Where else to vacation?

[budbeerlady]

We've really become VERY good at maximizing credit card sign on bonuses, hotel nights, and credit card rewards.

This year we're going to Great Wolf Lodge on Spring Break, a 10-day trip to Disneyworld, a week of camp, and a trip to New York!

Our kids are 4, 1 (turning 2), and 7 (turning 8).

Now that we have this year's trips paid off, I'm looking to next year. Where should we go? We did a cruise last year, but I'm not sure I want to do another one. I don't know what else is out there, but I do know I want to make memories with my children!

Got to Seattle. That is what I did with my churning. Fly free to Seattle airport, stay on points at the Radisson across the st from the airport. Walk the 2 short blocks to the train into downtown. Its fantastic. Tons to do, hands down the BEST aquarium we have ever visited. My child never wanted to leave the touch tanks!

Other other favorite trip was flying into Brownsville TX and spending the week at South Padre. There are so many chain hotels you can skip around and maximize nights if you want to. We visited the Sea Turtle Rescue, DD learned to surf and we just had a great time hanging out as a family.

And for Florida again we have just hung out at Clearwater Beach. Visited Winter at the Aquarium, hit the Tampa zoo. Tons of chain hotels again to redeem.

Or pick that one place that sounds amazing and just go. I used free hotel nights to work out a road trip to the Apostle Island Ice Caves. They were amazing and I am so glad I went. We had to pay for gas and food but so worth the 10 hour drive!

 

[robsmom]

I didn't really like the list in the link. There are a few good places but some of the museums for children that age are boring. I remember my mom taking us to places like that as kids and we didn't really enjoy it. We were too young to appreciate things like the rock n roll museum. As kids our most memorable vacations were disney and the beach. Save the museums for later.

I think it is a really nice list. It has a good variety of museums, outdoors, cities, and amusement parks. I think all of these categories can be good for children. I will say that I have a kid who has gradually decided he does not like the beach that much and thinks he has outgrown Disney, so he would not enjoy those as our only options. I do agree that there are a few odd choices ( New Orleans as a preschooler?) We have done 15 of the items on the list including a few of the museums and there are another 15 or so on the would like to do list. My son is a teenager, so we won't make all of those, but we will get to a few more. I found that tweens was a good time for museums. As he hits the teenage years, his patience has actually declined!

OP - thoughts from the list - Alaska cruise was awesome but your kids are probably too young. Hawaii is excellent as well - went when my son was 7 and was a great age. For the younger age I think Southern California is a great choice. The wildlife park (1 hr north of San Diego) is even better than the zoo. There is history in San Diego Old Town, beaches, and amusement parks.

 

[jeffbear]

I would be interested in a more detailed account of what to do there!

My son and his family lived in Asheville, but just moved about 30 minutes over to Hendersonville, NC. We have been once and did some free site seeing stuff. I was wondering what you recommend. They are hoping to move back to Maine within a year. If we go down again before they leave what should we do for must do's? I did see quite a bit to do, so we picked the free stuff and filled our week!


I don't think we did anything in Boone.

Here's a decent web resource for stuff to do in Asheville.
http://www.exploreasheville.com/

My son has lived there for a couple of years and my family has a place up in Boone, so we're there a fair amount. I really love downtown Asheville and can easily blow a day just wandering around and eating down there. More formal family entertainments include Biltmore House (awesome), touring historic Grove Park Inn (also awesome and a MUST see even if you don't hang around), the innumerable hiking trails, loads of river rafting opportunities (whitewater and more sedate), good golf options galore, fishing, a LOT of horse riding options, zip lines, outdoors centers ... loads of stuff like that.

Not too far outside of town, there's Cherokee Casino if you're into that sort of thing. If antiquing is more your thing then lovely little Waynesville is great. I don't like driving 40 MPH but the Blue Ridge Parkway runs within a few miles of Asheville ... a nice drive up to Boone if you can stand the slow moving. There are also several music and arts festivals ... mostly in the spring and summer ... as Asheville is kind of the arts hub of the Appalachians.

 

[ellie05]

I think it is a really nice list. It has a good variety of museums, outdoors, cities, and amusement parks. I think all of these categories can be good for children. I will say that I have a kid who has gradually decided he does not like the beach that much and thinks he has outgrown Disney, so he would not enjoy those as our only options. I do agree that there are a few odd choices ( New Orleans as a preschooler?) We have done 15 of the items on the list including a few of the museums and there are another 15 or so on the would like to do list. My son is a teenager, so we won't make all of those, but we will get to a few more. I found that tweens was a good time for museums. As he hits the teenage years, his patience has actually declined!

OP - thoughts from the list - Alaska cruise was awesome but your kids are probably too young. Hawaii is excellent as well - went when my son was 7 and was a great age. For the younger age I think Southern California is a great choice. The wildlife park (1 hr north of San Diego) is even better than the zoo. There is history in San Diego Old Town, beaches, and amusement parks.

I was talking specifically about OP the oldest child is 8, so no I don't think the list was great for OP.

 

[dahrjo]

These ideas are really good!
We are looking for somewhere different to go for a family of 5 kids age 13-17.
I will look at some of these.

 

[nighttowll]

We go to Destin, FL when we're not going to Disney. We rent a beach house on a private beach and just chill for a week. It's nice to watch dolphins and sunrises and sunsets from your balcony. And that white sugar sand is something else. Most of the houses already have all the beach gear you need, including tons of toys for the kids. They're fully furnished, so all you really need are your clothes and bathing suit and a stop at the grocery store. We usually find our rental through VRBO. We go in early May, because once you get towards Memorial Day, the rates double! We don't have school schedules to work around yet though...

We do this too every year. It is definitely the nicest beach I've ever visited in the US. It was really great when the kids were younger because we just relaxed spending all our time at the pool or the beach and that was enough to entertain them for the whole week. When they got a little older, we added in a couple of days of sight seeing to mix it up a little. We'd usually choose 2 or 3 of the following: a day at the water park, a boat ride and/or snorkeling trip, a movie, a trip to Panama City, the marine center, outlet shopping, Fudpuckers with the alligators, nightly fireworks, etc. This will be our first year not to go. We are giving Clearwater a chance this year.