A Cultural Immersion in Barbados
In summer, the annual May to August Crop Over cultural festival draws lots of visitors to Barbados in what is traditionally the low season. This year, Crop Over celebrates its bicenntial with big news: superstar Rihanna will be returning to her native island to perform at Grand Kadooment Day, the festival's finale on August 5, 2019. You may not get a ticket to Rihanna up close, but...
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Sargassum Seaweed Attacking Our Beaches
According to recent media accounts, an influx of the disruptive and hated-by-brides seaweed known as sargassum has washed up around the Caribbean and Atlantic beaches for summer 2019. I first lived through it in 2015 on a trip to Mexico's east coast, embedded with the troops fighting the onslaught of seaweed. It came back with force in the summer of 2018 (1,000 square miles of seaweed)...
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Cruise With Kids Vacations And Family-Friendly Ships
Cruises are hot, and we are seeing families cruise with kids in the Caribbean, Europe, Alaska and far-flung destinations like the Galapagos Islands. Given that the industry’s trade organization, CLIA, projects a whopping 30 million cruise passengers worldwide in 2019, you can count on kids being seen and heard everywhere. Why take a Cruise Vacation Now? Parents love cruising because...
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Trending: Taking the Kids on a Cruise
Is a family cruise on your vacation wish list? It turns out that the vast majority of people recently surveyed about vacations who have never been on a cruise — 94 percent — said they’d like to try cruising. The cruise trends survey of 1,000 Americans 18 and older was sponsored by Carnival Corporation. It’s easy to see why. The 30 million people expected to cruise this year will tell...
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51 Great Family Summer Vacation Ideas
Two-thirds of leisure travelers plan to take vacations this summer, according to AAA Travel, with good reason. Summer is the traditional time for families to reconnect. Parents and grandparents strive to recreate favorite childhood memories and make new ones together with the youngest generation. Each year, we present 51 great summer vacation ideas in collaboration with our partners at
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Traveling With Grandparents And Kids
If you're planning a multigenerational vacations, follow my tips on pleasing everyone -- of all ages -- participating in your family vacation, with tips on keeping them safe and healthy, too. Look around popular resorts these days and you're likely to spot...
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5 Green Hotels that Lure Families
If you're into responsible tourism - and who isn't these days? - check into ecolodges and green hotels in the Caribbean, Central and South America and even in the US, where families can have fun while learning about the environment. While it's easy to maintain environmentally friendly practices at home, eco-conscious citizens usually find this task daunting when they're on a family vacation....
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Swimming with Whale Sharks Makes the Hit List
Well it wasn't on my Life's Greatest Hits list but with a birthday coming up and a son graduating from college I couldn't resist the opportunity to swim with whale sharks on a recent press trip to Cancun. Really? "Swim with whale sharks" was what it said on the itinerary for the day following a "Swim with Dolphins" excursion. Sounded equally harmless. And PR people...
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Petit St. Vincent: A Luxurious Digital Detox
If your family is ripe for a digital detox, consider an escape to Petit St. Vincent, a vacation paradise so perfect you won’t miss checking your e-mail. In today’s high-tech world, elementary school kids have smart phones and savvy toddlers cruise the web with ease. Stepping away from the Internet, television and cell phones, even just for a few hours, seems impossible. But...
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The Very Best Spring Break Vacation Ideas
Spring break is our favorite time to get away with the family, an ideal time to travel affordably between the pricey winter holidays and crowded summer months. Why is spring break such a wonderful escape? Maybe because you’ve been working so hard all year. Maybe because you get to feel the sun on your shoulders after being cold for months. Or maybe because you get to spend a week making great...
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