Here are some good thoughts about the myths of family travel from Teresa Plowright, the Guide at About.com’s section Travel with Kids.
She’s sure right about estimated times for driving certain distances; sometimes it’s no sweat getting there, and other times it feels like you stop every 30 minutes for one crisis or another.
I recently had the opportunity to take my daughter to Hong Kong; it’s my favorite city in the world since I made my first Navy port visit there in 1985.
I’ve seen it before and after the vaunted turnover to the Chinese, and it’s still the same sparkling, colorful urban jewel.
Think of it as sort of a Chinese New York, with all of the energy and verve and excitement which that analogy implies.
We visited along with my intrepid 20-something nephew on a Go-Today package; just the airfare and hotel because I said “no thanks” to the included tour. I already knew where we wanted to go and what we wanted to see. The package was a Hong Kong-Tokyo combined deal; you’ll see the rest tomorrow when I post the link to my article about Tokyo in the San Antonio Express-News. (Update: here’s the link to my post “Navigating Tokyo with a ‘tween” including a link to the article plus other good Tokyo info.)
With a package, you are limited to a menu of hotels at different price ranges, but we weren’t going on this trip to admire our hotel. The Stanford Hillview on Kowloon side was fine; rooms were comfortable, staff was helpful and breakfast was OK.
Speaking of breakfast — I have now had a traditional Chinese breakfast and a traditional Japanese breakfast and I prefer….the traditional Norwegian breakfast! (smoked salmon, yogurts, cheeses, pickled herring in tomato sauce, fruit, meats, hearty bread, good coffee.)
Anyway, just getting around Hong Kong is half the fun. Assuming you arrive at Hong Kong International, grab your MTR Pass at the tourist desk and kick back as the Airport Express train whisks you efficiently into town in 20-40 minutes. Getting you and your family around is easy on buses, subway trains and fun double-decker trams.
The best transport, however, is the Star Ferry, which in just minutes takes you back and forth across the narrow strip of water that separates Hong Kong Island from the mainland (Kowloon side.) No extra charge for the spectacular views.
The city is wonderfully walkable, so go to the well-designed tourist Web site, figure out what you and the kids would like to do, and take off.
My top recommendations for Hong Kong family travel:
** See the nightly laser light show at 8 p.m. from Kowloon side, either standing at the Sidewalk of the Stars or sitting (with a Shirley Temple or Coke for them and a good gin and tonic for you) in the lobby bar of the Intercontinental Hong Kong Hotel.
** Check out the options under the Tourist Board’s Cultural Kaleidoscope program; how would your kids like a (free) morning tai chi class overlooking the harbor?
** While exploring Wan Chai and Central, visit the original Shanghai Tang store in the Pedder Building. Wildly expensive and wildly imaginative and gorgeous. We haunted the sale rack till we found something we could afford.
** Ride the Mid-Levels escalators up the Hong Kong hills, then hop off and wander some side streets.
** There are several very good museums; we liked the Hong Kong Museum of History for a comprehensive look at the city’s origins and development.
** Wander through the Kowloon/Nathan Road big branch of Yue Hwa Chinese Products Emporium (check out the snake wine, with snake included, in the food store, plus colorful packaging on Chinese herbs and medicines one floor up.) Rubber ear with acupuncture spots noted in Chinese? Great inexpensive souvenirs.
** A nighttime tram trip up to Victoria Peak (in clear weather) to admire the city laid out before us.
For more info, check out Frommer’s Favorite Experiences in Hong Kong, MSN Travel’s take here and this excellent article on GoNOMAD.
For serious shoppers (poking, browsing, buying and schlepping is a serious sport in HK) my personal favorite shopping Bible is by Suzy Gershman: Born to Shop Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing (Suzy includes some teen-oriented shopping tips from her own young son Aaron.)
Get your family going to Hong Kong; it’s worth every jet-lagged minute.
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Technorati tags: travel, family travel, Hong Kong, China, Asia
Those savvy folks over at Jaunted have a nice NYC post, including tips on how to dine at the United Nations.
Take your kids Kofi-spotting….
Allow me to veer off into techie stuff for a moment, but only to change your online life entirely….
To keep up with the latest postings in Family Travel: See The World With Your Kids, you need RSS (Really Simple Syndication) unless you don’t mind manually coming back to this blog each day to see what’s new (not that I don’t want you to work for all of this great info.)
