Category Archives: Road Trip

Last updated by suzlipman at July 31, 2020.

Enjoy Family Road Trips with Classic Travel Games

Posted on July 1, 2019 | Leave a comment

Half the fun of family travel is “getting there”, right? Whether you’re embarking on a Great American Road or Train Trip, or merely hoping to get from Point A to Point B with your humor intact, a few tips and classic travel games will surely make the going more pleasant.

Family Travel Tips

Involve kids in the planning or have them follow the trip’s progress on a map. If you’re an AAA member, maps are free. Some kids may want to keep a trip journal and add photos when they get home.
Have food and drinks on hand, if possible, and take frequent breaks to eat, use restrooms, or just stretch your bodies.
Remind kids who are on screens to take breaks, to play a game or look around at the passing, and sometimes awe-inspiring world
Pack along a few portable items for outdoor breaks and quiet times, so you can play card games, jump rope games, Mad Libs or jacks.
Play some of the tried-and-true road trip games, below, that don’t require any equipment. They help make family memories when you’re driving, flying, or waiting in line.

Tried-and-True Road Trip Games

What I See From A to Z

Players try to find letters in license plates, billboards, road signs, or objects and must call out “I see an A,” or “I see something that starts with B,” when they spot a letter.

The first person to complete the alphabet wins. A variation for younger children is to pick one letter and have everyone look for that.

Semi Search

If you’re traveling on the interstate, you will probably have a lot of trucks for company, and this fun game makes use of that.

Each player chooses a different color. That color will be the color of truck trailer that the player is then searching for. Players announce when they see a semi on the road in their color, and they get one point for each.

A scorekeeper can be appointed to keep count, or everyone can keep their own score. The game is played until one person reaches 25 points, or another agreed-upon number.

Travel Scavenger Hunt (also known as Travel Olympics)

You’ll need: Pencil and paper for each player

Players all contribute to one list of 10-20 things they can see from or do in the car. For example, a list might include passing a cow pasture, seeing a gas station that has the color red in its logo, holding one’s breath through a tunnel, spotting two yellow license plates, or passing an RV.

The first person to accomplish everything on the list wins.

License Plate Scramble

The first player calls out all the letters, in order, that appear on a passing license plate.

All players try to create a word using those letters, in the same order. The first person to do so gets a point. For example, a player might call out ARN, and he, she, or any other player might come up with “arachnid” or “yarn”.

Decide if you want to play to a certain number of points, like 25. The first player to reach that total wins.

O.S.L.P.

Players search passing cars for “out of state” license plates (out of the state they are currently traveling in.)

When such a plate is spotted, the player yells, “O.S.L.P.!” If they are the first to see a particular plate, they score a point.

Decide if you want to play to a certain number of points, like 10. The first player to reach that total wins.

I Spy

One player decides on an object that all players could conceivably see and says, for instance, “I spy with my little eye .. something that begins with the letter A” or “I spy with my little eye .. something that is blue.”

Other players take turns trying to guess what the object is.

When players run out of guesses, the first player gives another clue and other players guess again.

The person who guesses the object gets to be the next spy.

What Animal Am I?

One player thinks of an animal. Other players ask “yes” or “no” questions to determine what animal the first player is. Players might ask, “Do you live in the ocean?” or “Do you have four legs?”

There is no limit to the number of questions. Players can simply give up when stumped and choose who gets to be the animal next. Otherwise, the player who guessed the animal gets to be the next up.

Rock, Rock

This is a good group game for rest stops or outdoor settings.

You’ll need: A rock or coin

Players sit or stand in a circle, palms out to their sides, facing up. Right palms should be directly over right neighbor’s left palm, continuing around the circle. One player is in the center of the circle. That player momentarily closes his or her eyes while the rock is given to someone in the circle. Each player lifts his or her right hand and moves it across the body to the left neighbor’s right hand. The person with the rock in hand does this as well. After a couple of such motions, the person in the middle opens their eyes. The rock moves around the circle but, because everyone is making a passing motion, the person in the middle can’t see where it is. As the rock moves around the circle, players chant, in rhythm with their hand motions:

Rock, rock where do you wander?

In one hand and out the other.

Is it fair? Is it fair?

To keep poor _____ (name of player in the middle) sitting/standing there?

At the end of the chant, the person in the middle guesses where the rock is. If he or she guesses, correctly or doesn’t guess after three tries, the person with the rock goes into the middle. (If that person has already gone in the middle, you can have the person next to them, clock-wise, go in.)

Have fun on the road, and wherever your adventure takes you!

