Changing of the Horse Guards in London

After having a second child, I took a bit of a break from this blog. The main reason is that we weren’t traveling as much with two kids, especially internationally. Recently, however, we headed to London with our older daughter, who is now 7, and our toddler. We had a terrific time, so I see more international adventures ahead of us!

One of our favorite things was the “Changing of the Queen’s Life Guard” and the “Horse Guards Parade,” which is more kid friendly than the regular Changing of the Guard.  It happens at Whitehall, London, SW1A 2AX at 11 a.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. on Sundays.

There is also a small museum there where your kids can learn about the guards and try on costumes.

Icelandic Horses (toy and real)

My sister-in-law picked up this adorable stuffed horse during a trip to Iceland, where she also saw real versions of the animal in the countryside. The island is famous for Icelandic horses. Here are a few facts from all-knowing Wikipedia about the breed:

• The horses are small, at times pony-sized, but most registries refer to the breed as a horse.
• The breed is mentioned in historical records and literature throughout Iceland’s history, and the first reference to a named horse appears in the 12th century.
• Much of the breed was wiped out after a volcanic eruption in the 1780s.
• A low prevalence of disease among Icelandic horses is maintained by laws that prohibit horses that are exported from the country from being returned. In addition, all equine equipment brought into Iceland must be either new and unused or fully disinfected.
• In addition to the typical walk, trot, and canter/gallop commonly displayed by other breeds of horse, the Icelandic displays two other gaits: a “four-beat lateral ambling gait” known as the tölt and a pace called a skeið, flugskeið or “flying pace.”

If you travel to Iceland, companies such as Eldhester offer horseback riding tours that let you get  experience nature with Icelandic horses. (Note: not all tours are suitable for small children.) Extreme Iceland has a family adventure that lets young riders take a half hour tour on calm horses. Ishester also offers a family riding tour.  If riding horses isn’t your thing, there are other ways to get a look at the animals. For instance, Reykjavik Excursions offers an evening tour that takes you to “see the stunning horse theatre performance at the new and innovative Icelandic Horse Park at Fákasel and afterwards to look out for the Northern Lights on the way back to Reykjavík.”

A Family Adventure in Costa Rica: Beaches, Giraffes, & River Rafts

We’re back in snowy, icy New York City following a wonderful week in Costa Rica. Here’s my report on our adventure.

After flying into the airport in Liberia, near the Pacific Coast, we picked up our rental car at Vamos, a smaller rental car chain that got good reviews. My daughter was really excited by the fact that there was a man riding a horse in the parking lot. It turned out that he was the owner, and he was preparing for the Fiestas Civicas in Liberia later that week. After finishing up with the paperwork and loading up the car, we set off for our accommodations for the week in Playa Hermosa, Guanacaste.

My husband, three-year-old daughter, father, and I stayed in a lovely villa just a short drive from the town’s beach. The vacation house, which cost about $200 per night, had three bedrooms, a living room, two bathrooms, a kitchen, and a little infinity pool. Wireless Internet access made it easy to stay connected, and there was a safe for valuables. It also had a gorgeous view of the mountains and ocean.

The villa was part of a community called Hermosa Heights. We could walk down the hill to a big swimming pool with two slightly scary water slides. One of the residents of the complex told me that, the previous week, someone went down the taller one headfirst and ended up needing more than 20 stitches! In other words, you might want to use some caution on the water slides. The community also had mini golf (there was a small fee, so we didn’t play), and a little playground that would be considered dangerous by current American standards but looked like it would be fun for older kids.

Since we had the kitchen at the villa, we went shopping a few times at the local stores and cooked, but we also went out to eat. Our favorite spot was “La Casita del Marisco,” right on the beach in Playa Hermosa, where I had a wonderful grilled fish fillet. Annika loved her “fish fingers,” and my husband really enjoyed the arroz con mariscos.

