel Forum (www.familytravelforum.com), a comprehensive site that offers customized trip planning; Family Travel Network (www.familytravel network.com), an award-winning site that offers travel features, deals, and tips; Traveling Internationally with Your Kids (www.travelwith yourkids.com), a comprehensive site that offers customized trip planning; and Family Travel Files (www.thefamilytravelfiles.com), which offers an online magazine and a directory of off-the-beaten-path tours and tour operators for families. The highly regarded (albeit expensive) Smithsonian Study Tours has inaugurated a Family Adventures division (877-338-8687; www.si.edu/tsa/sst) that runs escorted educational and adventure trips specifically designed for the whole clan.