family travel (92)

With 300 days of sunshine a year the Algarve is an ideal holiday destination for a relaxing family holiday. This sunny destination is one of Europe‘s hot spots, preferred by many families for their holidays, because of the outdoors and fun activities it offers to adults and children to enjoy their holiday. Let’s look at a few attractions in the Algarve where you can take children for a fun day out.

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A day at the beach

With a coastline that stretches over coastline stretches a total of 124 miles, th

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Much has been said about the boom in multi-generational travel in recent years, but increasingly, grandparents are spending their leisure time, and their dollars, with the grandkids and leaving the parents at home. This intriguing twist on the trend, known in the industry as grandtravel, is becoming an important segment of the leisure travel market “simply because our population continues to age,” said Peter Yesawich, chairman and CEO of YPartnership, an Orlando, Fla.-based marketing research fi
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9008603072?profile=originalPhoto: © 2011 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com


You step through an archway and all you see are neat, lush gardens with lounge chairs set in a row, and beach and the waters of the Gulf of Mexico beyond, and your immediate reaction is "aaaahhh."

it is just the place you might imagine staying if you were writing your novel, an oasis of serenity and peace.

The Sandpiper Inn may have started out in the 1960s as a motel, but it bears little resemblance whatsoever. Each unit - studio, one or two bedro

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Darned if I was going to be dragged down into senior citizenship without a fight by letting my grandchildren call me “grandma”. The very word conjures up images of little old ladies hunched over knitting needles, warmed by fuzzy cardigans and sporting chunky black lace up shoes – not an option for a boomer ex-soccer mom who grew up with bell bottoms and the Beatles. So after the birth of my first grandchild, I borrowed an idea from a hip friend who successfully avoided the same dilemma by adopti

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Amtrak's AutoTrain is wonderfully family friendly, and kids are utterly enamored with trains. At the Lorton,VA station - the northern terminus - there is even a playground.
The train goes to Sanford, FL, just outside Orlando © 2010 Karen
Rubin/news-photos-features.com




The idea of long-distance train travel invariably evokes a sense of romance and nostalgia for the golden years when trains were the high-tech way to travel.



That spirit is still alive here in the United States in perhaps the most une

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A Carnival Comes to New York



PARK AVENUE ARMORY OPENS DOORS TO NEW YORK FAMILIES


By Denise Mattia



This Columbus Day Weekend, the Park Avenue Armory is presenting an extraordinary indoor Carnival—a whimsical and theatrical event featuring breathtaking performances and a range of nostalgic games, authentic carnival rides, and activities. The 55,000 square-foot Wade Thompson Drill Hall will be transformed by Hickey Shields Design into an edgy and fantastical carnival stage set, described by some as “Tim Burton-esque,” and anchor

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The mazes are amazing. Imagine acres of tall corn cut into twisting paths in whimsical shapes from crossword puzzles to bumblebees. Finding your way amidst these mazes of maize is a fun-filled adventure for all ages at four beautiful family farms in western Connecticut. Located in Litchfield and Fairfield Counties, the farms also offer hayrides, animals for petting, and apples and pumpkins ripe for picking to make for a perfect fall weekend outing.


Ellsworth Hill Farm in Sharon may take the prize

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The Parrot's Perch bucket dumps 400 gallons of water to everyone's delight at CoCo Key's waterpark (© 2010 Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com)

see slideshow at: http://www.examiner.com/examiner/examinerslideshow.html?entryid=1530069

Coco Key Hotel & Waterpark is a refreshing addition to Orlando, already the indisputable world capital of family fun. In fact, Coco Key was built for fun.

Most important for families: it offers resort features for a hotel price, is a Universal-Orlando partner propert

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Taking Your Family To London

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From NMT Images

(Please watch the Travel Video PostCard at the end of this post)

Just because you have kids doesn’t mean you have to stop traveling, and London is a favorite destination for families looking to travel to a foreign country for the first... or second or third time.

“Family travel, if it’s planned right and done with the right spirit, can create strong family ties and build lasting memories,” says Kyle McCarthy, editor of the hugely popular Familytravelforum.com

But planning is not the
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Free and easy is a magic phrase for moms and dads balancing work and play. Enjoying time together and making memories matters and when it can happen while staying within budget it is even better.

Family vacation planning has always been a balancing act between fun, time and dollars invested. So, I think it is always a benefit to discover ways to increase vacation value but not exhaust the budget. The economic crunch has made each of us pay closer attention to vacation budgets and to consider the
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Sicily Seven

Wednesday, November 4, 2009


And we're off! Leaving for Sicily in two days! It's a trip that we've been planning for a year. We're all going: Joyce, Rosie, Susan, Debbie, Donna, Cathy and Mummy! Someone will be bringing a laptop so I'm hoping to be blogging from beautiful downtown Taormina, Sicily. We are planning to visit the birthplace of Mom's mother and father, Trecastagni, too, a town not too far from smoldering Mt. Etna. Assuming we survive the next eruption, there'll be more next week.
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