Among the highlights of our week in Costa Rica was a trip to the Africa Safari Adventure Park, described as “a nature reserve as well as an adventure park, with over 250 acres of land for relaxing and enjoying.” On the safari tour, we got onto a big truck that took us into the park’s “Savannah.” There we saw a variety of wildlife including ostriches, zebras, and giraffes. We even had a chance to feed the animals carrots, which you can purchase for $1 per bag at the shop ahead of time. If you choose to go to the adventure park, which is just outside of the city of Liberia, be aware that there is construction on the Pan-American Highway, and the roads were rough in spots. Also, it is hot in Guancaste, so bring lots of water.

Another amazing tour that we took was a river rafting trip arranged through Laura Paniagua, who worked for Milagros Rentals, the management company for the villa. After getting up at the crack of dawn and driving to the Corobicí river near Cañas (which took about an hour and 45 minutes from Playa Hermosa), we were loaded into a van to go to the Tenorio River.There we climbed down a hill, where we climbed into a blue rubber raft.

The boat ride, which included Class I and Class II rapids, was gentle enough for a three-year-old and my dad. The guide told us that it was appropriate for almost all ages, and they have even (very carefully) put wheelchairs into the rafts. During the “float,” we saw monkeys, crocodiles, iguanas, bats, and a variety of birds. Afterward, we had a pleasant lunch at Rincon Corobicí restaurant, which had nice views of the river.

In addition to visiting the beach at Playa Hermosa, we also visited nearby Playa Ocotol, a black-sand beach that was very quiet and had calm waters. On the way back to the villa, we stopped in busy Playas del Coco for a pizza lunch at a spot called Pizza Mafia and bought a few groceries. Finally, we spent a day seeing the sites in Liberia, but there wasn’t much going on. Unfortunately, we missed the events around the Fiestas Civicas, which were kicking off around the time we left Costa Rica.

We’d love to return to Costa Rica in the future, perhaps to explore other parts of this beautiful country.

Other tips:

There is a great German bakery called Cafe Europa between Playa Hermosa and Liberia. Stop there on the way to the airport for goodies.

Wear insect repellant when you’re outdoors. There were mosquitoes, even though it was the dry season. Unfortunately we all got bites, despite our precautions.

It is HOT in Guanacaste (every day, it was in the 90s and sunny), so bring lots of sunscreen and reapply it frequently.

Get a GPS with your rental car. We found it really helpful, especially at night and when dealing with the highway construction area.

You can buy bags of Costa Rican coffee at the grocery stores for just a few dollars, and they make excellent souvenirs.

Bring cash in either U.S. dollars or colones for your exit tax. If you put it on a credit card, it will be treated like a cash advance, and there will be a huge fee!

If you have a water bottle with you, the nice folks at the Quiznos at the airport will fill it with tap water for you. The cafe in the Britt store sells cups milk (about $2) for kids and expensive coffee drinks for adults.

A couple more photos from our fabulous trip:

Traveling After Tragedy

My mother passed away last fall. She’d been sick for a while, but then she suddenly started doing even worse. Soon she was in hospice care. Less than a week later, she died of kidney failure.

I was left with a dilemma. My husband and I had planned a trip for our fifth wedding anniversary. Should I still go? I talked with my husband, father, and other relatives. It was decided that we should still go on the anniversary cruise. My mother’s memorial service and burial were scheduled for the weeks after we returned.

In general, I believe that travel has great power; trips, especially longer journeys to distant places, can help people rest and get perspective on their lives. The Caribbean cruise did offer a much-needed break after the stress of the past few weeks, but it didn’t take away my grief. Also, after we got back, the next couple weeks were a whirlwind of activity. At the memorial service in Rhode Island, I read the eulogy that I’d worked on during the cruise. The following weekend, we flew to Wisconsin for the burial. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise when we all came down with a cold or flu during the trip.

What did come as a surprise? I’d gotten pregnant during the anniversary trip! Earlier in the year, my husband and I had decided that we were open to the idea of having a sibling for our daughter, and suddenly it was happening at a very strange time. I was excited, but also so sick and filled with grief. Plus, I was terrified of having a miscarriage. I told almost nobody, just close relatives and one friend from college. Once I got to 12 weeks, I thought, I would tell more people.

