We are knee deep in planning this trip. I have books on traveling with kids, walking tours in London and Paris, and one that is just making me laugh.

We have two books that we have used to choose day trips and activities here and in domestic vacation locations. They are 101 Places You Gotta See Before You're 12 and 101 Things You Gotta Do Before You're 12. While ordering books on Amazon I came across a book, 500 Places To Take You're Kids Before They Grow Up. Thinking it was similar to the first two, I ordered it. The authors have interesting ideas regarding things kids 'HAVE' to see. Most of them are places I have never seen, would love to see, but am not sure I will get to in my lifetime. Their descriptions of those places that we will get to see are great, but wow, the places in the book had me shaking my head.

I know that some of my friends think that we are nuts for taking the children on the kind of trips we do. They believe that the children are too young to appreciate it, won't remember it, etc. That is fine for them, they can choose to spend their vacations in a way that makes them happy. For us, we enjoy showing our children the world. We switch off between domestic and international travel. We go low budget and high. We hope that we are fostering in our children a love of travel, a respect for other cultures and other people and a sense of adventure that will last them a lifetime.