NEW YORK-
Summer vacation ended less than two months ago. But even though it’s only mid-October, we’re already planning our trip for next August. Or should I say, we’re childproofing our vacation plans.
I don’t mean that we’re buying little plugs to stick in electric outlets in hotels so our children don’t accidentally electrocute themselves. They still get into quite a lot of trouble at ages 9 and 13, but that sort of innocent mischief is behind us. They’ve moved on to getting into way more elaborate trouble than that.
No, what I mean is: We’re trying to come up with activities and destinations that our kids will love and remember forever – in other words, stuff to do that’s fun and affordable but won’t result in comments like “This is really boring, can we go back to the hotel pool now?”
Last summer we took a boat ride out of Bar Harbor, Maine, that promised wildlife sightings, but we didn’t see a single creature, except for a few seagulls. The tour guide droned on and on about historic this and that, but the kids were bored out of their minds, and by the end of it, even my husband and I were rolling our eyes. Where were the bald eagles and the porpoises we’d been told about? At $40 a ticket, it was a colossal disappointment.
Afterwards, I tried to figure out how I could have avoided making that mistake. We were sent to the boat by a National Park Service ranger in Acadia, but I should have asked other folks from the area beforehand for recommendations, rather than showing up and buying tickets from the first cruise we were referred to.
I could have also posted queries on travel advice Web sites to see what others’ experiences have been cruising from Bar Harbor. I had needed an honest appraisal, and I feel foolish now for having accepted the boat’s advertising at face value. Sometimes even a little advice from someone who knows an area can make the difference in planning a successful trip. Maybe if we’d departed at a different time of day, or from a different port with a different boat company on a different route, we would have seen the bald eagles that I’d promised the kids.
But you can’t always predict how kids will react when you’re traveling. One of our other activities in Acadia also seemed like it was going to be a bust, but it turned out otherwise. We went to the top of Cadillac Mountain only to find that it was shrouded in fog. We literally couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead of us. It was like walking through a cloud. The views of the bay surrounding Bar Harbor were completely obscured.
Strangely enough, the kids loved it. They played hide and seek in the fog and took turns taking videos of one another jumping off a rock at a spot that appeared to fall off the mountain. On camera, you couldn’t see the flat rock stone step just beneath where the jumpers landed – it was hidden in the fog.
In a phone call a few days later, a friend asked my older son how the trip to Acadia had gone. “It was OK,” he said unenthusiastically. Then his eyes lit up as he remembered Cadillac Mountain, and said, “Except for this mountain we went on.
“It was covered in a cloud,” he added, “and that was really cool.”
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This week’s advice: Do your homework before you book an excursion with kids. Don’t take advertisements at face value. Post queries on consumer Web sites, and beware of responses that might come from outfitters trying to get you to take their trips. Ask for references from satisfied customers, consult guidebooks, ask hotel staff for advice. For a wildlife tour or boat ride, ask if they guarantee sightings, or if they can quantify how often they see the promised animals. Is it 90 percent of the time or 20 percent of the time? If you’re trying to decide on the spur of the moment if an attraction, ride, restaurant or tour is worthwhile, try to buttonhole someone who’s just done it. Talk to a family coming out of a restaurant, disembarking from a boat or coming off of a trail and get their honest opinion. But don’t be afraid to try something unconventional. A mountaintop on a foggy day might be just as interesting to kids as the view on a clear day.
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If you have comments or stories about travel with kids you’d like to share, contact bharpaz@ap.org.
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