Looking for a diversion during a particularly long stretch on a family road trip? Geo-Caching might be the answer. Using your GPS navigation system, you can participate in scavenger hunts around the world! by way of Intelligent Travel
I received this question from Hemina, a reader in California:
I love your site! We will be traveling to Spain (Madrid, Oviedo) and
Paris
in April with our 14 month old and your site has been very helpful
in preparing us. I was wondering if you had any insight on the
availability and taste of whole milk in those countries versus what we
are used to here in the U.S.
Thanks for any information you can send me!
Here's my response:
First of all, have a great trip!
In both Paris and in Spain milk is typically sold in ultrapasturized (UHT), shelf stable boxes (similar to the Horizon Organic shelf stable milk sold in many health food stores). Whilte shelf stable milk is perfectly safe (and great for daytrips), it does not taste the same as fresh milk. Some toddlers reject it because of the different flavor. Luckily you can find fresh milk in better grocery stores and at McDonalds or Starbucks.
In Paris, fresh milk is widely available and we usually bought it at Monoprix or in the department stores. We always got a kick out of the fact that the butter display was bigger and had more variety than the fresh milk area. (Try buying fresh bread at a Paris bakery, you'll get detailed advice on exactly which butter will go best with it!)
In Madrid we shopped a lot at the Cortes Ingles supermarket. Fresh milk was almost always available and we occasionally found organic fresh milk too. When shopping at neighborhood grocery stores in Spain (and especially in hot weather), be sure to check the expiration date before purchasing fresh milk.
If you find yourself in a pinch and cannot get any fresh milk, try adding a little chocolate milk mix. The chocolate will mask the flavor difference somewhat and your toddler will likely be so excited about the treat that they'll decide to go along with you. You can find chocolate milk mix almost anywhere in Spain or France.
Have a question? Send email to debbie at deliciousbaby dot com
One of the challenges whenever we return home from a trip is to preserve our memories.
We have lots of great ideas (like the "trip wall" where we're supposed to hang one picture from each trip... it's about a year behind).
Here's an idea that takes just a few minutes to complete! We just received an adorable flipbook of D's first steps from FlipClips.com. Everest can just manage to flip through it, and both kids love watching the "video." We came home with lots of short videos from our trip to
Barcelona,
Madrid, and
Sevilla. I think I'll order one or two flipbooks of the kids favorite memories for them to play with.
I hope you enjoyed today's show and were inspired to start travelling with your kids! Here are some of the useful links and resources we talked about during today's show.
Tomorrow (Sunday) at 11am PST, I'll be the featured guest on Travel Hub Radio. I'll be talking about traveling with kids, my family travel experiences, and more.
This week we start the first weekly roundup of our favorite family travel related news stories, travellogs, and more from around the web. Enjoy!
Who Cares: The FAA's Car-Seats-On-Planes Policy is a Total Train Wreck An excellent story on DaddyTypes about the trials of travelling with the FAA approved
CARES travel harness (pictured) on various airlines. We've never had a flight attendant reject ours, but airline policies vary (and in the end, you're subject to the whims of the flight attendants).
Like a Local has a new service that helps travellers arrange for a local guide who will show them what daily life is like in their city (or even eat a meal in a local home). This could be especially great thing with kids. Not only can you hire someone with local knowlede, (beyond the big amusement parks that get mentioned in tour books) and kid friendly restaurants, but if things work out well, you might even get some local playmates for your kids. by way of Gadling
Cathay Pacific Thinks Your Kids Car Seat is a Security Threat tells the story of a family who booked business class seats on Cathay pacific only to find out that some planes do not accommodate car seats. Since they weren't willing to fly without a safety harness, they were removed from the flight. Sadly, they were treated as a security threat because they'd failed to comply with the flight attendant's request to seat the child without the safety harness.
Sheila Scarborough's Family Travel website has a great two-part post on Family Ski Vacations
Part I. Part II.
I received question from Jaqueline, a reader in Chicago, this week asking about budgeting for a family vacation. Here's the question:
I viewed your site, and I must say you have done a wonderful job preparing families across the internet world. I have a question regarding financing. Have you put together these family trips on a budget?, or were you and your family just having a good time without cost worries? I too love to travel, but have only done so within the USA. My daughter is 17 now, and going to college in the fall. Still, I would love to know what are the best economical, safest, English language friendly places. I am so nervous about leaving the country due to various things that happen around the world, but I would love to venture out to Spain, England, and Australia some day. Do you think it is possible to travel for 14 days out of the country, living in a nice hotel with 3 meals daily, and touring for $2,500 per person? Please, send updates if you can.
Jacquelyn
Here's my response:
Jacqueline,
Thanks for writing! I'm glad you liked the site. In general I would say that most families who have some disposable income can make a memorable family trip work within their budget. The trick is to set the budget and then be flexible and open minded about looking at alternatives and ideas that fit within that budget. The important thing is to let yourself (and your daughter) go build the memories you want to have.
Your specific budget gives you lots of great options for visiting the any of the countries you are interested in. The main thing working against you right now is the low value of the dollar, but you can offset that by being clever in some other ways. Let's tackle Europe first.
