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Recession-proof fun: road trip
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Visiting Baltimore's inner harbor en route to D.C.
So we decided to take the Girl on a road trip this weekend. Like most, we're watching every penny these days so any sort of travel feels like an indulgence. That's why we chose Washington D.C. as our destination since we knew lots of kid-friendly fun could be had there on the cheap. The Smithsonian Institute alone boasts 13 museums throughout the city, including a world-famous zoo, that are absolutely, positively FREE. The same sort of weekend in nearby Manhattan would have set us way back.
Traveling with a toddler takes special considerations, some of which we anticipated and some which, well, we learned on the fly. Food for us is fairly straightforward. The Girl is a good eater. I'm not a big fan of children's menus in most restaurants. If "fried" were a category on the food pyramid, that would be one thing, but as it's not, I bring along a lot of my own food and then plan on sharing bits and pieces of my own meal with her. This is also a much more economical way to go. Good traveling foods include apples, bananas and avocados. Avocados are great and uber healthy. I'm fortunate that the girl loves them. I always have one in my bag. Cramming all this take-along food into a well-stocked mini-bar fridge always presents a challenge. However most hotels will gladly empty it for you.
Naps, on the other hand, are less obvious to me. To keep our spending low, we opted for a hotel outside of the city. This made returning to the room for naptime less feasible. We hoped a full morning of running around museums would exhaust the Girl to the point of collapsing into her stroller for a mid-afternoon snooze. The husband and I would then gingerly stroll our sleeping babe around while taking in the cherry blossoms and some adult conversation... Yeah, nice in theory, but this is not at all how it played out. Instead, she pushed through. And to her credit, her mood remained, for the most part, in tact. Dinner was a little dicey, and she didn't eat as well as she would have were she better rested. But we all survived. And she slept like a dream at night. Something the husband and I appreciated with us all being in such close quarters and with paying guests on either side of us.
Of course before heading out on our adventure, I made a point to check in with the Family Entertainment Examiners in D.C. and Baltimore. Examiners are your best bet for the sort of knowledge only a native would know. So before packing those bags and gassing up the car, stop here first:
Northeast
Baltimore Family Entertainment Examiner
Boston Family Entertainment Examiner
DC Family Entertainment Examiner
Hartford Family Entertainment Examiner
Newark Family Entertainment Examiner
NY Family Entertainment Examiner
Pittsburgh Family Entertainment Examiner
Southeast
Atlanta Family Entertainment Examiner
Orlando Family Entertainment Examiner
Charleston Family Entertainment Examiner
Midwest
Chicago Family Entertainment Examiner
Cleveland Family Entertainment Examiner
Milwaukee Family Entertainment Examiner
St. Louis Family Entertainment Examiner
Southwest
Dallas Family Entertainment Examiner
Houston Family Entertainment Examiner
Las Vegas Family Entertainment Examiner
Metroplex Family Entertainment Examiner
West
Los Angeles Family Entertainment Examiner
Portland Family Entertainment Examiner
Sacramento Family Entertainment Examiner
San Diego Family Entertainment Examiner
Cheyenne Family Entertainment Examiner
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