Tag: advice

Categories
Asia

My top tips for travel with kids to Tokyo, Japan

Ema wooden prayer cards at Meiji Shrine, Harajuku, Tokyo (photo by Sheila Scarborough)Through a couple of referrals by mutual friends on Twitter (here’s my Twitter stream) I got a question from Mzinga executive and social media business strategist Jim Storer about taking his family to Japan later this year.

After pulling together an email for Jim, with links to most of my Japan-related writings across this blog, the Perceptive Travel Blog and some other publications, I thought, why not put the same consolidated information in a helpful blog post?

I lived in Japan for awhile while serving with the Navy near Fukuoka, on Kyushu, and returned a couple of years back when my daughter was a preteen, staying for about a month and a half near Tokyo.

Japan is not an “easy” destination for families  —  that’s not to scare you off,  but so you’ll know that standing around feeling like a complete idiot (and usually a lost idiot who can’t determine north from south) is TOTALLY normal for a visitor to Japan. It’s worth it, though.

I always advocate pushing out of the coddled tourist bubble and striking out on your own, but it’s harder to do that with kids in tow. Mix it up – do the “weird stuff” (occasionally feeling like an idiot) and then allow occasional forays into McDonald’s or Starbucks for some feeling of familiarity. Your brain will need it more frequently than you’d think, especially with kids.

I don’t care what anyone tells you, English is not widely spoken, but it really doesn’t matter all that much. Do a lot of bowing and hand gestures; the Japanese will generally go out of their way to help.

Let me tell you, travel around Europe after that was (comparatively) a piece of cake.

My writings on Japan:

***  Here’s an article I wrote about taking a preteen to Tokyo, for the San Antonio Express-News:  Navigating Tokyo with a ‘tween.

***  One of my first posts – an itinerary for Asakusa to Odaiba in Tokyo. It can fill one whole day.

***  They’re everywhere and they’re awesome – one of the main things I miss about Japan – vending machines!

***  You need to know how to use a squat toilet.

***  If you plan to rent a car in Japan, stand by to blow up your brain by driving on the left.

***  Here’s my guest post on Away.com’s family travel blog about climbing Mt. Fuji:  Trip of a lifetime – climbing Fuji with a preteen.

***  Great side trip from Tokyo: Yokohama (try to see the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum.)

***  Another good Tokyo side trip: the beaches at Zushi and Kamakura (see the giant Buddha, or Daibutsu, at Kamakura – here’s a Taylor family post about it, and an excellent description of the area by travelers Susan and Lars.)

***  Fun souvenir: Japanese children’s chopsticks and bento boxes.

***  More great souvenirs: Kappabashi Dori where you can buy plastic food.

***  Don’t miss the summer fireworks and local matsuri (festivals.) Check the Tokyo tourist Web site event calendar for matsuri dates and locations, but you may also stumble across one going on in the streets so be ready to get swept up in the fun! One of my favorite blogs about Japan, AMPONTAN, has a whole category about Japanese festivals; most posts are titled Matsuri-da!

Guidebooks – I wore out my copy of TimeOut Tokyo and I’m a long-time fan of Frommer’s guides for good overviews. Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness Guides are pretty good but are rather heavy. I’d get one good guidebook for Japan overall and then a small one for the city where you’ll spend the most time.

Maps. You’ll want maps. The guidebooks have ’em and they always boot up and don’t need WiFi.

When you arrive, look for copies of Metropolis and TimeOut Tokyo magazines, for the latest info in English (Metropolis Visitor’s Guide online, and TimeOut Tokyo online.)

For good blogs and news sites about Japan, take a look at Alltop, an “online magazine rack,” and their topic page on Japan.

Another good book is CultureShock! Japan: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette.

Here’s the BootsnAll Travel Network portal page for Japan.

Did I miss anything about taking kids to Japan, especially Tokyo? Tell us about it in the comments….

Categories
Book Reviews Tips

Win my copy of Shelly Rivoli’s Travels with Baby

Book cover, Travels with Baby (courtesy Shelly Rivoli)Even though it has been a few years since my kids were babies and toddlers, I have no problem remembering what a challenge it was to take them on family road trips, or to travel on airplanes while lugging a diaper bag, car seat, Cheerios dispenser and those squirty juice boxes.

