Sally Webb

Ah, family vacations. A chance to escape your routine, connect and make memories. Because getting time off school and work to explore together can be a rarity, we understand the decision of where to go is important—and picking a destination that will be fun for the whole family will help make sure the adventure is as stress-free and enjoyable as possible. To help you pick your next holiday away with children in tow, we have rounded up the absolute best family vacations in the U.S. that we guarantee both adults and kids will enjoy. Yes, we have the go-to Disney spots in Anaheim and Orlando on the list, but we also have more unique choices. From playing along the bay with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background in San Francisco, to hiting up the (free!) Smithsonian museums in Washington, D.C., to exploring the desert in Tucson, Arizona, these destinations offer endless ways to play.  RECOMMENDED: Cheap family vacations in the U.S. for 2024

I have a theory: the family that skis together stays together. Why? Because it doesn’t come cheaply and if your parents are footing the bill, you’re going to have to hang around them at least some of the time before hitting the slopes at high speed in your teens. However, skiing and snowboarding with kids—particularly young children—is not always easy, especially for first timers. There’s the fitting of equipment for a start—not the simplest of tasks when kids haven’t skied before—and schlepping the little ones’ skis and boots around, from car park to resort base and from resort base to slope. (You might think they’ll carry their own gear, but they more likely to leave it behind somewhere, which makes things even more expensive.) On the upside, even the youngest kids take to it pretty quickly and soon enjoy the enormous freedom that will have you chasing a fearless six-year-old down the mountain at high speed. Reducing the hassles is just a matter of planning. Here are our top tips. 1. Dress for the mountain Warm kids equals happy holiday. Layering is the trick, along with elastic attaching accessories such as gloves and hats to jackets to reduce their chances of getting lost. The basic kit is thermal underwear, then thin layers of clothing, covered by good windproof and waterproof outer jacket and pants, gloves, goggles and thick warm socks. Perhaps two pairs. You can always strip off layers if you’re too hot, but you can’t add them in a blizzard if you don’t have it. 2. Loo

When Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Life is a journey, not a destination,” he probably wasn’t driving from Boston to Seattle with three fighting kids in the back of an SUV. And while the I-90 coast-to-coast route is definitely not for the faint-hearted, family road trips are still very much a part of American life. However they shouldn’t turn into a loop of Bart Simpson’s famed “Are we there yet?”. At the risk of coming over all Maria von Trapp, a road trip can be invaluable, uninterrupted time for you and your family to talk. You’re a captive audience for each other, after all. And wasn’t spending time together the purpose of the vacation in the first place? Long journeys are also a perfect environment to impose your own music tastes onto your kids, especially when you’ve had enough of Tay Tay Shaking It Off. Knowing the words to every Johnny Cash and Bruce Springsteen song is a skill they’ll thank you for in years to come. Like so many things to do with traveling with kids, spend some time planning and you can turn a long, possibly boring drive, into a fun family adventure. Here are our top 10 tips. 1. Food, glorious food The great downside of any road trip, regardless of which route you’re traveling, is that much of the sustenance you find along the way is spectacularly awful. You didn’t have kids to see them succumb to fast-food-induced heart disease before they’d started junior high. So avoid overdosing on candy and take as much as you can yourself. Load up the cooler with f