Road trip activities are adapted from Fed Up with Frenzy: Slow Parenting in a Fast-Moving World, which contains more travel games in addition to 300+ fun family activities.

Other Slow Family posts you might like:

Enjoy Roadside Attractions Along California’s Redwood Highway
12 Fun Family Activities for Screen-Free Week
8 Fun Things to do While it’s Still Summer
Recess: Playground and Jump Rope Games
Slow Nature: Have a Cloud Race

Graphic: Wood for the Trees

Tweet This Post

Leave a comment

Posted in Field Trip, Play, Road Trip, The Great Outdoors

Tagged Backyard Games, California Travel, Card Games, Card Games for Kids, Family Travel, Free Play, Jump Rope Games, Jump Rope Instruction, Outdoor Play, Play, Road Trip Games, Train Travel, Train Travel with Kids, Travel Games, Travel Tips

Family Fun at Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Part 2

Posted on August 28, 2015 | 2 comments

In celebration of summer’s wonderful #EverydayMoments and the National Park Service Centennial Year, which begins August 25th, we decided to spend some time this summer in the beautiful Golden National Recreation Area, one of the largest urban parks in the world at more than 80,000 acres, and home to some of the National Park Service’s most beloved spots, such as Muir Woods National Monument, Point Reyes National Seashore (above), and the San Francisco Presidio.

After spending a full day at San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park and Fisherman’s Wharf (see Part 1), we visited the Point Bonita Lighthouse.

Like Maritime Park, the Marin Headlands, home of the lighthouse, is another large parcel within GGNRA. We began our journey at the Visitor Center, where interactive exhibits showed aspects of the Headlands’ natural and human history. In the 1970s, the Headlands were saved from a massive housing development to become public land for all to enjoy. We listened to recorded stories in a Coast Miwok dwelling, explored the bones of animals, sniffed the aromas of various native plants and read early lighthouse keepers’ diaries.

The rangers helped us identify some great hikes. We chose a short trail through a tunnel and out to the lighthouse (check the web site for limited lighthouse hours.) Our walk offered beautiful vistas of the Pacific Ocean and the San Francisco Bay, where we saw seagulls and other birds and heard, but didn’t see, harbor seals and other sea creatures.

We learned a lot about lighthouse history from our knowledgeable ranger, Jim. Built in 1855, Point Bonita Lighthouse was the third lighthouse built on the west coast and the last to be manned, rather than to run on electricity. Each lighthouse and foghorn up and down the coast operates on a different pattern to help sailors navigate San Francisco’s treacherous waters. We learned about various shipwrecks (one of which is the namesake for GGNRA’s Tennessee Valley) and lighthouse operations and equipment. We listened to more great information through a cell phone system that GGNRA uses in many of its parks. Afterward we visited the pre-WWI Battery Mendell, one of the area’s military forts and saw the foundation for the old lighthouse keeper’s house around the bend of the bay (last photo, below).

Family Activities

GGNRA offers lots of great family activities throughout the year at many of its sites. Our interest piqued about the park, we decided to join Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy for a morning of crabbing at Fort Baker Pier. We were greeted by our ranger, Al, who quickly showed us how easy it is to toss a crab basket, frisbee-style and containing a pouch with raw chicken for bait, into the bay.

We learned about the various species of crabs in San Francisco Bay. These include Dungeness crabs–which are popular for eating, but which we weren’t allowed to keep if caught; yellow crabs; rock crabs; red crabs and slender crabs. We learned about the markings on a crab’s belly, which is one good way to distinguish male crabs from female crabs. Below is a male, noted for the triangle shape on the belly.

Unlike fishing, there’s no tug on the line to alert you that you’ve caught a crab. Once you’ve lowered the net into the water, you just have to wait 10 minutes or more before checking to see if anything swam into your basket to take the bait.

After a time, I pulled up my basket. I had caught a crab! This was very exciting. I pulled it up to the pier. On closer inspection, the basket contained a large rock crab and a smaller red crab.

My crab was measured and deemed too large to keep. (There are a lot of other rules about types and sizes of crabs, and even genders, that can be kept. If you go crabbing independently, you’ll want to know the rules and obey posted signs.)

We explored our crabs a bit before tossing them back into the sea.

One of our new friends caught a fish.

Crabbing is a slow activity that provides a lot of delight (and perhaps dinner), as well as a chance to explore and learn a little more about the bay and its inhabitants. A couple of hours is plenty of time for crabbing. GGNRA offers crabbing at multiple locations. As a bonus, Fort Point is adjacent to a small beach that’s perfect for toddlers, and the Bay Area Discovery Museum, where you can continue to learn about crabs and fish (and even establish your own pretend fishery in the San Francisco Bay Room), as well as explore the many natural elements and exhibits that the award-winning hands-on museum has to offer.