If my Mom memory fails me, I can get right back up to speed with Shelly Rivoli’s excellent book, Travels with Baby: The Ultimate Guide for Planning Trips with Babies, Toddlers, and Preschool-Age Children.

The San Francisco Bay Area-based Ms. Rivoli is an experienced traveler and mother of three (welcome to her new baby Theo, born this month!) She’s active on Twitter and also blogs about her latest thoughts and advice on travel with young ones.

Here are some highlights from Shelly’s book:

*** Detailed pre-trip planning tips, including “Fifteen Things You Might Not Think to Pack” (yes, an inflatable beach ball is a total what-to-play-with lifesaver!)

*** Honest feedback about the relative ease of traveling with infants, who mostly just want to be carried and nursed, and have a clean diaper on their bottom. With a good carrier, you are free to walk around and do adult-ish things like shopping while baby snoozes, or those curious little eyes peek out from the sling to take in the sights. In a few short months, they will be running all around getting into things, and the infant days will seem like a piece of cake.

*** Lots of helpful guidance about international travel, including food and water safety, vaccinations and “bringing the ugly Winnie the Pooh diaper bag” so that its contents are obvious and it’s less likely to be swiped. On Shelly’s blog, one of her latest entries is about flying to India with a 2-year-old. I like her sense of adventure.

*** She has a whole chapter on taking a cruise with young children; which seems like a no-brainer good idea but can have a number of unexpected pitfalls, as Condé Nast Traveler‘s Wendy Perrin will tell you.  I also like Shelly’s extensive section on train travel (such as it is in the US.)

Shelly Rivoli at Chichen ItzaIf all this sounds like your kind of book, here’s what to do to win my copy:

***  Leave a brief comment below about why you’d like to read “Travels with Baby”.

***  At the end of this week, on Friday, March 27, 2009, I will randomly pick one of your comments using one of the cool tools on Random.org, then I’ll announce the winner in a separate post.

***  If you win, I’ll email you at the address you leave when you comment (to get your snail mail address,) then I’ll box up the book and send it to you. Yes, I’ll mail to places outside the US.

Thanks for participating, and thanks very much to Shelly for sending me a review copy.

Good luck!

Categories
Tips

Parent to parent: baby travel gear tips

Author Jen Leo, who has been an outstanding travel writer and blogger for many years, is about to become a new mother (congrats, Jen!)

She started an interesting thread over on Twitter Moms asking about recommendations for baby travel gear.

How many of those gizmos and gadgets does a traveling parent really need?

Take a look at the thread; many experienced folks have weighed in and they have some good advice.

My input would be a thumbs-up for baby slings rather than strollers.  Slings are so much easier to use when you’re navigating a city or any public transportation, they leave your hands free, and here’s the thing….your kid is gonna squirm and yell and want to be held anyway.

That’s why there are so many parents at the local mall who are carrying their child and pushing a stroller full of shopping bags.

Jussayin’.

Categories
Tips

2 must-have items for air travel

Whenever I get on a plane lately, the experience provides perfect material for a blog post.

Here is the latest lesson….two items I could not have done without on today’s journey from Austin to Kansas City for the Travel Media Showcase conference.

1.   The 800 telephone number to directly contact the airline. Have it written down AND pre-programmed into your cell phone. Here is why:

  • My original morning flight on Northwest Airlines was already flashing “Delayed” when I arrived at the airport a little after 6 am. Not a good sign, especially since I had a tight plane change/turnaround in Minneapolis (yes, don’t get me started on the absurdity of flying to Minneapolis from Austin in order to get to Kansas City – die, airline hub & spoke!)
  • I went to the gate area to see what was up. No desk attendant from Northwest, no notice on the electronic board indicating a revised departure time.
  • I sat there like a sheep along with everyone else till the scheduled departure time came and went, with NOTHING heard from the airline.  I then whipped out my cell phone, called Northwest’s 800 number and was promptly and politely rebooked onto a Continental Airlines flight leaving just 30 minutes later (and getting me to KC 40 minutes earlier than the original arrival time.)
  • I did a happy dance, grabbed my trusty rolling carryon suitcase — here’s another example of why you should never check luggage these days if you can help it — and I scampered to my new gate.
  • Don’t be a sheep! I learned from calling the 800 number that the plane had a mechanically-related delay of 6 hours; who knows when someone would have come around to tell us that.

