As a kid our best family vacations were road trips and the king of the road trips was from Salinas California to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone, up to Glacier National Park, Banff, Lake Louise, Jasper and then looping back to Vancouver, Seattle and home. Not only did the National Parks live up to our expectations but we found little gems like Lewis and Clark Caverns in Montana. Truly memorable.

With my kids it would be hard to choose but I would probably say taking my kids to Italy when they were around 10 and 11. Venice and Rome still fill me with wonder but seeing them through the eyes of my kids made them even more special.

What’s your best family vacation?

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In Kuwait there is no such thing a a fender bender, every wreck is spectacular.  I have seen all kinds of traffic in my travels but nothing compares to the drivers in Kuwait.  Every highway is a NASCAR experience.  The posted speed limit is 120km/h but that, like the lanes painted on the roads are merely a suggestion.  In our daily travels we always saw wild accidents and just plain crazy things like a camel in the back of a small pickup truck.  One night we came upon a five car wreck that was blocking all lanes of the five lane highway.  The Kuwait police did not let traffic stop, they just simply cut a wide gap into the fence and directed all of the traffic out into the desert. We were in out Pajaro driving cross country between a Jaguar and a Benz.

Kuwait City International Airport is another place that is very different than what you might expect.  There are three coffee shops (two are Starbucks), a very good cigar store  a Fuddruckers and a Harley Davidson dealership all in the terminal.  If you like people watching at an airport in the United States you would be fascinated with it at KCIA.  Looking at the people coming through customs and trying to figure out if where they have come from or if they have ever been to Kuwait before.  On one of our trips to meet someone at KCIA we witnesses the return of the Kuwait National Football (Soccer)team returning from a major victory in some other country and it really looked like a wild production for an American Baseball team returning from the playoffs.  There we TV cameras and people cheering.  It was witnessing things like this that showed us that the Kuwait people are not much different than us.  Sure you cannot get a bacon cheeseburger at the local McDonald’s or Burger King but everyone I talked to was friendly and helpful. 

Oh and I recommend the Yum Yum Tree restaurant in the airport.  Good food and much cheaper than the American chain restaurants that are there.   

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As this entry is posted I will be in Mexico building houses with a group called Esperanza. Ezperanza is the Spanish word for hope and the group is a non-profit group that is similar to Habitat for Humanity. The goal of Esperanza is building community, houses are just a by product. They go into the barrios of Tijuana and teach people how to save money, buy land, and make all of the concrete bricks for a small house. The members of the group then have to make all of the bricks for their house and also work on their neighbors houses building “sweat equity” before a group like my church group will come down and help them pour a concrete foundation, floor or ceiling. Esperanza does not actually build a great number of houses in a year, but going back to someone’s house that you helped build makes every house special.

I came the first time probably more out of some vague sense of guilt or obligation, but I have gone back 11 times because of the people I have met… oh yes… and the food. Don’t forget the food.

For more information check out Episode 11 - Houses in Mexico of the Amateur Traveler

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 I always like to give credit for good acts, and with the situation on most airlines today, this was very nice to see.

Flying home from a business trip to the San Jose, CA area, I was waiting for my flight back to Boston.  There were several soldiers in uniform, waiting for a flight back to Indiana .  The staff of the San Jose Admirals Club came out and invited them all in to wait for the flight there. 

So, Kudos to the staff there for making the effort to say “Thank You” to soldiers working hard every day to keep America safe and Free.

www.aa.com/admiralsclub

Chuck Prevatte is a regular contributor to The Amateur Traveler.  His travels include North America, Europe and the Middle East.  He lives in the Boston Area and is happily  married for fifteen years and the father of three children, a 10 year old girl, a six year old boy and a newborn .

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by Casandra Tian

If you tell your friends that you are moving to Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, you are probably going to get a lot of blank looks. Once you tell them that it is in China, the next question that you get is invariably whether or not it is close to Beijing or Shanghai.
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My whole family is crazy about Walt Disney World.  It is truly our magical place to vacation. My wife and I made our first trip when with her family while we were still dating and with the whirl wind that was we both discovered how much the other liked the Magic Kingdom.  A few years into out marriage we had the opportunity  to go back for another trip.  This time at least we got to set our schedule and see all of the three parks at that time.  What we did not do was plan. 

So fast forward a few years and now we are a family of four and were preparing for our first trip to Walt Disney World in Florida with our own children.  As soon as we picked a date and got a hotel reservations at Shades of Green (one of the Armed Forces Reserve Centers) (www.shadesofgreen.org) I headed out to get a guide book .  It was good.  It told us all of the basics, tickets, restaurant descriptions, how to use the FastPass and which rides were most likely to scare the kids. However this one seemed very cookie cutter.  I started looking for a better option almost as soon as we got home from trip. 

