Travel Tips
Traveling with babies, road trip tips and planning tips
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Travel Tip Tuesday: Road trip snacks
Every Tuesday, we’ll chat with experienced family-travel bloggers to discover cool tips and tricks. I’d love to hear your opinions and suggestions as well. Question for this week: Which kid-friendly snacks do you bring on a road trip to fight low blood sugar and growling bellies? Are there any snacks that you avoid at all costs (the problematic snacks cause messes, crazy behavior, and general nuttiness)? Answers: So the snacks changed as my kid got older, but really they fall under three categories crunchy (crackers, pretzels, chips), protein (nuts and cheese), and the occasional cookie, granola bar or chocolate bar. I prefer water as the drink of choice because I hate…
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12 Tips for Green Family Travel
At one Portland hotel, Earth Day isn’t a once-a-year event. Every day, The Doubletree Hotel diverts 68% of its waste stream from landfills, composts up to 17 tons per month and purchases more than half of their food products seasonally within a 500-mile region. You can even offset your travel footprint from the hotel’s website. As more hotels become eco-aware, they’re offering choices to families concerned about the environment. And some changes adopted industry-wide – like the option to skip washing your sheets during your stay – also save hotel-owners money. “Green travel has become part of mainstream travel,†says Brian T. Mullis, of Sustainable Travel International, a Washington State-based…
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10 Tips for Enjoying Farmers Markets with Kids
Wherever our family travels in Washington, Oregon and BC, we always visit a produce market. Almost every destination offers a farmers’ market, whether the big-city Pike Place Market or the tiny, thriving Cannon Beach Farmers’ Market. In fact, we find farmers’ markets so fun that we sought them out in Paris (mmm, stanky cheese!), Provence (chickpea crepes) and Italy (fresh tomatoes). Here are my tips for enjoying farmers’ markets with kids: Check the market’s website before you head out the door. Use the site to pull together a scavenger hunt for in-season produce, print out maps, look for coupons or find out when a children’s performer will be on the…
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Packing Checklist for NW and BC Vacations
Our weather is unpredictable but our climate is mild. We dress in layers, and prep for rain and sun. The Cascadia uniform: T-shirt, hoodie, rain-proof jacket, jeans, water-repellent shoes. The Pacific Northwest dress code is casual and natural. We wear a lot of dark and vibrant colors. White, not so much. In the cities, women don’t typically wear much make up. We wear jeans to fine restaurants and yoga pants pretty much everywhere else (I’ve shown up to pick up my kids from school in my pajamas, and no one even noticed — or maybe they were just too Seattle-nice to say anything to my face). If you look in…
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13 iPhone Apps for Your NW Trip
Need ferry fares, Oregon traffic maps or the Spokane weather forecast? There’s an app for that. Need the kids to chill on the long I-5 drive? There’s a nap for that. Here are 13 apps to consider for your trip in and around Washington, Oregon and BC. You’ll find all in the iTunes Store. A caveat: If you plan to use a web-boosted app in a country not included in your iPhone coverage, find out how much it’ll cost you to use your data plan. ————————————– 1. Â BorderWait by RBJZ Post Industries |Â $0.99 This app displays times at the American/Canadian border, so you can decide which crossing to take. Locals…