Here are some other piers throughout California where you can go crabbing.

Road Trip Tips

If you’re traveling to visit a national park, there are ways to make your travel smoother and more delightful and memorable. Sometimes half the fun of family travel is “getting there”. Road trips have provided some of our family’s most treasured #EverydayMoments.

Involve kids in the planning or have them follow the trip’s progress on a map. If you’re an AAA member, maps are free. Some kids may want to keep a trip journal and add photos when they get home.
Have food and drinks on hand, if possible, and take frequent breaks to eat, use restrooms, or just stretch your bodies.
Remind children who are on screens to take breaks, to play a game or look around.
Pack along a few portable games for outdoor breaks and quiet times, such as cards, Mad Libs, a jump rope or jacks.
Play some of these tried-and-true road trip games that don’t require any equipment. They help make family memories when you’re driving, flying, or waiting in line.

Tried-and-True Road Trip Games

What I See From A to Z

Players try to find letters in license plates, billboards, road signs, or objects and must call out “I see an A,” or “I see something that starts with B,” when they spot a letter.

The first person to complete the alphabet wins. A variation for younger children is to pick one letter and have everyone look for that.

Semi Search

If you’re traveling on the interstate, you will probably have a lot of trucks for company, and this fun game makes use of that.

A scorekeeper can be appointed to keep count, or everyone can keep their own score. The game is played until one person reaches 25 points, or another agreed-upon number.

Travel Scavenger Hunt (also known as Travel Olympics)

You’ll need: Pencil and paper for each player

The first person to accomplish everything on the list wins.

License Plate Scramble

The first player calls out all the letters, in order, that appear on a passing license plate.

Decide if you want to play to a certain number of points, like 25. The first player to reach that total wins.

O.S.L.P.

Players search passing cars for “out of state” license plates (out of the state they are currently traveling in.)

When such a plate is spotted, the player yells, “O.S.L.P.!” If they are the first to see a particular plate, they score a point.

Decide if you want to play to a certain number of points, like 10. The first player to reach that total wins.

What Animal Am I?

There is no limit to the number of questions. Players can simply give up when stumped and choose who gets to be the animal next. Otherwise, the player who guessed the animal gets to be the next up.

This is part of a larger American Express initiative that will help encourage volunteering in America’s National Parks.

On July 30th, Amex EveryDay kicked off a contest that encourages people to share a photo and caption of their own #EveryDayMoments, taken at any park, for a chance to win one of three trips to some spectacular National Parks: National Mall and Memorial Parks (Washington, DC), Yosemite National Park (California) and Grand Canyon National Park (Arizona)

Click Here to Enter between July 30th and August 31st: http://bit.ly/1elJ6qC; terms apply.

Be sure to see Family Fun at Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Part 1.

I am an Amex EveryDay CardMember and Ambassador for this program. However, all opinions about the Card are my own.

Road trip activities are adapted from Fed Up with Frenzy: Slow Parenting in a Fast-Moving World, which contains more travel games in addition to 300+ fun family activities.

Photos by Susan Sachs Lipman and Wood for the Trees

Tweet This Post

2 Comments

Posted in Field Trip, Nature, Play, Road Trip, The Great Outdoors

Tagged American Express, California Lighthouses, Crabbing, Everyday Moments, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Lighthouses, Marin, Marin Headlands, National Park Centennial, National Park Service, National Parks, Point Bonita Lighthouse, Road Trip Games, San Francisco, San Francisco History, San Francisco with Kids, Travel Games

Help National Park Trust Get More Kids to National Parks

Posted on August 14, 2015 | Leave a comment

What if you could give a child a national park experience for the price of a latté? You can! National Park Trust recently learned that their youth programs were selected as a National Park Service Centennial Challenge Project in honor of the National Park Service Centennial Year, which begins August 25, 2015. The National Park Service selected National Park Trust (NPT) for a one-to-one match of $450,000 that will result in a total of $900,000 specifically designated for the expansion of their school programs (Buddy Bison Environmental Education Program and Kids to Parks Day National School Contest). As we approach the new school year, NPT is asking for our help to raise resources for the Buddy Bison School Program.

The Centennial Challenge will allow NPT to be able to work with up to 60 Title 1 schools to provide multiple park experiences — at least one to a national park unit — throughout the school year, plus classroom toolkits full of resources and so much more! Your $5 will become $10, which provides bus transportation for one child for one park trip. There are more than 400 national park units across the country!