2.  Carry a small portable digital music player. Here’s why:

  • Your sanity.  My iPod blocked out having to listen to a yammering TV show at the gate while I waited for Northwest to ignore me (see above.)
  • Your sanity.  My iPod blocked out the screaming child who was running madly around in the Kansas City airport, ignoring his mother and jumping on the luggage carousel. Not my child, and he couldn’t set my teeth on edge, either.
  • Your sanity.  My iPod blocked out the women who blabbed on her cell phone for nearly 40 minutes as I awaited ground transport in KC.
  • Did I say, “your sanity?”  Air travel is crummy enough these days; having pleasant sounds of your own choosing makes life quite tolerable.
Categories
USA

Visit my daughter’s birthplace: Washington DC (Part One)

The Capitol building, Washington DC (courtesy Jon Rochetti, The DC Traveler)*** Today is my daughter’s 15th birthday (yes, my son was also born in September.) In honor of her arrival, I have a great guest post about family travel to the area where she was born: Washington DC.

Please welcome fellow blogger and friend Jon Rochetti of The DC Traveler — he has so many good ideas, we’re going to give you Part One today and Part Two tomorrow. Take it away, Jon! ***

Kids love Washington, DC. There are so many things for them to see and do, and it’s not just being dragged around dusty old museums. Plus, with the summer wave of tourists over and the heat and humidity of summer gone, now is the perfect time for a visit to the nation’s capital.

Here are a few kid-friendly ideas, including a few not-so-common activities:

Honk for the DC Duck (courtesy Jon Rochetti, The DC Traveler)

First, how about taking the kids on a 90-minute tour around DC on a DC DUCK – an original World War II DUKW (”Duck”) amphibious vehicle.

You drive around the National Mall, then cruise the Potomac River, entering the river near Reagan National Airport, just under the takeoff and landing pattern of the airport.

This, the kids will love.

DC Ducks at Union Station Main Entrance
50 Massachusetts Ave., NE, Washington, DC 20018

Next, the city has two great Air and Space museums, one at Independence Avenue on the National Mall and a second, newer and larger one near the Dulles airport. It’s the world’s most extensive collection of aviation history under two roofs; kids get to see everything from the original Wright Brother’s Flyer close up (it no longer hangs from the museum ceiling since it’s now part of a special Wright Brothers exhibit) to the Space Shuttle.

Spirit of St Louis at the National Air and Space Museum (courtesy Jon Rochetti, the DC Traveler)

Between the two museums, there’s aviator Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis aircraft, the SR-71 Blackbird (the fastest plane ever built) and a full size Apollo moon landing craft, all guaranteed to get a few ”Way cools!!”

Parents will also love that admission to both museums is FREE.

The National Air and Space Museum on Independence Avenue also houses some of the Treasures of American History collection from the National Museum of American History, which is closed for renovations until the summer of 2008.

Kermit says hello from Washington DC (courtesy the National Museum of American History)

More than 150 objects are on view, including the original Kermit the Frog puppet, Alexander Graham Bell’s experimental telephone, R2-D2 and C-3PO from the Star Wars movie Return of the Jedi and Dorothy’s sequined ruby red shoes worn in the classic movie The Wizard of Oz.

There’s even a pair of not-so-fashionable (but definitely NOT oversized, baggy or droopy) Levi Strauss jeans from the 1870s.

National Air and Space Museum
Independence Avenue at 6th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20560 (map it)

Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center
14390 Air and Space Museum Parkway
Chantilly, Virginia 20151 (map it)

What kid doesn’t love to play hide and seek?

At the International Spy Museum, kids can learn how adults play hide and seek. While this museum is probably not great for very young children, it is a fun, family-friendly place. The museum covers everything about spies… gadgets, bugs, hidden cameras, weapons and vehicles, including James Bond’s 1964 Aston Martin DB5 from the classic Bond film Goldfinger.

