Scotland Road Trip: Loch Ness, Inverness, and the Road Back to Edinburgh

05/16/2025globegazers Leave a comment

In the summer of 2024, we took a trip to Scotland with our two children, ages six and three. After a longer than expected journey getting there, and two nights in Edinburgh, we rented a car and took a road trip through the Highlands. Our trip started with Stirling and Oban, then continued through Glencoe, Glenfinnan, and the Isle of Skye.

The last leg of the road trip took us past Loch Ness to the city of Inverness, the unofficial capital of the Highlands. After some time there, we drove most of the way back to Edinburgh, stopping at a few attractions along the way.

Loch Ness

The drive from Broadford on the Isle of Skye to our next nightly destination of Inverness took us right by the famous Loch Ness, so we planned our visit to the attractions we were interested in by the Loch to be done on the drive.

After our included “Wee Breakfast” at the hostel in Broadford, we got back in the car and hit the road. Getting off the Isle of Skye was easier than our journey on the ferry onto the isle, as on that part of the island there is the large Skye Bridge to the mainland. This drive had some nice scenery along the way and wasn’t too hard.

Driving back to the mainland on the Skye Bridge

Our first stop in the Loch Ness area was Urquhart Castle. The visit to this historic site was included in our Explorer Pass, so we were able to visit for free. We had made a timed entry reservation ahead of time.

To start our visit, we watched a nice film giving the history of the site, and then we went out to explore the castle itself. The castle was an important location throughout Scottish history and changed hands many times. The last occupants destroyed the castle to keep it from falling into the opposition’s hands, so currently the castle is just ruins. Still, the site right next to Loch Ness made for great views out over the water, and there was plenty of historic interpretation to understand what we were seeing. Also, there was a scavenger hunt for the kids to try and find different items.

Our next stop was just down the road at the Loch Ness Centre, a museum that explores the myths about the Loch Ness monster and the attempts to find “Nessie.” We weren’t sure what to expect but actually found the museum to be well done – visitors are guided through different rooms that are decorated to make you feel like you are actually experiencing what they are discussing in videos that are played when you enter. The museum presented the different evidence and findings but let you draw your own conclusions. Of course, it did have a huge gift shop at the end too!

Inverness

After a 30 minute drive (including some scary roundabouts in the city), we made it to the Inverness Youth Hostel, our destination for the next two nights. This was again one of the Hosteling Scotland properties. It was much bigger than the others we had stayed in up to this point. We got a private room, but did have to use a shared bathroom down the hall.

The view from our room. We added the time (10:44 PM) to show how light is still is late at night in the northern part of Scotland

From the hostel we walked through a nice residential neighborhood into the main part of Inverness. We strolled down a pedestrianized street to the main square where we read about some historic buildings in the Rick Steves guide.

Walk through a cute residential neighborhood

We took a break for dinner, but it was a little difficult to find a place open and available on a Sunday. Our first choice, the Victorian Market food hall, was closed. Another restaurant had a large group coming so couldn’t accommodate us. We ended up trying out a restaurant called Scotch & Rye which worked out well. The adults got to enjoy a whiskey flight, and the kids enjoyed their juice that came in a beaker and the ice cream that was included as dessert.

After dinner we continued our walk through Inverness, passing by some more historic buildings and walking through the graveyard of the Old High Church. We walked on the bouncy pedestrian bridge over the River Ness and then headed back to the hostel for the evening.

This building, built in 1668 as a hospital, now contains a pancake shop

The next morning was again rainy, so after our “Wee Breakfast” we decided to skip sightseeing and instead head to the Inverness Leisure Centre. Here they had a huge indoor pool with lots of different attractions: a toddler splash area, wave pool, lazy river, and a big water slide (that our older kid was brave enough to try). Even though it was a Monday, it was quite popular, and we had to get out (based on a timed entry band) earlier than we might have otherwise.

Culloden and Clava Cairns

From there we drove out to Culloden battlefield, a site which should be very familiar to Outlander fans. This is the site of the climatic battle of the 1745 Jacobite Rising, featured in the books and the show. It is a very important site for understanding the conflict, so we were looking forward to the visit.

Before the visit, we ate lunch in the attached cafe which had some good warm options, plus a nice beer brewed specifically for that location.