My dad came to visit us in New York for Christmas. He didn’t want to celebrate the holiday, one of my mom’s favorites, in Rhode Island. We had a good time, went to the Sesame Street exhibit at one of the public library branches, and had some nice meals.

“You’re starting to get big,” my dad told me one night after a particularly large pizza dinner.  “You should tell them at work soon.”

We were also planning a trip to Costa Rica with my dad for the end of February. It would be fun to get away with my husband, father, and daughter. Plus, I felt good about going to Costa Rica, a fairly safe Latin American destination that I’d visited before. It would be our last big trip for a while because the baby was due in July.

One of the low points of the Christmas holidays was when I had to give myself a finger stick as part of the prenatal screening I was doing in January. I ended up needing to jab myself the day after Christmas to send the sample to the lab. It was hard to get the blood out, and I had to stick myself twice.

The week after the holidays, I got a call from my doctor, who was concerned over the blood test results. I laughed and told her that I’d probably messed it up, but she said that shouldn’t matter. According to the test, I had a 1 in 5 chance of having a baby with Trisomy 13 or 18. She wanted me to change my ultrasound the next day to more extensive prenatal diagnostic testing.

When I went to the hospital with my husband, though, I had a feeling something was terribly wrong, and I knew things didn’t look right during the ultrasound. The baby wasn’t moving the way my daughter had at 12 weeks, and there was a dark spot in the middle where the heart should have been fluttering. I cried while the technician did the scan, and then she went to get the doctor. He took another look and then told us there was no heartbeat. It looked like the baby had died a couple weeks earlier, but I hadn’t had a miscarriage yet.

The next morning, I returned to the hospital for a dilation and extraction. The surgery went as well as it could have, but since then I’ve been trying to recover emotionally from the loss of our unborn child. It turns out that the baby had Triploidy, so we didn’t do anything to cause what happened. It couldn’t have been prevented. It wasn’t even due to my “advanced maternal age,” but I’m not sure if I want to try to have another baby. Sure it was a “fluke,” yet something terrible could happen again.

I am excited about our Costa Rica trip in a couple weeks, but I also know that travel does not cure everything. The narratives in our culture tell us that going somewhere else can help us heal. (Think about Eat, Pray, Love, where the author’s journey helps her get over her divorce and changes her life for the better.) The truth, though, is that only we can heal ourselves and figure out how to move forward.

A Funny Quote by Robert Benchley

“In America there are two classes of travel: first class, and with children.” — Robert Benchley

Do you agree with the 20th-century humorist?

Cultural travel to Cuba with Kids

Image of car in Trinidad, Cuba, by Dirk van der Made

Although the U.S. government is starting to loosen restrictions on travel to Cuba, visitors from the United States still need to be involved in people-to-people travel, which engages them in meaningful interactions with individuals in Cuba.  In other words, you still aren’t supposed to do things like hang out at the beach. The best way to do make sure you adhere to the rules is to sign up for a people-to-people program offered by a travel company.

Only a handful of tour operators have family tours to Cuba that are also people-to-people programs. Backroads has offered Cuba Family Inside Tours that include performances by musicians, dancers, and other artists as well as meaningful interactions with locals. The minimum recommended age for children on the tour is 12.

” As the People-to-People license does not allow for deviations from our general itinerary, kids and adults on our Family Trips in Cuba will be participating in all activities as a group,” Backroads explains. “In order for families to fully enjoy this trip, kids need to have the maturity, patience and interest to engage in a full schedule of educational exchanges.”

Insight Cuba, a leading provider of authorized people-to-people travel to Cuba, has offered legal, small group tours to Cuba since 2000. The company has also organized custom group tours to the island nation, including a family tour. The company’s website describes how Insight developed an itinerary tailored to one family’s interests. The family-focused people-to-people program Insight created included a visits to museums, meeting doctors at a hospital, and a tour of a cigar factory.

