museums – Family Travel Blog

For a lot of kids, a trip to the museum is as appealing as a trip to the dentist. Wandering aimlessly from weird-looking art to even weirder-looking art as you are constantly “shushed” by adults is no fun. But museum visits don’t have to be somber and boring; in fact many museums cater to kids with special exhibits and programs that make learning more fun.

When planning museum trips for kids, first think about what your kids like. If you have a child who actually is really interested in art or history, by all means, enjoy a visit to one of the best modern art museums or museum that showcases the local history. But if you’re child isn’t quite captivated by artistic expression or the French Revolution, don’t expect them to enjoy a few hours spent in the museum.

Instead take them to a museum that better fits their interests. As a child who loved horses, I’m sure I would have been enraptured with Lisbon’s Coach Museum, a collection of ornate carriages and coaches. Kids who love dinosaurs would flip for Chicago’s Field Museum, where a full T-Rex skeleton is on display.

And don’t forget some of the lesser-known and slightly odder museums around the world. There are several unusual food museums
that would fascinate children, as well as museums centered on space exploration (always a favorite with kids) and natural science. Any museum that offers hands-on exhibits and interactive experiences can be good for kids.

Many more adult-oriented museums also have special exhibits for kids that help make the information more accessible and entertaining. No matter which museum you choose, there are ways to make the experience a bit more interesting for kids of any ages.

First off, try to schedule your visit when there are less people there. Come early in the morning or later, before the museum closes, and limit the amount of time based on your kid’s attention span and interests. Some kids might be happy to scamper around a museum all day while others would get bored after an hour. If you want to see several sections of a large museum, consider breaking your visit up into two days. If the kids bet bored or hungry before the parents want to go home, consider having one parent take them to the food court while the other gets their art fix, and then switching off.

Visiting a museum with your kids doesn’t have to be a whiny “are we done yet?”-filled experience. If you pick museums that offer something for kids and plan your visit with your child’s personality in mind, a visit to a museum can be a rewarding and entertaining educational experience for the whole family.

Photo by Txgeek

Listen up! iPod and audio travel guides and tours

Are your kids like mine – often with some sort of headphone or earbud plugged into their aural sockets? Take advantage of that tendency by looking for available iPod/audio guides and tours when you travel. Kids can keep looking plugged-in and “cool” but may actually learn something on your trip.

As a parent, of course, your job is to never seem too “Squeeee!” happy when they occasionally admit that something is informative or educational.

Where do you find these tours?

First, if you use iPods, do a search in the iTunes store; Apple recognizes the value of their audio tour podcasts although the iTunes Search function is not particularly good.

There are many well-established general travel podcasts (think of them as little radio shows) from Indie Travel Podcast (latest topics as of this writing include Christchurch, New Zealand and Tasmania) the Amateur Traveler (latest episodes are about the Republic of Georgia, London and Easter Island) Frommers.com and Rick Steves who covers Europe. An iTunes search for Disney informational podcasts returns a bunch of options too; just make sure they’re fairly recent since things can change quickly at the parks.

You can also find location-specific offerings on iTunes like LAWithKids for Los Angeles and audio/video podcast offerings from VisitLondon.com.

Some companies focus specifically on audio offerings – AudioSnacks, for example, has a big section for audio tours, and the company SoundWalk has some very unique walking tours that place special emphasis on New York City, although they do have a few other cities as well. The media company ARTineraries has professionally-produced tours of mostly Italian historic sites. LearnOutLoud has a kid’s audio section, too.

The UK’s Guardian, always a good source of worldwide travel information, has a small selection of free audio tours called Sounds of the City (Athens, Rome, Nice, Marseille, Valencia and Granada) plus an eclectic collection of very personalized audio travel guides, featuring people like musician Franz Ferdinand taking you on a tour of his hometown of Glasgow.

Some travel guide companies also produce audio – I like the DK (Dorling-Kindersley) Eyewitness guides for their clean layout and liberal use of photos and graphics, so I was pleased to find that they also have a few DK Travel podcasts.

Finding these things is a classic Google search problem, but I’ve had best results when I query search engines about tours for a specific location. As I always advise, start with the tourism board/Convention and Visitor’s Bureau (CVB) for the place you’re going to visit. For example, the Chicago Office of Tourism has free downloadable guides including Chicago for Kids and a blues tour narrated by Buddy Guy. Even smaller towns may have them; Astoria and Warrenton, Oregon have audio tours guided by locals and sponsored by the local Chamber of Commerce.

Don’t forget that most museums have had audio tours for a long time, including big places like Chicago’s Field Museum and New York’s Museum of Modern Art, plus smaller ones like the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, which has tours in English and Spanish.

Let us know in the comments if you have any favorites!