For just $5, you can be part of a grassroots movement and help children have a park experience who wouldn’t otherwise have one. Click to Donate to NPT’s Centennial Challenge.

My family loves the U.S. National Parks. We have visited many and are fortunate to live near the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which at more than 80,000 acres, is one of the largest urban parks in the world and the most-visited park in the U.S. National Park system. Rather than one park, it’s a group of parks spanning three counties. It includes five lighthouses, a famous prison, numerous museums and visitor centers, 91 miles of shoreline, 1,287 plant and animal species in 19 separate ecosystems, and 370 archeological sites that reveal the area’s history from the Native Americans through the Gold Rush and the present day.

Read about our recent trip to Golden Gate National Recreation Area, the highlight of which was San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park. Like many national park units, Maritime Park features more history and science than nature, with historic ships, hands-on activities and elaborate displays.

While we’ve hiked and biked in stunning national parks, such as Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, Crater Lake and Acadia National Park (above), we’ve also discovered that some of the lesser known national park units (which include seashores, museums and monuments) provide fascination for kids who are interested in the outdoors, and also in history, anthropology, sociology, botany, earth science, literature and art. The great thing about our national parks is that they allow people to enter them through all different interests and enjoy them in many different ways.

More and more children are discovering our national parks, thanks to the National Park Service’s promotion of its Centennial Year and the National Park Trust’s work through their school programs. One more thing to celebrate? The National Park Service Centennial Year coincides with President Obama’s Every Kid in a Park Initiative, which will allow every 4th grader in the U.S., and their families to have a park experience during the 2015-16 school year. (The above link explains the program’s logistics.)

National Park Trust is the nation’s only non-profit dedicated to supporting America’s parks through both land acquisition and preservation and youth education programs and initiatives that connect children with their local, state and national parks. I’m thrilled to help spread the word about their Centennial Challenge and hope you’ll join me in supporting them.

I was invited by National Park Trust to participate in their Centennial Challenge Campaign, however the views expressed are my own.

Photos by National Park Trust and Susan Sachs Lipman

Tweet This Post

Leave a comment

Posted in Education, Field Trip, Nature, Play, Road Trip, The Great Outdoors

Tagged Every Kid in a Park, National Park Service, National Park Service Centennial, National Park Trust, National Parks, Park Activities, Parks, San Francisco Maritime Museum

All Aboard: Celebrate National Train Day

Posted on May 9, 2014 | Leave a comment

Hundreds of cities and towns across the U.S. are celebrating National Train Day with events, entertainment and exhibits at train stations and other locations. Find a train event near you.

Sunset Limited. Hiawatha. Empire Builder. Super Chief. I can’t hear the names of the great American train lines without finding myself completely smitten. The Romance of the Rails has gotten to me pretty much every time I’ve taken a train, even a lowly commute one. My first long-distance trip was on the Coast Starlight, a two-night journey (was it supposed to be one? I didn’t care) from San Francisco to Seattle. I highly recommend this, and other long-distance routes, for family travel.

My 7-year-old daughter and I boarded the train about midnight, when many of the passengers were already asleep. We were given warm chocolate chip cookies as we tiptoed to our sleeping car. We both stayed up most of the night, staring out the train window at the houses and yards as they passed by in slices, under a full moon, at just the right speed for contemplation. The train’s mournful whistle occasionally sounded onto the empty main streets. At rural stops, a passenger or two would come aboard, their drivers shuffling back to their hulking cars.

In the morning, we ate on a table set with a white tablecloth, as the train circled a snow-covered Mt. Shasta. We’d later play games in the observation car, meet Europeans who talked politics and American father-son pairs touring the country’s ball parks, drink wine with a very knowledgeable and funny sommelier, watch movies in a beautiful, lower-level movie screening car, and continue staring out the window at the tiny logging towns, the green college towns, the gorge-filled Willamette Valley, and the fir-lined Cascade Mountains. We may have been a full day late getting into Seattle but, of course, we couldn’t have been happier.

Richard Talmy, the sommelier, was indeed a trip highlight. He was encyclopedic about California wines and wine tasting, as well as train and Coast Starlight history, and he served all up with a great deal of verve, encouraging everyone to eat and drink up, to have fun, and to just acknowledge the fact that we’d “get on the train as passengers and leave as freight.”

Train Web writer and photographer Carl Morrison wrote a piece on parlor car wine tasting with Richard Talmy, where you can see the man in action and get a bit of the flavor of a tasting.

Anna and her new train companions enjoying a meal.

