Tag: Travel in Asia

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Asia Europe USA

My top 3 family travel secrets

Yokohama's Minatomirai waterfront (courtesy POHAN on Flickr CC)Which places in the world are not as well known (nothing is really a “secret”) for fun travel with kids?

I was recently tagged to answer this question by the globe-trotting SoulTravelers3, in a blog post about her family’s travel secrets.

The whole meme was started by Tribase in this post – I’m supposed to tag three more bloggers but sorry, don’t quite have the bandwidth these days to figure out who hasn’t already participated.   Still, I’m happy to play here….

You know how tough it is to pick just three? Sigh.

And of course I feel compelled to cover the planet….here goes my best shot:

In the United States

My choice is Memphis, Tennessee.

Go here for coupons/discounts from the city’s CVB (Convention and Visitor’s Bureau) because remember, a CVB’s whole job is to ensure a happy visit.

Memphis is big enough to have a variety of things to do, but not so sprawly as to wear everyone out.  Amenities and lodging are reasonably priced, and so is good food.  Summer is hot and muggy, but there’s always the Memphis in May festival.

We’re big music fans in my family, and the Birthplace of the Blues offers many ways for even young children to learn more about this country’s musical history and offerings.   For starters, the popular Beale Street historic district is actually pretty open to kids (I call it a civilized Bourbon Street) and when we visited, the guys at the door at several venues let the whole family in to listen to live music as long as it was fairly early in the evening.  There’s also the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, Sun Studio (where Elvis and many others were launched) and the Center for Southern Folklore.

Before we arrived I showed my preteen an Elvis documentary (to try to explain the hype) then took her through his home at Graceland.  Believe it or not, she’s now an Elvis fan and the envy of her friends because she’s been to Graceland. Boring and weird Mom wins again!

Take the kids to see the formerly segregated Lorraine Motel (an important US civil rights landmark) where Dr. King was killed – it’s now part of the acclaimed National Civil Rights Museum.

Other kid-friendly places include Mississippi River attractions like the Mud Island River Park (including the Mississippi River Museum and a scaled down version of the river that begs for barefoot splashing) plus the Memphis Zoo, a children’s museum and in season, Redbirds minor league baseball at the downtown AutoZone Park.

We stayed at the Hampton Inn at Peabody Place, which was perfectly located downtown and was also attached to a small mall that occupied certain wiggly toddlers when needed.

In Europe

In a previous blog post here (titled Wonderfully off the tourist beaten path: Wadden Sea / Waddenzee Islands with kids)  I’ve written about the tongue-twisting but lovely Dutch islands of Texel and Terschelling.

They are only a short drive and ferry ride away from Amsterdam, but they’re very laid back, very Dutch and very nice for a beachy getaway.  Settle in, get some bikes for everyone (of course – it’s the Netherlands) and relax.

Here is the related Dutch tourism Web site about the islands – check it out.

If you can figure out how to pronounce the island of Schiermonnikoog, more power to you.

In Asia

I love the buzzy energy of Tokyo, and it’s a perfect destination with preteens and teens, but a bit too mind-blowing for little ones.  The crowds that older children find exciting are simply overwhelming when you’re two feet tall.

That’s why I like Yokohama, the seaside city south of Tokyo.

Make no mistake; it is Japan, so it is crowded, but somehow the location near the sea makes it feel more open.  There’s a big mall/hotel highrise called Landmark Tower (with a Pokemon Store – yay!) and it’s surrounded by an amusement park and wide pedestrian seawall.

This Frugal Traveler article in the New York Times about exploring Tokyo through its ramen shops mentions the terrific Ramen Museum in Yokohama, where you can get lots of different kinds of ramen to eat and walk through a sort of living history museum.  Super for families!

Here’s one of my very early posts on this blog: Kids in Tokyo – Escape to Yokohama.

There are my three family travel secret places; please share yours down in the comments!

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Asia

A magical visit to Hayao Miyazaki’s Ghibli Museum in Japan

Ghibli Museum souvenirs (photo by Sheila Scarborough)The Disney release of the movie Ponyo (here’s an extensive fan review on the Ghibli Blog) has heightened interest in its creator, animation master Hayao Miyazaki, and his Japan-based company Studio Ghibli.

You can visit the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka (a western suburb of Tokyo) to see a spectacular facility dedicated to the wonderful art of Miyazaki’s hand-drawn animation. Opened in 2001, it gives you a stunning peek into the mind of the reclusive Academy Award-winning artist.

My daughter, her cousin and I visited a few years ago and we absolutely loved it. Miyazaki calls it “the kind of museum I want to make….a building put together as if it were a film.”

