Month: November 2007

Categories
Tips

Thanks on Veterans Day

                           With the Commanding Officer of USS FARRAGUT (DDG 99) on the ship's commissioning day in 2006 (Scarborough photo)

See the Navy Commander on the right side of the photo?

That’s Deidre McLay, and I’ve known her since she came as a college-aged Midshipman to my first ship, on a summer training cruise.  This photo was taken on the day that her destroyer, the FARRAGUT, was commissioned as a brand-new ship in 2006, and she was the first Commanding Officer.  My son and I went to the commissioning ceremony in Florida.

How wonderful is that?

Happy Veterans Day.

Technorati tags: travel, family travel, Veterans Day, Remembrance Day, Navy, Farragut

Categories
Blog Video Posts

Video greetings from Family Travel

You know what happens when you go to the Best Buy electronics store on a Friday and buy a little video camera for your laptop?

You cannot wait to post that first “vlog” post; a video blog.

A short personal welcome to Family Travel, from Seafarer….

first-family-travel-video-greeting-9-nov-07

Categories
Europe

Today in 1989, the Berlin Wall fell

If your kids aren’t old enough to remember, or think that the area around Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate has “always” been open and bustling like it is today, here’s a YouTube video for them on the media issues blog Chaos Scenario:

The Thirst for Freedom Cannot Be Quenched  

Now talk to them about Burma, about North Korea, about other places in the world where people live under the control of a government they did not choose. 

Travel, communication and the free exchange of ideas knits us together as a planet, so grab that passport and go! 

Categories
Europe

Get rubbed the right way in London

Brass Rubbing Centre projects (courtesy Christabelle at flickr's Creative Commons)A fun London activity for kids is deep inside the crypt of St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church in Trafalgar Square — the London Brass Rubbing Centre.

Rubbings are a way of putting an image on paper without damaging the item underneath. The ones used at the Centre are brass replicas of artworks depicting typically English people like medieval ladies, knights and St. George.

You put the paper over the image and rub with a special crayon, and the imprint comes out on the paper, which you keep. There is a small fee.

It’s harder than it looks because many of their replicas are very detailed and need a lot of rather hard rubbing; pick a smallish-sized item for the younger children.

The crypt also has a gift shop and a nice cafe.

St. Martin-in-the-Fields is well-known as a lovely place for music, both sacred and secular, so try to time your family’s visit to coincide with a concert (at lunchtime they feature works played by young musicians and students.) This is the home of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, a classical music group formed in 1958 and led by Sir Neville Marriner, so there are plenty of classical concerts but also some jazz.

The Web site has the full concert schedule. To get there, the closest Tube station is Charing Cross.

Technorati tags: travel, family travel, London, Brass Rubbing Centre, St Martin in the Fields

Categories
USA

Travel and books: visit all of the “Little Houses”

During our summer 2007 drive through Kansas, my teen daughter and I thoroughly enjoyed stopping at the site of the original Little House on the Prairie in Independence, Kansas.

The “Little House” books by pioneer author Laura Ingalls Wilder are beloved by kids and adults worldwide, so to continue that “go see it!” thread, I wrote an article for Education.com about visiting all of the significant places where Wilder lived during her adventurous life.

All the Little Houses: Following in the Footsteps of Laura Ingalls Wilder is waiting for your reading pleasure on Education.com.  I’m thrilled to be writing a series of educational travel articles for this worthy Web site.

More to come!

Technorati tags: travel, family travel, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House books

Categories
Tips

Your personal park ranger

Your friendly local park ranger (courtesy lyrabellacqua on flickr's Creative Commons)Startup entrepreneur Lee Little visited Yellowstone National Park about six years ago and was frustrated.

He knew that he was missing interesting stuff, and wished that he could ask questions, but park rangers couldn’t be everywhere to help him out.

Until now.

Techie guy Lee founded Bar Z Adventures and put together the GPS Ranger, a hand-held device that uses GPS and multimedia to give users an awesome self-guided tour of a few of our U.S. national parks and zoos.

Since I just finished a Perceptive Travel blog post about lovely Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico, I was in a bullish-for-parks mood when I spied Lori Hawkins’ article about Bar Z in my local Austin American-Statesman Business section.

Lori writes:

“Death Valley, which receives 850,000 visitors annually, launched the service in September….[visitors] fix [the Ranger] to the dashboard of their car and use [it] to navigate the 3,000-square-mile park. When drivers approach a landmark, the device, triggered by the GPS system, offers video commentary by a park ranger as well as vintage photos and audio and video clips.”

The GPS Ranger (and a similiar product called Zoo Ranger) are now available for a US$19.95 rental fee at the following parks and zoos:

  • Death Valley National Park in California/Nevada
  • Cedar Breaks National Monument in Utah
  • Vicksburg National Military Park in Mississippi
  • Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site in Georgia
  • San Francisco Zoo in California
  • Dallas Zoo in Texas

I’m for anything that can help improve the park experience, because the more we appreciate our wild and historic places, the more we’ll pay attention to their care, upkeep and funding.

Technorati tags: travel, family travel, national parks, GPS Ranger, Zoo Ranger, Bar Z Adventures

Categories
Blog

Nov 1st travel and family Blogtipping

Tip your blogs, not your cows (courtesy Easton Ellsworth)

This is a minor miracle — two months in a row when I’ve remembered to enjoy Blogtipping on the first day of the month.  The wonders of a decently-maintained calendar….

I don’t exactly follow creator Easton Ellsworth’s format for this bloggy activity (he writes Business Blogwire on Know More Media) but I still have fun telling you about three blogs that I think you’ll enjoy:

**  Rick Steves’ Blog Gone Europe.     You didn’t know that Rick blogs?  Well, neither did I until recently, but I’ve always been a fan….his guidebooks (especially those with tips about how to best attack art museums in Europe) simply SAVED me with my itchy kids. Now he’s blogging, most recently about his trips to Greece and Turkey where he deals quite frankly with some controversial topics.

**  Family Hack.     Michael and Hannah run a beautifully laid-out site with marvelous photos, and they provide all sorts of “hacks” (tips to do something more easily) for busy families.  I am not crafty, but am seriously considering making their Decapitated Teddy Bear Flash Drive.  They have a dynamite Travel category, too.

**  Nerd’s Eye View has “a camera, a passport, a ukulele.”     Written by fellow writer, adventure-seeker and Primo Nerd Pam Mandel (who is also the BlogHer Travel editor) these are the thoughts of a great writer, a pretty good ukulele player and a wonderful photographer.  She’s particularly interesting lately because she just landed a guidebook-writing assignment for….Hawaii.  Think that’s paradise?  Track her hair-tugging over it under the Aloha Oy category on her blog.

Happy November blogtipping; now it’s time to put away the witches and ghosts, and pull out those paper kid-handprints-made-into-turkeys.

Technorati tags: travel, family travel, blogtipping, blogging