Flying out of a major airport (in your case Chicago) gives you access to great airfare sales. During the off season for travel to Europe, (winter and early spring) you can expect to pay about $600 per person for flights to European destinations. British Airways has a sale right now that includes round trip airfare and three nights hotel accommodations in London for $678 per person. A quick search on Orbitz found roundtrip fares from Chicago to Madrid beginning at about $450 this month and next.
The next challenge is to arrange for accommodations and daily expenses in your destination. For the sake of this example, let's assume that you've spent about $500 per person getting to your destination. That leaves about $4000 ($300/day) to cover your daily expenses for the 13 remaining days of your trip (you'll spend one night in transit). The biggest expense, of course is accommodation. You could forgo the accommodation expense almost entirely by arranging a home-swap. Another money saving alternative is to stay in a rental apartment instead of a hotel. You'll forgo the luxury of daily housekeeping, but in return you'll get more space, a kitchen, and a washing machine. Having a kitchen saves you money on meals as well. This nicely furnished apartment in the heart of Madrid from Spain Select is just $170 per night. Accommodation in Toledo, or heading south to Sevilla or Granada is generally even cheaper, but we'll use $170 as the average daily cost for this example.
The next biggest expense is internal travel. Europe has been revolutionized by budget airfares making this expense relatively low. Assuming you head to two other cities besides Madrid, I'd budget about $200 per person for flights and local trains. You can save money by staying close to Madrid (reducing your travel time will also increase the amount of time you have for sightseeing), flying out of your final destination city, and walking or using public transportation in Madrid and Barcelona.
For delicious but simple meals like those eaten by locals, I would budget about $40 per person per day. With that amount, you could have a self catered breakfast in your apartment and two restaurant meals a day. Check out the tapas scene for some delicious options at a reasonable price. If you picnic or eat in the apartment some days, you'll be able to arrange a few fancier meals within that budget. Sightseeing should cost about $20 per person per day on average.
Total cost for this 2 person trip to Madrid: $4390, leaving you plenty of room to spare for incidentals and shopping.
A trip to England has its own budgetary rewards and challenges. London is among the most expensive cities in the world, and the low US dollar really works against you here, both with accommodation and meals. If you were to take advantage of the British Airways package, you would want to leave London and explore the countryside when your three days of included hotel were up. Staying in family run b&b's (or arranging a home swap) would help significantly with costs.
With Australia, the budgetary challenge comes from the cost of airfare. Travel to Australia from the US rarely, if ever, sinks below about $1000 round trip, which is a big chunk of your budget. However, Quantas often offers special packages that include several internal flights once. Once you've arrived, there are lots of options for low priced accommodation as Australia has a long & healthy history of internal budget travel. A road trip, exploring the region between Melbourne and Sydney, for example is a fantastic adventure and there are low priced b&b's along the way.
We got a great write up this weekend in the Contra Costa times. Their blog, aPARENTlySpeaking, which ran an extended version of the story, is a great resource for parents living in or visiting the San Francisco Bay Area and wanting local information about kids activities, as well as general parenting information.
With everyone headed off for holiday travel it's been a busy month here at DeliciousBaby. Our traffic grew and grew over the course of the month, reaching its all time peak on New Year's Eve.
We're looking forward to 2008 and to adding features that make it easier for you to ask questions and add your own recommendations. We're also starting to plan lots of great trips, with a visit to San Francisco in February, Orange County in March, and a possible trip to Germany in May. If you have tips for any of those destinations, please let me know!
Here are our top-viewed articles and city guides for 2007.
After receiving reader tip saying that her 15 year old son had used a similar car seat, I did some more research on that model. The Fisher Price 9100 & 9101 T-Shield convertible seats were manufactured between 1985 and 1995 (meaning that the car seat pictured is between 12 years and 22 years old!) Wow! No wonder it looks so worn out.
Most manufacturers suggest replacing a seat 5 to 8 years after the date of manufacture, because current safety seats may have better safety features than older seats, but in no case should a car seat be used after 10 years.
Furthermore, this car seat model has been subject to a eight different recalls (though the one pictured might have missed all of them) Do you think anyone at advantage has taken the time to check the car seat for recalls when they didn't take the time to clean it after use?
Now that I've learned more, I'd like to update our recommendations to parents:
Call ahead to the specific office you will be renting a car seat from and verify that they have new, well maintained car seats available for your date of travel.
Make sure that the seat is installed snugly and that the latch or seatbelt is threaded through the proper channels
Find the individual "birth date" of the seat. It should be on a computer printed label stuck to the side or back of the seat. Don't use a seat that is older than 5 years.
Check the seat carefully for evidence of cracking, twisting, worn harness webbing or broken buckles. Once you have latched the buckles, pull hard to make sure that they do not detach. If there is any visible damage, do not use the seat
If you are on site at the airport, it is easy to walk to another agency and ask them whether they'll honor the rate for your reservation (if they have extra cars, they are likely to). If you're off site, it's harder to walk away, but never take the risk of putting your child in a car without a properly functioning car seat.
About Me I'm Debbie, mother of three delicious kids and I write about traveling with little kids. That's my daughter in the backpack and my son in Paris on Halloween.
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