In December, I was tagged by both Amy, at The Q Family Adventures, and Corinne, at Have Baby Will Travel, to participate in Tripbase’s 3 Best Kept Travel Secrets.
“The aim of this game is to unite travel bloggers in a joint endeavor – to create an amazing list of top travel recommendations across the globe to share with the entire online travel community.”
How fun! I have had so much fun reading everyone’s best kept travel secrets so far only, when I got tagged, I couldn’t think of anything to write about. Then, the holidays came and left and I still was not coming up with any brilliant ideas. I decided to talk about something I love: the Florida’s Panhandle.
When you think of taking the kids to Florida, the first city that usually pops into your head is Orlando for Disney and all other wonderful things Mouse. However, just a mere 5 or 6 hours north and to the west you will find a treasure trove of amazing spots to take the family!
1. St. George Island, Florida - St. George is a 22 mile barrier island with beaches as white and pristine as you imagine the Gulf Coast to be. Ride into Apalachicola for some of the most amazing seafood, namely oysters, that you have ever had. Even though it gets chilly in the fall and winter, St. George Island is a fantastic place to take the kids year round. Let them run up and down the beach and hike through the miles of wetlands and forests that surround the area.
2. Marianna and Chipley, Florida – Even people from this area will laugh when they read this. Why do you have Chipley and Marianna on this list? What is there?!?! Many people don’t realize that off of I-10 are two real gems. These two cities (about 25 minutes from each other) are homes to our two favorite NWFL state parks: Florida State Caverns and Falling Waters State Park. Grab your tent and air mattress and take the kids camping. They will love wandering through the nature trails and cooking dinner under the stars. Spend time in Marianna exploring the small caverns and then head to Falling Waters to camp (camping at Marianna will be closed through April for renovations) and to see Florida’s tallest waterfall (usually a just a trickle!) and some of the coolest sinkholes around. My kids were fascinated with the fact that the ground just disappeared! Make sure you grab the Florida Passport and get it stamped while you are there.
3. Panama City, Florida - Not Panama City Beach, just Panama City. We have been traveling to Panama City every 6-8 weeks to visit family for ten years. The beach is fine but if you are coming to the Gulf Coast for the beach, there are other beaches that we love. To be honest, I went to the beach for Spring Break when I was in college (so cliched, I know!) and maybe one time after I got married?! In Panama City, stop by the Bay County Junior Museum to learn more about the area. Take a walk through St. Andrew’s and while you are there watch the sunset and look for horseshoe crabs. Stop by Cahall’s for some of the best chicken salad I have ever had. Ever.
Thanks so much Tripbase for allowing me to participate and share three things I love about the Florida Panhandle!
To continue this fabulous TripBase Blog Tag, I would like to tag Amy at Atlanta With Kid, Dim Sum, Bagels, and Crawfish, and Victoria at It’s a Small World after All.
And if it isn’t against the rules, I am going to write about my three best kept travel secrets about Pensacola over at my Pensacola with Kids blog!
Thanks for letting me participate! I look forward to reading many more travel secrets!
You have kids…but your friends don’t. Or vice versa. Can you still travel together? And will everyone actually enjoy it?
When we were newly married sans kids, we traveled with different friends all of the time. We headed on a cruise to the Bahamas, drove through wine country, celebrated the New Year in Miami, wandered the streets of San Francisco, hit the slots in Biloxi, and saw Aerosmith twice in New Orleans…all with friends, pre-baby! If we could all find an excuse to travel, we did it. Daddy J and I spent a lot of time traveling just the two of us, but we love to travel with dear friends also!
Fast forward a few years, and add my son to the mix. When we got pregnant before most of our traveling buddies decided to have kids, my husband and I thought our days of traveling with friends were over. Fortunately, we were wrong! Now most of our friends have children and when we travel together there may be as many as 10 kids in the mix! Here are a few things that we have learned along the way so that we can still enjoy the adventure!
- Be sure to get separate hotel rooms on the same floor or rent a large house/cabin. You will be changing poopy diapers, up in the middle of the night with a little one who had a nightmare, or serving breakfast as the sun rises. If your friends don’t have children, or if you don’t have kids and your friends do, the extra separation will be nice when family gets a little crazy and you need some downtime. Also, if the little one has a place to lay down at night separate from the group, you will be able to enjoy your evenings together.
Relaxing in the stroller on another group adventure!
- There are lots of things that kids and adults alike can enjoy. You don’t have to alter your plans completely because you are traveling with several children. When considering places to visit, we kept the kids that were going to be traveling with us in mind. We went on a ski trip to Wisp Mountain when my son was a year old. We traveled with two other couples who did not have kids. We played in the snow while they went skiing.
Playing in the snow while the guys ski!
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Consider renting a beach house or camping. Some of our best memories of traveling with friends when Big S was the only child around were the camping trips and beach adventures. While our friends read a book and drank glass of wine on the porch, we built sand castles and splashed in the water. We have lots of pictures of my husband carrying Big S through the hiking trails.
- Don’t be afraid to go out and do something on your own as a couple. You might be tired of listening to your friend’s kid’s fire engine toy for the 900th time. At the same time, your friend might be tired of keeping their kid quiet in a non-annoying way! Also, if you don’t want to hit the children’s museum then don’t! I have found that traveling together in groups is much more fun when the group splits up to do his/her own thing too!
Waiting for dinner on a camping trip.
- If you are feeling generous, offer to keep the children while mom and dad enjoy a quick romantic dinner or drink out…it may have been a long time since their last dinner out! If the kids are yours, don’t be offended if the rest of the group wants to go out late and you are stuck at the hotel. Bring a good book!
On a Disney trip…our kids were the only little ones on this adventure but everybody is going to act like a kid at Disney!
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Eat early. You don’t have to skip the fun dinners out because your little one is with you but try to eat a little earlier than usual so you avoid the crowds and can enjoy dinner without the child meltdowns. If you are staying in a rental that has a kitchen, plan cooking some meals in. This will save the whole group money and is lots of fun in the process!
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Be flexible. This is my number one rule for traveling with kids anyway!
For this week’s Photo Friday at Delicious Baby, I decided to share some pictures that my husband took on his last Appalachian Trail hike. Due to work constraints, he is not able to be a thru hiker but he does have a personal goal to section hike the whole thing. During this last trip, they started at the beginning of the trail and hiked through a large portion of Georgia. Being the photographer of the family, I made sure that I sent him with our little point and shoot so that he could take some pictures!
Stop by Delicious Baby and check out all the great travel photos!