The museum itself was well done, describing the events of the 1745 Jacobite Rising that led to the battle. We especially liked one hall where one side described the events from the perspective of the Scottish Jacobites, and the other side described them from the perspective of the British troops. The kids had a little scavenger hunt they could do, but they still didn’t let let us fully read the displays.

After the museum we went out onto the battlefield itself. There are red flags marking the line of the British troops and blue flags marking the line of the Jacobites. We made it out as far as the large memorial cairn and the nearby cairn for Clan Fraser, which is now roped off after being disturbed by all of the Outlander fans trying to take a picture with it. We would have liked to explore more, but both kids were complaining about having to do the walking, so we cut our visit a little short.

We drove to the nearby Clava Cairns, a Neolithic set of burial chambers and standing stones evocative of those described in Outlander (given the proximity to Culloden, this area was one of the inspirations for the Craig Na Dunh stones that Claire interacts with). The stones aren’t as big as those shown in Outlander, but it was still fun to pretend that we were going to travel through them. We were also interested to look at the burial chambers which seemed quite sophisticated for how old they are.

We were not whisked away to the 18th centrury, so we returned to our hostel in Inverness and relaxed for the afternoon. We walked back into Inverness downtown for dinner. The restaurants in the food hall were closed again! We went to a Thai place instead and had some nice noodles for dinner.

Inverness to Perth

As mentioned previously in the series, our original itinerary had us spending three nights in Inverness, but after our flight delays cost us a day in Edinburgh we decided to cut our Inverness time short and add time in Edinburgh at the end. We were not able to book an extra night in Edinburgh, but we were able to switch our last night at the hostel in Inverness to a hostel in the city of Perth which is most of the way back to Edinburgh. We were able to find a few places to stop along the way of this journey.

Our first stop was the beach town of Nairn, which we had considered as a day trip option from Inverness. It was a little bit out of the way on the path to Perth, but we thought the kids would be excited to see a beach. Unfortunately the weather was not conducive to playing in the water, but the kids still had fun playing in the sand. They had even more fun playing on the playground that was just on the other side of the small dunes.

From Nairn we drove south on a long stretch of single track road and eventually reconnected with a highway. We next stopped at the Highland Folk Museum in Newtonmore. After a lunch in the cafe, we explored this open-air site with buildings and interpretive displays from different periods in the Highlands. The most interesting was a village set up to look like one from the 18th century. Here we learned about how to live, work, build houses, and dress like a Highlander. In a different part of the site there were structures from the early 20th century including a schoolhouse. The kids also enjoyed a small playground.

The Perth Youth Hostel that we had booked a night in was interesting because it was actually located in student housing from a local university, so our private room was actually a multi-bedroom apartment suite! We got a unit with three single rooms and one double room, all with their own bathrooms, plus a large kitchen and common area. Compared to our previous hostel rooms this was a huge amount of space! We just bought some easy meals at a grocery store for dinner in our large accommodations. The kids each got their own rooms which felt nice after a few nights of sharing small rooms.

One of the kids enjoying their single bedroom

The next morning we drove the final hour back to Edinburgh, and then spent some time there as described in one of our earlier blogs. It was a bit of a bummer to not get to spend the extra day in Inverness, but ultimately we were able to see almost all of what we had hoped to in the area, and enjoyed what we did see!

Scotland Road Trip: Stirling and Oban

02/12/2025globegazers 2 Comments

After picking up our car in Edinburgh as described in our previous post, our next destination was Stirling Castle. It was a little intimidating for Della to have get familiar with driving a new car on a different side of the road while in the city, but she was able to figure it out as Eric navigated. There were also a lot of roundabouts which we also don’t see a lot of in the US. Eventually we got on a larger highway which was refreshingly straightforward.

We got to drive by “The Kelpies”: large steel horse-head sculptures

Stirling Castle

Our destination was Stirling Castle, located on a big hill in the city of Stirling. It took us about an hour to get there from Edinburgh. One feature of our car we didn’t talk about in the previous post was a fancy navigation system where you could plug in an address and get turn-by-turn directions. (Yes, we know that this is probably a standard these days, but our car at home is from 2013). That helped us navigate there… although it took us on a back way up the back of the hill that the castle is on using some pretty narrow roads.

We were planning to park in the main parking lot for the castle, but when we got there it was blocked off because it was full! That meant we had to keep driving back down the hill into the main part of Stirling. We eventually found a city parking lot to park in (but only valid for two hours). We had reserved a timed entry into the castle, so we then had to race-walk back up the hill to make it in time for our reservation.