I’ve learned since that first trip that the Coast Starlight is the only Amtrak route to feature a parlor car with wine tasting and a screening room. (And that the parlor car itself is a refurbished car from the historic El Capitan line of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe.) Even so, a few summers ago, I had the pleasure of taking the Washington D.C. – New York train (which bore the unromantic name, Acela) and, truly, just a window seat and a garden burger were enough to make my day. Dusk and sunset didn’t hurt the mood, either, as I took in every aluminum-sided diner (themselves former train cars), corner tavern, brick row house, backyard swing set, hilly main street, church steeple, and pane-windowed factory building as the train swung through Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, and finally to its resting place in a tunnel beneath Penn Station. Only the vaulted Grand Central lobby would have made the trip more complete. I could have come with this placard of warning: Beware romantic, yearning West Coast person experiencing train rapture.

Our car attendant on that first trip was named Douglas and, like Richard, he seems to be a character of lore among Coast Starlight riders. From the cookie on, we knew we were in good hands. A big man, I’ll never forget him cruising through the dining car, about mid-morning, calling out “Hungry Man Walking.” His humor (and our laughter) continued the whole trip.

We slept in a “roomette”, really a closet with beds that hinged out from the walls. (We since booked a family sleeping car, for a second trip on the Coast Starlight. It is roomy and sleeps four, but sacrifices views.) What we didn’t have, apparently, was the grand-era Pullman sleeper car service and room. (Note: I have just returned from a Los Angeles-Chicago train trip in a vintage Pullman car. More on that journey in a future blog.)

While George Pullman didn’t invent the sleeper car, it was he who realized there was a market in luxury, comfort and service, and he and his Pullman cars dominated the industry during its golden age, when everyone traveled by train. A key component of Pullman service was the Pullman porter. The porters were black men — the first ones were former slaves — and it is said that, even though some of the work could be demeaning, Pullman provided them with almost unequaled earning opportunity and job security for the times. During World War II, there were 12,000 Pullman porters. Their union was referred to as a Brotherhood. It’s shocking, then, that the last Pullman car would take a run on December 31, 1968, a victim of the plane and the car.

Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall, former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown, and Olympic athlete Wilma Rudolph are just three famous offspring of Pullman porters.The last Pullman porters, many of whom are in their 80s and 90s, are gathered for last year’s Train Day celebration at Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station.

National Train Day commemorates the “golden spike” that was driven into the final tie that joined the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific railways, thus creating America’s first transcontinental railroad, on May 10, 1869. I salute Train Day, the Pullman porters and the grand era of rail travel, even if it comes in the form of a refurbished Parlor Car.

Hundreds of cities and towns across the U.S. are celebrating National Train Day with events, entertainment and exhibits at train stations and other locations. Visit the National Train Day web site for complete event information and other resources about train history.

I suggest this site to get lost in some wonderful train horn sounds.

Pullman Photo Courtesy of A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum
Early 1900s: Waiter John Larvell Dorsey, left, on Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.

Other Photos: Susan Sachs Lipman

Tweet This Post

Leave a comment

Posted in Nostalgia, Odes, Road Trip, Vanishing Breed

Tagged Amtrak, California Travel, Coast Starlight, National Train Day, Pullman Porter, Railroad History, Richard Talmy, San Francisco, Seattle, Sleeping Car, Train, Train History, Train Sounds, Train Travel, Train Travel with Kids, Travel, WIllie Brown

May is Bike to Work and School Month

Posted on May 7, 2014 | Leave a comment

May is an especially great month to be a biker. In the U.S., the weather generally cooperates. Now is a great time to dust off or tune up your bike and enjoy spring and summer riding.

Want to experience safety in numbers? National Safe Routes to Schools Bike to School Day is May 7. National Bike to Work Day is May 16. San Francisco cyclists enjoy Bike to Work Day May 8. Washington, D.C. and others have declared May 17 to be Bike to Work Day. Best yet, the League of American Bicyclists has declared the entire month of May Bike to Work Month. Their site lists tons of bike-related events and resources from Anchorage, Alaska, to Tallahassee, Florida, that should make it easy for almost anyone to ride alone or with a group, take a class, and enjoy other fun activities.

Here are just a few of the fun ways you can get involved:

National Safe Routes to Schools Bike to School Day is May 7. If you missed it, don’t worry! Safe Routes to Schools is offering a bicycle and helmet giveaway until May 31. They also offer suggestions for biking year-round.

Enjoy CycloFemme on Mother’s Day, May 11. CycloFemme is a global women’s cycling event to empower women riders and share the joy of biking, with 276 rides scheduled worldwide.

