Every now and then when you’re on a trip you learn something you really feel like you should have known. Something so obvious, it’s embarrassing you didn’t see it sooner.

Mine goes something like this … traveling children, plus animals of any kind, equals happy children. We were in Nerja, Spain last summer when it finally clicked. There are cats everywhere in this fabulous beach-front city.

The thought of being trapped with a screaming child on an airplane is enough to keep even the most avid travelers on the ground. For others, it drives them to play Polly Pocket or to speak in an unnaturally high and sweet voice for hours on end. To spare you from this, we’ve come up with ideas that will help keep everyone sane on the plane.

Just like kids, parents come in all types of personalities—the planner and the non-planner, laid-back and uptight, etc. We’ve met them and possibly been them all.

As director of Arte al Sole: A Tuscan Cultural Adventure for International Children, each year I wonder how the experiences of the children who attend this day camp …