In addition to the imaginative, swoopy, playful storybook architecture of the building itself, there’s the 80-seat Saturn theater with Museum-exclusive short Miyazaki films (in Japanese but I assure you, it doesn’t matter) exhibits and displays about art and animation, the Straw Hat cafe, a toddler playroom with a giant plush Catbus to jump on, and the “Mamma Aiuto” gift shop that requires sumo training to handle the large, polite but persistent crowds.

I don’t have interior photos or video because it’s not permitted by Museum policy (they want you to relax and enjoy, not record things.) You can buy a souvenir booklet in the gift shop, with plenty of pictures.  We loved the handcrafted fixtures made of stained glass, the stairway mazes, the water handpump on the patio, the many ceiling paintings and the bright colors throughout.

Your admission ticket, as seen in my photo above, is an actual piece of 35mm film from one of Miyazaki’s movies.

Continue reading “A magical visit to Hayao Miyazaki’s Ghibli Museum in Japan”
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Asia Blog Europe Middle East Philosophy USA

It’s been over 3 years: time for some Greatest Hits

fireworks-taa-daa-courtesy-mikul-at-flickr-ccI just want to say that this blog post’s title is totally awful SEO (Search Engine Optimization) ’cause I’m feeling like a REBEL. 🙂

Those who know me, know how my mental gears grind and how I over-analyze.

I prefer to think it’s my massive intelligence coming to the fore, but mostly I think it’s plain old worry-wart perfectionist tendencies.

Anyway, after crying in my beer this week about blog ranking, I dug around in the Family Travel Logue archives to find some posts to bring back out into the light.

This allows my readers some discovery fun and also helps me to remember that blogging is not all about whether I dominate Google for certain search terms in exchange for some ad dollars.

….because, you know, I could have my way with Google if I really wanted to (she says with a lot of bluster.)

In between the dust and cat hair, here are some of my family travel blog favorites pulled from the Archives attic. Please excuse any broken links – some of the posts have been around awhile and the Web keeps moving:

***  Travel in Second Life.  Because I don’t get enough of it in First Life and I like my Goth avatar.

***  Inexpensive Travel Souvenirs.  Because I was just starting to figure out video and I combined total vlogging inexperience with all of my worldly shopping from all over my house. Yay!

***  Best US family beach vacations. Because it’s summer, you know?

***  Survivor’s guide to Walt Disney World.  This was when I figured out that I ought to listen to my readers even though I’m not personally a huge Florida theme park fan.

***  Visit bountiful Brussels and What my daughter learned in Belgium’s Flanders Fields.   We never felt more immersed in Europe than in Belgium (and the Netherlands, so here’s Rotterdam for you.)

***  Winner of the who-knew-I’d-love-it award:  Big Country – the Kansas Flint Hills.

***  Two of my first big hits: Paris with kids – The Louvre, followed by High above Paris: a meal in the Eiffel Tower.

Continue reading “It’s been over 3 years: time for some Greatest Hits”
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50 State Series

Family travel in South Carolina

South Carolina horse greets kids (courtesy hdport at Flickr CC)Every Tuesday until we run out of states, I plan to post about family-friendly vacation ideas, attractions and events in each one of the US states, taking input mostly from Twitter and Facebook.

Yes, I know how to search for travel ideas on a destination or attraction Web site, but a tweet or a Facebook Wall recommendation is a much more engaging and public way to spread the word.

Please don’t email suggestions to me;  that’s nice but it is one-to-one communication. Tweet me and/or Facebook me, so that all of our networks can see what’s cool about your state.

We’re going in alphabetical order but started with the end, so our first state for the series was Wyoming, then we investigated Wisconsin , West Virginia , Washington, Virginia, Vermont, Utah, Texas, Tennessee, South Dakota and now we’re moving on to….South Carolina!

I couldn’t find their state tourism organization on Twitter, but the state capital city of Columbia is @columbiasc and state parks are @SC_State_Parks.  I didn’t find state tourism on Facebook, either, but western South Carolina regional tourism has a Thoroughbred Country Facebook page and so does South Carolina State Parks.

When I asked for ideas there wasn’t much of a response (summer doldrums?) but here’s what came in….

Twitter Travel Tips for South Carolina

***  From Dominique King via @midwestguest on Twitter  —  My best kid-friendly idea for S. Carolina: The trip to Fort Sumter near Charleston. Learn history, cool fort, neat boat ride out to it.

***  From Francisco Collazo & Julie Schwietert Collazo via @collazoprojects on Twitter  — Penn Center (overlooked & beautiful part of African-American & American history) + gumbo not far away! Here’s a link: https://www.penncenter.com. I’m from SC & went for first time a few years ago. On the (only) road out to Penn Corner, there’s a row of little boutiques in some old houses. Gumbo in parking lot. Good stuff.

