This was the first visit to Venice for our family. Rather than staying in the the center of Venice, we opted to stay on the Venice Lido, an island to the north of Venice that sits on the Adriatic Sea and is home to a 12 kilometer sandy beach. The value of being able to experience the city of Venice and explore its canals and history, and afterwards escape to the serenity and calm of a beach was ideal for us. This was a surprise to me as I anticipated wanting to be in the city full time and wondered if staying out at the beach would give us the true Venetian experience.

We discovered that staying on Lido Beach …

I recently participated in the TMS Family Travel Summit in Orlando, Florida, where top-notch travel writers and marketers discussed current family travel trends and needs. Per Peter Yesawich of MMGY Global, demand for luxury family travel products is growing. To meet the surge in interest for both independent and multi-generational family travel, leading luxury brands are rolling out all kinds of exciting programs.

I’m constantly reviewing incredible offers around the world and it’s difficult to narrow down a giant list of options to just a handful of amazing experiences …

The dream of a family African Safari takes a tremendous amount of work and planning. If you’re one of the many families like mine, who dream of an family safari in Africa like Amie’s, keep planning and saving. If you find you need a little inspiration along the way, consider an easily arranged safari adventure in the open space of Monterey County, California.

amous for its world class aquarium, there’s a wilder side to Monterey that many don’t know exists. Wild Things was created in 1983. At first the animals …

It’s good to be a kid on a family vacation in Napa. That’s right. Northern California Wine Country is scoring points with milk drinkers and more importantly, their wine-loving parents. Visiting Napa Valley with kids is more the norm than the exception to the rule here.

Nancy wrote all about her incredible family summer vacation at Flathead Lake Lodge in Montana on the blog a few months ago. The location, kid-friendly activities, and service are all amazing — appreciation of all this family-friendly dude ranch has to offer is easy as Nancy’s photos are phenomenal.

She also put together a video about her experience. It is good enough to have its own post. Enjoy!

When you’re ready to dip your children’s tiny little toes into Africa, Marrakech, in the heart of the former French colony of Morocco and a short skip from Spain, is where to begin. With its wide Parisian-style boulevards in the new part of the city and its narrow rabbit warren-like donkey cart runs within the old walls of the Medina, it offers both first world luxury and developing world charm.

The Kimpton brand offers a consistently reliable, value-oriented accommodations for families seeking kid-friendly hotels in cities across the United States. I recently stayed at one of their Portland properties, RiverPlace Hotel, and recommend the experience. The prime location, warm service, and Kimpton’s special perks make RiverPlace the perfect base for exploring Portland with kids.

Given that the island of Lanai has only three hotels and two of them are Four Seasons, deciding where to stay is delightfully uncomplicated. We split our nights between the two Four Seasons properties; they offer such different experiences that any logistics involved in changing rooms are absolutely worth it.

My review of Four Seasons Resort at Manele Bay highlights the long list of features that make this oceanfront resort so special for families.

The smallest publicly accessible inhabited island in the Hawaiian Islands chain and strikingly underdeveloped, Lanai feels like a remote island getaway, yet it’s only a 45-minute ferry ride from Maui. With few accommodation possibilities and 3,000 inhabitants, there are large stretches of the island without anyone on it.

Translation: a family vacation in Lanai is truly an escape from urban life and chaos of any kind.

At any price point or quality level, the most memorable hotel experiences offer something unique to guests and are not just about a place to sleep for the night. Paris has radically different possibilities for families. Within the luxury hotel category, more brands than ever are catering to kids which means choosing where to stay takes more consideration around the desired experience.

I’ve had five phenomenal luxury experiences in Paris with my family recently.