reading

[walkitout]

_Take Your Kids to Europe_, 7th ed. Nice stuff, altho aimed at school age kids (6-16). Advocates traveling as a family, out of the country, to Europe for an extended period of time. Some of the rationale for the details is, well, very white middle-class suburban. And of course the whole thing has limited utility for traveling with an infant/toddler/preschooler. That said, a goldmine of information, particularly the camping, home exchange and home rental stuff. I knew about family rooms at hostels, and as near as I can tell I'm as good or better at finding interesting stuff to do/shopping and cooking overseas/navigating overseas than the author was at least at the beginning. I've gotten many a chuckle out of reading a description of something the author discovered for the first time overseas -- that I can name several instances of in the US. Whatever.

Biblio/resources list is pretty good. It was especially nice to find a relatively complete list of guidebooks-for-families and menureaders, having just gone through the process of researching those myself.

Comments

[gwyneira.livejournal.com]

That sounds interesting; will have to read it, as we're starting to think about when to take Liam to Europe. We'd originally thought not until he's at least 10 or so, but now we're thinking maybe earlier.

take him now!

[walkitout]

Or whenever your next trip is. We're going to try to get to the Netherlands this fall (August/September), unless my 20th high school and some other things conspire to lead to Yet Another West Coast trip instead. There's a lot more stuff to do with the little guys than you might realize, and while it is more work, we can't stand to be away from Teddy. If you're at all like us, not missing the wee one is worth a fair amount of effort. I'll be reading the Lonely Planet travel with kids and one other shortly and will let you know if they are more useful with toddlers/preschoolers.

west coast to europe

[walkitout]

R. notes that the flight length from Seattle to Copenhagen/London/whatever over the pole could be pretty dire with a preschooler. It might be worth it to stop on the east coast, overnight or longer if you have friends/family out here (hint, hint) and then do the leg over the pond separately.

Re: west coast to europe

[gwyneira.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the flight time is definitely a concern. He did fine on a six-hour flight to Hawaii (with a DVD player), but longer than that might be tough for another couple of years. Oh, well, we're not planning to go again ourselves for a couple of years anyway, so we'll see how we feel about it then.