This is just a smattering of the many events offered in various cities nationwide. Find a bike event or class near you.

Pueblo, CO: Crusin’ Pueblo Ride, May 8.

Cedar Rapids, IA: Bicycle Scavenger Hunt, May 10.

Tampa Bay, FL: Bike with the Mayor, May 16.

Chico, CA: GRUB Garden Bike Tour, May 17.

Trenton, NJ: Trenton Bike Tour, May 17.

Honolulu, HI: Free admission for bikers to the Honolulu Zoo, May 18.

Radford, VA: Family Wilderness Road Ride, May 24.

Seattle, WA: Summer Streets Party, May 29.

Of course, anyone getting out biking wants to be safe. The League of American Bicyclists offers these tips for bike safety.

Another great resource for information about bike and pedestrian safety and school biking and walking programs is Safe Routes to Schools.

Enjoy biking to work and school and just for fun!

Photos: Top, my family in Acadia National Park, Maine. Above, three of the most inspirational bikers I know – my daughter Anna, a college freshman who has been a devoted bike commuter since the age of 10; my husband Lippy, who rides almost every day for exercise; and my good friend Victoria, who loves to ride more than anyone I know and organizes long, fun rides for herself and her friends.

Tweet This Post

Leave a comment

Posted in Community, Road Trip, Sustainability, The Great Outdoors

Tagged Bike Commuting, Bike Events, Bike Safety, Bike to School Day, Bike to Work Day, Biking, Cycling, Safe Routes to Schools, Sustainability

Enjoy Roadside Attractions along California’s Redwood Highway

Posted on August 19, 2013 | 4 comments

This post is part of the Sunshine Kids California Blog Hop. See below for details and more kid-friendly California posts!

If you love a budget-friendly mix of roadside attractions and natural awe, northern California’s Highway 101, from Leggett to Scotia, offers a wonderful stretch of road that feels like something from a slower era.

Heading north, start at the town of Leggett, about 175 miles north of San Francisco, and the Drive-Through Chandelier Tree. Yes, you really can drive (and walk, if it’s not too crowded) though this 315-foot-tall coastal redwood tree.

The tree was believed to have been carved in the 1930s. The park has a lake and quiet picnic spots.

Just north of Leggett is the roadside attraction, Confusion Hill , which offers a miniature train ride in summer and lots of old-school believe-it-or-not-style physical features that play with your idea of gravity and level ground.

A tourist attraction since 1949, Confusion Hill is listed as a California State Point of Historical Interest. It’s both modest and kitsch and full of low-key fun.

Travel another 25 miles or so North on Highway 101 to the entrance of the Avenue of the Giants, a separate, stunning, road that parallels the 101 for 31 beautiful miles, from Garberville to Scotia. This stretch, also known as State Route 254, is home to some of the oldest-growth redwood trees in the world, the oldest of which may be as old as 2,000 years. (Most redwoods live 500-700 years.)

Originally a stagecoach road, the Avenue of the Giants was officially dedicated in 1960. It seemed that the new, high-speed Highway 101 allowed the Redwood route to become, in the California governor’s words,

a serene drive where kids and families can cross the road at will, where traffic moves at a far slower pace.

It’s amazing to be in a tunnel of truly majestic redwoods. There are more opportunies to experience world-famous drive-through coast redwoods. There are also opportunities for hiking, strolling, playing, fishing, swimming and camping.

The whole area is rich with more wonderful and strange tourist stops, like the One Log House and Hobbiton, USA, both in Phillipsville, the nearby Legend of Bigfoot attraction. The road is further dotted with eatieries, small motels, and burled-redwood artisan shops. It’s worth meandering the stopping in various places. We’ve ridden this highway in summer and winter and never find it crowded.

I highly recommend driving the Avenue of the Giants and Highway 101, perhaps in conjunction with a trip to San Francisco, or the northern CA or southern OR coast.

The Save the Redwoods League offers fun activities to help families explore the Avenue of the Giants.

Photos by Susan Sachs Lipman, wikipedia

This post is part of the Sunshine Kids California Kids Blog Hop. I’m thrilled to participate. Please join in!

The Sunshine Kids California Blog Hop celebrates all that is wonderful about raising kids in the Golden State.

Link up your kid-centered posts about California: places to visit, books to read, crafts to create, recipes to try, and so on.

The blog hop will run from August 19 to September 2.

Thanks to Akane of Juggling With Kids for the beautiful photo!

You can also check out even more California posts on our collaborative Kid Friendly California Pinterest board!

Be sure to check out our upcoming project, Exploring the California Missions!