Geographic Expeditions, which specializes in cultural travel to “remote and challenging destinations,” allows young travelers on Cuba tours, but the company does have some age restrictions.

“The minimum age for guests on our small-group Scheduled Trips is 18 years, 16 in special cases,” explains Geographic Expeditions in the company’s Cuba FAQs. “For private Cuba journeys, we can accommodate younger teens, but recommend that travelers be at least 16 years of age.

Of course, travel to Cuba is evolving rapidly, so keep watching the news. At some point in the not-so-distant future, you might be able to stay at a resort on Varadero beach with your family.

Inspirational Quote from Valerie Andrews

“As a child, one has that magical capacity to move among the many eras of the earth; to see the land as an animal does; to experience the sky from the perspective of a flower or a bee; to feel the earth quiver and breathe beneath us; to know a hundred different smells of mud and listen unself-consciously to the soughing of the trees.”

~Valerie Andrews,
A Passion for this Earth

How do I get a passport for my child?

You want to explore the world with your child, but first you need to get the little one a passport. How do you do it?

In order to obtain a U.S. passport for your little one, you will need to submit a passport application in person. It is important to note that BOTH parents or guardians need to go with the child. (If this isn’t possible for some reason, see these additional requirements.)

You will need to bring the following when you apply for the passport.

1. Evidence of U.S. Citizenship (birth certificate, previous U.S. passport, etc)
2. Evidence of Parental Relationship
3. Photo Identification
4. Parental Consent
5. Passport Photo
6. Application Forms
7. Passport Fees

The passport photo has some pretty specific requirements. It needs to be a certain size, color, and have a white background, for example, and the parent or guardian cannot be in the photograph. You can try taking one yourself, or go to someplace like Kinko’s or CVS. We had interesting experiences with my daughter’s passport photo. First, we tried at home, but the sheet looked pretty wrinkly. Then we went to CVS, where we had to prop my daughter up on a stool and avoid being in the photo.

So how long does it take to get your child’s passport after you pull together your forms and photos and submit the application? Typically, it takes 4-5 weeks for the passport to arrive, but it is always a good idea to factor in some extra time before you need it. Unlike an adult passport, which is valid for 10 years, child’s passport is valid for five years.

For additional details on passports for minors, visit the U.S. Department of State’s website. More information and tips can be found in their Parents’ Corner. USA Today also has great information and tips about obtaining a passport for a newborn child.

U.S. Passport image by Robert Rexach

Family Trips Through Your Alma Mater

If you’re looking for a family friendly group tour, one place to look is your college alumni association. For example, Cornell is currently offering a family trip to Scotland, which visits Edinburgh as well as the Scottish Highlands. This trip has kid-friendly elements such as a cruise on Loch Ness looking for the famous monster. (Full disclosure: I freelance for Academic Arrangements Abroad, the tour operator for the Cornell trip.)

Other family-focused alumni trips include tours to destinations around the globe and, like the Cornell Scotland trip, most of them take place over winter breaks or during the summer when kids can travel. Yale Educational Travel has a Costa Rica Family Holiday Adventure that departs in December. In 2015, Harvard Alumni Travel is offering family adventures to Ireland, China, Turkey, Tanzania, and other destinations.

These tours often do come with a hefty price tag. However, they typically include meals and excursions. There is also the peace of mind that comes with letting an experience professional take care of the details of your family vacation. Plus, you’re helping out your alma mater in the process.

Souvenir Showcase: Elephant Backpack

Two of my wonderful co-workers went to Sri Lanka and got my daughter her first backpack. You have to admit this is really cute! We have needed to patch it up on occasion, but Annika loves her elephant bag and takes it on trips.

I haven’t been to Sri Lanka, but one of the places the island is famous for is the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage. Sri Lanka’s Department of Wildlife Conservation founded the reserve in 1975 to feed, house, and care for orphaned baby elephants that were discovered in the wild. Some people say that the place is a tourist trap and that the elephants aren’t treated very well, and other visitors claim it is a wonderful experience.

Have you been to Pinnawala? What do you think?