RSS feeds literally “feed” your home page (on Yahoo or Google for example) with clickable headlines from Web sites and blogs that you like. You’ll need to set up your home page to add content, and then as long as you’re logged in as You, the home page displays the latest posts in all of your hand-picked areas of interest.
I warn you, it’s addictive. Think of your best bookmarks or favorite Favorites all feeding their latest goodies onto your home page. You’re thinking, “Wow, it really is all about ME!”
My own personal Yahoo home page has every travel-related feed known to humankind, a bunch of finance, tech and blogging blogs, foul-mouthed & hilarious Wonkette and In the Pink Texas because they’re great for political stuff, and some drag racing feeds. Latest headlines and interesting pop culture stuff too.
THAT’S how you get to be a know-it-all. Takes me 2 cups of coffee to get through it, but I figure that doing housekeeping is highly overrated; then I go off and write like a banshee ’cause all that reading makes me want to do Author Work.
To get yourself started, look around on your favorite sites for a clickable link that says RSS or RSS feed, an orange button that says RSS or XML, or the really knucklehead-proof button that says something like “Add this site to My Yahoo.” Click and start populating your home page with something more interesting than weather and DJIA ticker stats. To see Family Travel’s feed, look up at the top of this blog’s page, above the lovely Hong Kong skyline, and there are the buttons.
If you’re on another site clicking RSS buttons and get a bizarro page full of code gibberish, freak out not.
I figured this out about 3 days ago (and I’m a liberal arts major)….look up into the URL address bar above the code goop and you’ll see a URL with the site’s name and some jumbly stuff and the words rss or maybe xml in there somewhere. Right click and Copy that URL. Take it back to the Add Content section of your home page (feeling very geeky about now) and look for something like “Add Feed By URL.” That’s your cue. Paste that rss URL into that box, and if the cyber Gods cooperate, you’ve added the feed.
I’d love to know if this post is useful to you (comments for this blog are a bit thin; like, there aren’t really any, so talk to me) and then go get RSS fed….
Now look, I’m supposed to be out in town running errands, but then I found this comprehensive USA TODAY article about travel to Amsterdam on a budget.
I just have to post a link to it….even though it doesn’t really target families or kids, there’s lots of good info for everyone.
We lived in the Netherlands for several years with our kids, so I’ve been meaning to put up some posts about places to go and things to do. This should motivate me to get hot….
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Parents, are your preteen/teen kids into Japanese manga (serialized graphic novels) and anime (Japanese animated movies?)
If you’re clueless at this point, go ask them, but prepare for an earful of tongue-twisting names and plots.
For those fortunate enough to travel to Japan to see the real thing, here’s a great link listing manga/anime museums including iconic Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli (Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle) in the Tokyo suburb of Mitaka.
If you want more details, my “Tokyo with a ‘Tween” article will hit the streets in a couple of days in the “San Antonio Express-News” and I’ll provide a link here.
As a follow-up to my previous posts on this topic, here’s a quick link to the Sydney Morning Herald’s article on touring London while (whilst?) listening to a guided tour on your iPod.
Have your listener also serve as your family’s tourguide; gives kids a chance to pontificate instead of always having to be on the receiving end.
The folks over at Jaunted have some good guidance for towns and specifics on vacation home rentals in Maine’s coastal communities. We’ve vacationed in Maine a couple of times (fortunately we can stay with friends in the perfect little town of Castine and snarf down the delicious berry scones at Bah’s Bakehouse) so I can highly recommend the charms of Down East.
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Even LL Bean in Freeport at the height of summer was fun (once the little one fell asleep in the stroller.)
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Just remember to move quickly; the rental goodies get snapped up early. There are lots of Mom & Pop motels as well if you can’t get your planning brain moving until late May.
Update 2 June 2006: This article in Budget Travel gives a nice itinerary for mid-coast Maine including places to stay (and places to get the all-important lobster rolls.)
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For you lovers of the great outdoors (I’m there with you as long as there’s bug spray available) here’s a link to the National Parks Traveler blog, written by journalist and parks expert Kurt Repanshek.
You’ll find all sorts of ideas for taking your kids to visit places like Acadia in Maine, Mesa Verde in Colorado and Bryce Canyon in Utah, plus Kurt’s thoughts on advocacy and support for our parks system.
Here is a helpful article on “Frommer’s” about places for families to stay in the Washington DC area.
If you’re planning on a trip there this summer, keep in mind that it gets pretty hot and muggy, so minimal transportation hassles = maximum fun with kids.
Don’t believe the quote attributed to JFK: “Washington is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm.” You and your family will have a terrific time.