Participating Blogs:

Link up your kid-centered California posts below!

Tweet This Post

4 Comments

Posted in Field Trip, Nature, Road Trip, The Great Outdoors

Tagged Avenue of the Giants, California, California Highway 101, California Redwood Trees, California Roadside Attractions, California Tourist Attractions, California Travel, Confusion Hill, Drive Through Tree, Northern California

I Won a Costa Rica Gift of Happiness!

Posted on December 15, 2011 | 8 comments

What do you do when, out of the blue, you get an e-mail, inviting you and your family to visit the country the Happy Planet Index has rated Number One in national happiness? When the country is Costa Rica, you immediately picture lush rainforests, gleaming and growing under a canopy of bird calls and life, miles of gorgeous coastal beaches, and, yes, happy people in a mellow, ecologically sustainable, place. I’d heard about “pura vida”, the phrase that denotes the Costa Rican spirit, a “bounty of life”. People I’ve known who have spent time in Costa Rica tell me they can’t wait to return – for the natural beauty, spirit, adventure experiences, and ease.

I read and re-read the email from the Costa Rican Tourist Board I didn’t tell anyone about it or answer right away. The offer came because of my Slow Family blog readership and the alignment the Board felt with the blog’s message of slowing down and enjoying life with family and community. After all, the spokescreature for the Costa Rica’s Gift of Happiness Sweepstakes, which my prize is a part of, is a relaxed and happy sloth.

So many “offers” come by email and phone that I had trouble believing this one. I googled “Gift of Happiness”, liked the Gift of Happiness Facebook page, and made a tentative call to the number on the email, where a very friendly person on the other end of the phone told me that the trip was part of the Costa Rica’s Gift of Happiness program, which is giving away $1,000,000 worth of trips in the next few months (a trip each weekday) to help North Americans experience Costa Rica’s spirit.

The consultant detailed our (!) trip, one of six themed experiences — the 8-day, 7-night Family Happiness package, in which our whole family would stay in three CST-rated (Certification for Sustainable Tourism) hotels in three distinct regions in Costa Rica (Sarapuiqi, Monteverde and Matapalo Beach). Transportation and all kinds of fun family side trips and adventures, from visiting coffee plantations to walking on hanging bridges over the Cloud Forest, would be included. All so we could experience our own Costa Rican “pura vida”, in the happiest place on Earth.

What does one say to that? YES!

Things moved quickly. Family members checked calendars and watched a video of Anderson Cooper sending a surprised pair of honeymooners on their own Gift of Happiness (the Romantic Happiness package, no doubt), just to be extra, super sure this thing was real. I was sent a beautiful wooden certificate for the trip and put in touch with a travel consultant.

The trip is a dream come true. I’ve always wanted to visit Costa Rica with my family. And now we’re going! I will be sure to blog all about our adventures.

Read what another happy winner, Lindsay at Eco-Chick Escapes, writes about her trip and the great things she discovered about Costa Rica’s happiness rates and sustainable practices.

Read more about the Happy Planet Index, which measures countries based on a matrix of environmental impact and physical and psychological well-being to illustrate that high levels of resource consumption do not reliably produce high levels of well-being. (In other words, simplifying can lead to happiness.)

Enter to win your own Costa Rica’s Gift of Happiness trip by “liking” the Gift of Happiness Facebook page.

Photos: Costa Rican Tourist Board, Lipman Family

Tweet This Post

8 Comments

Posted in Giveaway, Nature, Road Trip, Sustainability, The Great Outdoors

Tagged Costa Rica, Costa Rica Gift of Happiness, Costa Rica Tourism Board, Costa Rica's Gift of Happiness, Eco Tourism, Family Travel, Gift of Happiness, Happy Planet Index, Pura Vida, Sustainable Travel, Travel

Photo Friday: Occident Flour

Posted on November 18, 2011 | 5 comments

My love for painted advertising signs on the sides of brick buildings is well documented here. It’s not unusual for me to yell “Stop the car!” or slow my family on a walk to capture one with a camera. More commonplace in earlier decades, they used blank brick canvasses to sell everything from mining equipment to toothpaste. I love coming upon them on country roadsides and in city alleyways. This bright one near St. Johnsbury, Vermont, was no doubt repainted and lovingly refurbished to its old-timey feel. I don’t think the site is a general store any longer.

I’ve since learned that Occident Flour was produced by the Russell-Miller Milling Company in the midwest from 1894-the early 1950s. It was sold to the Peavey Company in 1962 and acquired by ConAgra in 1982. That trajectory, along with newer advertising methods, partially explains the loss of painted signs for individual concerns.