I must have spent hours standing in the bookstore looking through all of the various different books.  I looked at several resources online.  The one book that caught my attention is the PassPorter Guide.  This is not only a guide book, but it is also a whole system to help you plan your travel. 

The PassPorter comes is several versions and loose leaf version, that you can easily update, a spiral bound addition that is my preference, because it is slightly lighter.  The author publishes a new updated version each year and has several “additional pages that can be downloaded from there web site. (www.passporter.com) The system includes pages you can use to organize all of the events you want to do on your trip. 

The Passpoter books range in price from $19.51 to $36.51 depending on the binding you get.  They produce yearly additions that are published each year around November. 

Another great aspect of the PassPorter is their Yahoo Group.  The group describes itself this way.
“The PassPorter WDW list is for everyone planning a vacation to Walt Disney World®, with or without the help of the award-winning bestseller, PassPorter Walt Disney World travel guide. Join us to discuss planning your Disney adventure, getting to Florida (and back!), staying in style at the resorts and hotels, touring the “World” at the theme parks, feasting and snacking, making more magic, and sharing Disneyworld fun! Authors of “PassPorter® Walt Disney World®: The unique travel guide, planner, organizer, journal, and keepsake” contribute to the mailing list. You do not have to have a copy of PassPorter to join the “happiest mailing list on earth” — everyone is welcome!” 

(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/passporterwdw/)

Chuck Prevatte is a regular contributor to The Amateur Traveler.  His travels include North America, Europe and the Middle East.  He is married and the father of three children, a 10 year old girl, a six year old boy  and one due any day.

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I am a big proponent for booking your travel online and I stopped using travel agents years ago. But, I also spend 12 hours a day on the internet between work and my various hobbies so I am very familiar with how things work on the internet. I create internet sites so I think like a programmer which always helps. I have written bugs in internet software and therefore I am more familiar looking for them. Not everyone has that experience which is why I appreciated a recent article from Chris Elliot’s blog titled The Web site ruined my trip!. (Catch Elliott is the host of the TV show “What You Get For The Money: Vacations” on the Fine Living Channel). Chris tells stories like these:

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My family and I flew Delta to the East Coast last week and I had a chance to try out their new inflight entertainment system. The system offers 20 movie choices, 24 live television channels, 1600 songs and 10 video games. Movies are free in first class, and $5 each in coach.

The live television was a nice feature but the quality of the signal was sort of like having old rabbit ear antennas. In addition to the signal being poor, when you fly in the middle of the day you get daytime TV. So… perhaps the bad signal was a gift.

Most of the games also cost in coach, but there was a trivia game that was free. The game allow you to compete with others on the plane which could be a great way to spend the time for the competitive know-it-all types. In my defense I came in 2nd in the first game but I did start late. I won the 2nd game and probably the 3rd game but the pilot was rude enough to arrive seconds before I would have found out if that guy in 40D answered that question correctly (unless he did I won that one too).

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One if by land, two if by sea……QUACK QUACK!

Last weekend my family and I took the Boston Duck tour. The DUKW (Duck) is a vintage World War II amphibious truck.

The Duck Tour is a 80 to 90 minute tour of historic Boston. The first hours or so is a narrated tour showing you all of the important spots in this seaport town. The tour includes sightings of the Bunker hill monument, U.S.S Constitution and Quincy Market. This has turned out to be the best way to get an over view of the things to see and do in Boston. When you board your DUKW (ok I have to spell it correctly) your conDUCKtor begins an entertaining description of the history of Boston form the earliest settlement to the Big-Dig of today. A unique part of the tour is after you finish all of the history you drive right into the Charles River. The DUKW switches to boat mode and you get a unique view of parts of Boston like MIT and the Esplanade where the Boston Pops performs on the Forth of July.

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Last night a silversmith from Boston road in the darkness to let, everyone, know the British are coming to confiscate our weapons.  The other Minute Men and I will meet them at the North Bridge in Concord; we do not intend to fight, however…

Over the next twenty-four hours events unfolded, that took the thirteen American colonies closer to independence, the Minute Men surrounded and laid siege to Boston and on July 2^nd, 1775 a gentlemen farmer and surveyor for Virginia took command of the Army and eight months later the British evacuated the city of Boston.  The American Revolution began at Lexington and Concord with what has become know as “The shot herd round the world”  The Minute Man National Park brings to life this opening battle of the American Revolution. 

Every year in April The park brings together re-enactors to celebrate the American hero’s of that faithful day.   These exciting events bring to life the first shots that would bring the United States into being. 

So next year in April plan a trip to the Minute Man National Historic Park and experience the birth of America. 

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