links – Family Travel Blog

I recently had a request on my Facebook page for Netherlands vacation travel tips with kids….

“I came across your bio randomly as I was trying to plan a trip to the Netherlands at the end of August. I have three kids–16,12, and 8.

What kind of suggestions can you offer me for my travel plans? Any must-see places, any off the beaten path surprises–the kids have gotten rather fond of my penchant for doing that kind of stuff. Thanks for whatever help you can offer.”

Once I responded, I thought that I might as well put the same information here that I gave to him:

I haven’t been to the Netherlands in a few years, but we lived in the southern part of the country, down near Maastricht, which is easy to get to by train or car. Ryanair flies into Eindhoven, too. This Zuid-Limburg “Dutch Alps” area is very pretty (its caves are cool – Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch” was hidden in local caves during World War II) and the pace is slower, so it’s great for families.

Look for the VVV (Vereniging voor Vreemdelingenverkeer, the Dutch tourism agency) signs in each town or city – they usually have English-speaking tourism experts and printed guides in English. You’ll pay a few euros for printed information; they aren’t as big on freebie handouts as American tourism offices. Some would say that’s just the thrifty ways of the Dutch.

Ride bikes whenever you can, even if it’s just hotel-provided clunkers around town – it adds a whole new dimension to your travels to get around as the Dutch do. I often tell people about seeing a young couple on bikes in Amsterdam, holding hands and talking on cell phones at the same time….yes, no one was touching any handlebars! Not recommended for your children to try, of course.

Our favorite guidebook was Here’s Holland by Sheila Gazaleh-Weevers . Its level of detail makes it well worth trying to find a copy.

Amsterdam – love it – there’s the BootsnAll Amsterdam Logue, plus an older post of mine, Travel with kids to Amsterdam.

Waddenzee Islands are great for families – we visited Texel and Terschelling for some serene beach time, wide open spaces and seafaring heritage.

There is a lively post over on ProBlogger right now, asking blog readers whether links should open in a new window.

The question is this: if you click on a link here on Family Travel, would you prefer to have a new window pop up that takes you to the link’s URL, or would you prefer to stay in the same window and then back-click to return to the original Family Travel post with the link in it? As an example, the ProBlogger link above opens in the same window, and the link to the “whether links should open….” permalink opens in a new window.

Apparently a lot of people really, really HATE it when a new window opens, to the extent that they actually leave the offending site that doesn’t open windows the way that they prefer.

Here’s what I wrote in comment #63 to the ProBlogger post:

“Wow, I’m with Barbara up in Comment 7, in that I get off on Internet exploration tangents and prefer to have a new window open and come back to the original site later, since otherwise I’d be “back-buttoning” for eternity. So, I open into a new window on my blog because I thought that was easiest for everyone. No nefarious intentions at all.

I had no idea that this annoys people so much, and am somewhat puzzled by what you accomplish when you get miffed about new windows and never return to that naughty site. Why not leave a comment for the blog author; maybe they’re like me and had no idea that it gets people in such a twist.

I know life’s short and we’re all busy, but don’t be passive-aggressive. Give straightforward feedback.

This has inspired me to ask my readers what they’d like — thanks so much for the food for thought, Darren.”

So here’s my question, faithful readers — which do you prefer, and why?

I can go either direction when I draft a post and put in a link — open in a new window or open in the same window — but I want to make this site user-friendly and welcoming to the readers, not write it only to satisfy my own preferences regarding the “right” way to set up a post.

Thanks very much for your feedback in the comments.

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