Continue reading “Family travel in South Carolina”
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Texas USA

The annual search for bank robber Sam Bass

Sam Bass flyer, Round Rock TX Frontier DaysPart of the annual Round Rock, Texas Frontier Days July 4 celebration is a fun costumed reenactment of the 1878 Sam Bass Shootout.

The infamous bank robber Sam Bass was fatally shot by lawmen in Round Rock, and his name is plastered on things all over town including my son’s former baseball fields.

Actors used to stage the shootout reenactment downtown until the event became too popular, so it’s now held three times a day in pretty Old Settler’s Park during Frontier Days.

There’s a false-front recreation of town, dance hall girls, a voiceover narrative to explain the action, fake blood and loud firing of blanks – my son loved it.

I shot video at last year’s celebration; maybe it’s time to get it edited and online before we see it again this year!

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Product Reviews Tips USA

Get outdoors with REI classes and clinics

REI logoI have not had a chance to try it myself, but have been intrigued by some of the travel-related offerings from the sporting goods/outdoor company REI (which just opened a LEED-certified green store located in my current hometown of Round Rock, Texas.)

The Austin American-Statesman had a blurb yesterday about a free REI clinic for parents who want to take an outdoor adventure trip with their kids. The speaker is Mark Altman, who bicycled across the US with his wife and 4 kids (wow!) before his deployment with the Army to Iraq.

I have another commitment and can’t attend, but do wish that my family and I did more outdoorsy sorts of travel. It’s hard to get psyched to do it in the Texas heat – we keep hitting triple digits and it’s only June – but I keep vowing to get out there when conditions aren’t miserable.

A clinic like this would seem like just the ticket, and with an REI right up the road from my house, I’m kind of out of excuses for motivation.
Blog Directory for Round Rock, Texas

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Blog Tips

Travel tech tips on NPR (featuring me!)

Austin-based tech journalist Omar Gallaga mentioned me during today’s edition of the National Public Radio (NPR) All Things Considered program All Tech Considered.

Still awaiting my close-up….

The topic is Tech in Travel (here’s a link to the full travel-related NPR broadcast.)

***  The first part of the segment talks about integrating mobile into travel;  using cell phones to check into your airline flight plus using a cell phone-displayed bar code in lieu of a boarding pass.

***  The second part of the segment (about 4:00 minutes in) shifts to other helpful travel sites and tools on the Web. That’s where Omar mentions me and I have my moment of fame.

Did you know that there are 106 pages of iPhone applications that are travel-related? That includes one for American Automobile Association (AAA) travel guidance – pretty handy.

For amplifying information, Omar links to all of the sites mentioned in the broadcast in an associated post on the All Tech Considered blog:  The Tech of Travel.  He included my post on how to find the best hotel deals.

Thanks, Omar and NPR!

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Blog Tips

Success in travel writing and blogging

Many folks ask me how to get started as a travel writer and blogger, so it was a pleasure to participate in two recent email interviews that can partly answer that question.

***  On the Netherlands-based blog The Happy Hotelier, I answered 10 Questions for Sheila Scarborough of Family Travel Logue, including how I got started as a writer, my top 3 destination experiences and why I don’t really care about hotels. Thanks, Guido!

***   On Working Your Way Around the World (based on the soon-to-be-published book of the same name, about how to be a digital nomad) you’ll find Interview with a Travel Writer: Sheila Scarborough where I discuss the differences between writing for print and writing for the Web, how I find new ideas and what I want to do next.  Thanks, Thursday!

Please drop by each of these excellent blogs and tell Guido and Thursday hello….

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USA

Announcing the family travel 50 state series

50-states-map-mural-courtesy-maryatexitzero-at-flickr-ccEven though travel prices (in many cases) are plunging and there are cheap ticket deals to be had, from Minnesota to Las Vegas to  Borneo and Singapore, I think a lot of folks in the US are looking close to home for summer vacation ideas.

Enter the 50 State Family Travel Series.

Starting Tuesday, April 14 and running every Tuesday after that until we run out of states, I’m going to profile great places and events for kids in all 50 of the United States.

As a social media maven, my primary information sources will be Twitter and Facebook (with a little Alltop thrown in) plus my own experiences.

I’ll start with Wyoming on April 14….if I’m gonna go alphabetically, I want to give some love to the ones at the back of the letter line.

On Twitter I’m @SheilaS and here is my Facebook profile (let me know you’re a 50 State Series contributor) so if you want to provide input, please keep an eye out for when your state is coming up.

Don’t forget about family-friendly festivals and events, not just places, and include some off-the-beaten path goodies, too!

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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….