International Spy Museum (courtesy Jon Rochetti, The DC Traveler)

Kids (and adults too) can learn about invisible ink, microdots, buttonhole cameras and how Hollywood helped the CIA develop ingenious disguise techniques.

They occasionally offer kid’s programs and workshops, such as creating disguises, codes and ciphers and other themes, so check their website for programs and dates.

International Spy Museum
800 F. Street, NW
Washington, DC, 20004 (map it)

*** You may not particularly want to see the National Naval Medical Center, where my daughter actually arrived, but Jon has tips for good places to eat in Bethesda, the community where the hospital is located.

Stay tuned for Part Two of the DC Traveler’s suggestions. ***

Technorati tags: travel, family travel, Washington DC, DC, Washington, Washington DC travel, The DC Traveler, DC tourist information, DC sightseeing, National Air and Space Museum, DC Ducks, International Spy Museum, DC monuments

Categories
Asia

Kids in Tokyo — Escape to Yokohama

Minato Mirai, YokohamaFeeling overwhelmed by Tokyo’s bustle and sprawl? Take a subway ride just a bit south, to the relatively compact seaport city of Yokohama.

It has the largest Chinatown in Japan, plus the attractive waterside Minato Mirai park area, with its skyline-dominating Cosmoworld amusement park Ferris wheel and the soaring Landmark Tower shopping and hotel complex.

There is a much more relaxed atmosphere here, especially near the water.

Many of the elaborate shopping complexes around Minato Mirai will feel much like your local mall, with brand-name shops and a Hard Rock Cafe.

Still, let’s face it; sometimes your kids (and maybe you) just want something that feels familiar. This can also be good for a rainy day or a slow evening (shops are open till around 8 p.m., and restaurants till later.)

Pokemon enthusiasts will find the Pokemon Center shop in one of the indoor shopping complexes, with every imaginable item branded with the cartoony little creatures. Best option is a chopstick set or a kid’s bento (lunch) box.

Pokemon Center shop Yokohama (Scarborough photo)

You Hello Kitty fans will find plenty of that in this mall as well, including neat little washcloths with the Kitty in various guises around Tokyo neighborhoods.

Take a pleasant walk over the water bridge to the World Porters area if you haven’t had enough shopping, or stroll past it even further to the Red Brick Warehouse (Web site in Japanese) where there is an outpost of the beloved fresh cosmetics company Lush.

Also at the Warehouse is Motion Blue, a smaller version of Tokyo’s dinner club and performance venue Blue Note, with some terrific jazz musicians on the schedule. Good for older kids.

Does your son or daughter like ramen, the noodle soup that blossoms in the microwave in just a little water? Check out the real stuff at the unique Shin-Yokohama Raumen Museum.

Once you pay a small fee to enter, you are transported back to late-1950s era shitamachi Tokyo, right down to the advertising signs, street performers, a little toy shop and eight different actual ramen restaurants, each serving different styles of the iconic noodle bowl, at very reasonable prices (including perhaps a Kirin or Sapphoro beer for the adults.)

Some of the museum street performers tell Japanese adventure tales to children using special painted story-boards.

Watch their technique of building up to an exciting point in the story and then quickly showing a new picture: this is one of the cultural foundations of today’s anime styles.

Shin-Yokohama Raumen/Ramen Museum, Yokohama (Scarborough photo)

The gift shop has noodle-related knick-knacks including Naruto, who is a very popular manga character with his own action show on American TV.

His name comes from the traditional small decorative egg item with a swirl that is placed on top of bowls of ramen.

HOW TO GET THERE: Take the subway from Tokyo to the Sakuragi-cho subway station and walk out the Minato Mirai exit.

There is a tourist booth just outside the exit where you can get maps and directions to all of the attractions in Yokohama. The Ramen Museum is a few minute’s walk from Exit 8 of the Shinyokohama subway station on the Yokohama City subway line.

Maritime Manhole Cover, Yokohama (photo by Sheila Scarborough)

Update 8 October 2006: There’s a nice LA Times article on taking a side trip from Tokyo to Nikko.

I haven’t been there myself but it looks like a wonderful option with older kids (and would be closer than Kyoto.)