Have you seen and photographed something unusual, whimsical, beautiful, or otherwise interesting in your travels? Has anything surprised you or caused you to pause? Or have you simply experienced a small, lovely moment that you wanted to capture? If so, I hope you’ll share with us by leaving a comment with a link to your photo. I look forward to seeing it!

Photo by Susan Sachs Lipman, Graphic from Occident Flour

Photo Friday: Tamalpais Motel at Dusk

Posted on March 25, 2011 | 1 comment

I’m not sure quite why I can’t resist lingering over a neon roadside sign at dusk. Nor why I find some to be just a bit forlorn. Perhaps it’s the gulf between the sign’s bright promise — in this case evoking our local mountain, given the Native American Miwok name meaning “coastal mountain” — and the reality of a motel, or a bar, or an eatery that’s seen better times. Or maybe it’s just the time of day, the light, the glory and wonder of neon, and the beckoning of the open road, none of which ever grow old.

Photo by Susan Sachs Lipman

In GPS Era, Map Reading Skills a Lost Art

Posted on March 9, 2011 | 14 comments

This article relates a tale that is no doubt being played out all over the developed world:

Two college students playing in an out-of-town hockey tournament went out to eat with their parents after a late game, but the restaurant they picked had just closed its kitchen.

“There’s another place just a few blocks away,” the hostess said helpfully. “Take a left out of the parking lot, go two blocks, turn right and go one block.”

The parents and the players retreated to their separate cars. When the players sat in the parking lot for a couple of minutes without moving, one of the parents walked over to see if there was a problem with the car.

“Not at all,” they said. “We’re just programming the directions into the GPS.’ ”

Is that where we’ve ended up, with a younger generation that can’t go three blocks without being told by a electronic voice where to turn?

Like the author, I found this story dismaying. I know GPS (Global Positioning System) and similar devices are helpful, but they can also be a crutch and, ultimately, a detriment.

According to the British Cartographic Society, high-tech maps get the user from Point A to Point B but leave off traditional features like geographic and built landmarks, and this could lead to a loss of cultural and geographic literacy.

I, too, find the GPS experience extremely limiting, especially when visual or voice commands tell me (sometimes incorrectly) where to turn just before the turn needs to be made. With a map, preferably one on paper, one can pull out to a bird’s eye view, get a complete picture, plot a route, and have true satisfaction and awareness about ones place within it.

Nothing wrong with having a GPS as a back-up, but I see far too many people who completely depend on them, to the degree that, like the boys in the restaurant parking lot, they’re afraid to travel anywhere, even a few blocks, without one.

One study, from the University of Tokyo, found that people on foot using a GPS device actually made more errors and more stops, and walked farther and more slowly than traditional map users. They also demonstrated a poorer knowledge of the terrain, topography and routes.

GPS, researchers say, encourages people to stare at a screen, rather than looking around at their environment. Also, most GPS screens makes it impossible for a user to take in both their location and their destination at the same time.

Ah, there’s that Big Picture again.

There are additional consequences to over-reliance on GPS devices. I wrote last year about Nature Disconnect in Britain. It seems that a lack of map skills is actually somewhat responsible for keeping a whole generation of children there, and surely elsewhere, homebound, fearful of exploring, playing, and being outside in the unknown. Children’s very sense of adventure is being terribly circumscribed.

Luckily, there are steps being taken to combat this. This list of ideas ranges from walking in ones neighborhood and making friends, to creating neighborhood green spaces and safe pedestrian and bike routes, to educating parents about unfounded fears. And, of course, one can and should learn basic map reading skills.

Interestingly, technology is helping with the latter, as geocaching (group scavenger hunts which use GPS devices) as well as old-school scavenger hunts continue to gain popularity. In addition, the Boy Scouts have responded to the crisis in map reading by upping their universal requirements for using a compass and map. (Girl Scouts also offer geocaching and orienteering badges and programs.)

Debi at Go Explore Nature offers some tips for getting out and geocaching.

Where is the paper map in all this? Some say it’s going the way of the phone booth and the milkman. I’m sure many of you remember family car trips, during which the map was unfolded, dutifully followed with index finger on highway line, and then folded up, yet never in quite the same neat way it had come. (We still honor this practice in our family and begin many adventures with a trip to the California Automobile Association, which stopped producing paper maps a few years ago.) Indeed, maps are on their way to becoming collectors items.

Here’s hoping that you get to enjoy the tactile pleasure of an old-school map, the inner satisfaction of locating your place, the fun of an outdoor scavenger hunt or other adventure, and the gift of knowing which way is up.