travel with kids

Portugal Part 2: Lovely Lisbon (With Kids)

lisbon tiles
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Wow, a lot has happened since I wrote Portugal Part 1: Pretty Porto (Without Kids). I feel very lucky I got a couple trips in over the winter, before the disaster that is 2020 (henceforth to be known as “The Devil’s Year”) really kicked off. Obviously, you won’t be reading about our family’s European travels for the rest of the year, as all the trips we had planned have been cancelled, but I can take you on a virtual trip to Portugal, as I recap our family holiday there back in February.

So let’s mentally hop out of the handbasket headed to hell, and follow me back to those carefree, pre-pandemic times… a whole five months ago… feels like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it?… Continue reading →

Our Great British Camping Trip

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Well, technically, we took the ‘glamping’ option, which was my preference, because everyone knows

i love not camping

Anyway, one of the families in E’s class organised this big camping trip in June at a campground in Sussex, not too far from London. All the families from the class (there are 30) were invited to come along, and about half did. Continue reading →

Copenhagen With Kids

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What a child-friendly city Copenhagen appears to be! I kept telling people. Oh yes, they would say, it’s a very family-friendly place! My in-laws had even returned from their visit there last year with this helpful brochure, “Copenhagen With Kids,” chockablock with playgrounds and other things to do with kids in Copenhagen.

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You know when is not a great time to take the kids to Copenhagen? When it’s cold and windy and rainy, and when it’s a random holiday you’re not aware of and all the shops are closed, and when there’s a big five-day music festival on. Our first day there had us thinking that maybe it wasn’t such a good family holiday destination, after all. (Spoiler alert: our opinion changed by the end of our trip. Read on.) Continue reading →

An English Summer Seaside Holiday, Part 1

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At the end of August, we took a weeklong family holiday to Cornwall, which E had been excited for all year. I was a bit worried it wouldn’t live up to her expectations, since she’d been asking when we were going to Cornwall since before Easter. But as it turned out, it did; she had a fantastic week filled with kite-flying, sand castle-building, fish and chips, and ice cream cones.

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Our cottage in the town of Marazion was a Saturday-to-Saturday rental. Because driving there takes at least 5 hours (with no traffic) and there’s always traffic in London, we left at 4:30 a.m. Which was the best decision we could have made. We were sitting in a café in Marazion, ordering breakfast, by 9:30.

We passed Stonehenge right at sunrise, and there wasn’t a tourist in sight!

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May Holiday at Moonfleet Manor

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For the first May bank holiday weekend of 2018, we rented a car and drove southwest to Dorset, on the Jurassic Coast. The drive took us 4 hours, thanks to all the traffic of everyone else who wanted to get out of the city for the long weekend, and we arrived right at the girls’ bedtime on Friday night.

(Side note: The signs along the way made for interesting reading. Actual names of places in Dorset: Tincleton, Puddletown, Tolpuddle, Grimstone, Puncknowle, and Durdle Door.)

Continue reading →