Stirling Castle is included in the Explorer Pass, so we were able to book our visit through that. We had pre-booked a time just to make sure we could get in. To tour the castle, we used, you guessed it, a self-guided tour from the Rick Steves guidebook. Stirling Castle actually felt bigger than Edinburgh Castle, so there was plenty to see. We enjoyed the gardens and 360-degree views from the battlements, plus some nice areas about life in the castle that were aimed towards kids. Also in the royal apartments there were some actors who were able to provide some historical context to what we were seeing.

Made it to the main gate just in time for our timed entry!

We rushed through the end of the castle tour to make sure to get back to our car before our two hour parking was over. It was easier heading back down the hill than it had been coming up! After adding time to our parking, we went to eat lunch in town. We found a Thai restaurant called Sida Thai which had some good lunch specials.

Oban

We then hit the road west to the town of Oban, our destination for the night. This route was one that really introduced us to what we talked about in “Driving in Scotland,” with many roads that were “highways” with 60 MPH speed limits, but with blind curves and narrow lanes. After 2.5 hours, we were definitely happy to get to Oban!

There were some nice views along the way

In Oban, we were staying in the first of the Hosteling Scotland hostels we had previously discussed. Here we were able to get a private room with its own ensuite bathroom, which was a nice way to ease in to hostel life. The hostel itself is located in a nice older building right by the bay.

Oban Youth Hostel. Our room was the one on the second floor to the right side

After settling in, we walked along the shore into the main part of town. The kids were interested in touching the water, so we found a staircase and walked down. The tide was low so we ended up walking on slippery ocean rocks. We continued on to the North Pier where we took in the sights of the city and the bay. We had dinner at the Piazza Italian restaurant there – good but smaller portions. We headed back to the hostel and relaxed for the rest of the evening.

Trip to the Isle of Mull

Our itinerary had us spend two nights in Oban, so we had another full day to use. We had originally hoped to take a tour to the Isles of Mull and Iona. However, the weather forecast was showing constant rain, so we didn’t think it would be particularly enjoyable to be out all day in inclement weather. Instead, we decided just to ride the ferry to Mull and back on our own for something to do.

Before catching the ferry, we had time to get the “Wee Breakfast” at the hostel, the continental breakfast that was included in our booking. It had a nice assortment of cereals and toast.

We then walked back into town and caught the 9:55 ferry. The car reservations had filled up far in advance, but there were plenty of spots available for passengers on foot. The kids enjoyed saying the name of the ferry company: “Caledonian MacBrayne.”

The weather was cloudy but not raining, so we started out on the outside observation deck. We had nice views of Oban as we exited the bay. Once we were out in open water we started to feel cold and wet, so we headed into the inside observation area for the rest of the 45 minute journey to Craignure on Mull.

Once we arrived at Craignure, we didn’t have a lot of time because we wanted to ride the same ferry back to Oban. We had just enough time to get off, check out a gift shop by the tiny ferry terminal, and then get back on. We did find it fascinating to watch the cars load off and then on to the ferry. They actually raise up the nose of the ship to allow for access.

Watching the cars come off the ferry with its nose lifted. Note that the ferry is also named *Isle of Mull* because this is its main service

The ride back was pretty straightforward since we followed the same path, so we mostly stayed inside. We did go back outside for the final stretch into Oban.

We could see the hostel again as we came back into Oban

Rainy Afternoon in Oban

After disembarking, we grabbed lunch at a little cafe in the ferry terminal called Argyll at the Pier. The warm soup was nice on the damp day! As we left the terminal, we did get a little bit of sun. We grabbed some groceries at a Tesco supermarket and walked back (in the rain) to the hostel.

We spent some time in our room relaxing and drying off. We then tried to decide what to do with our afternoon that the kids would enjoy (not the Oban Distillery unfortunately). We ended up heading to Atlantis Leisure, Oban’s version of what we would call in the US a recreation center. They had a big soft play area for the kids that they enjoyed playing around in for quite some time.

For our dinner, we kept it easy and used the hostel kitchen to heat up a few different items we had gotten at the supermarket.

The next morning, we had the Wee Breakfast again and hit the road for our next destination, Glencoe. Of course, this morning there was a little bit of a blue sky! It was a little bit of a frustrating reminder that we hadn’t gotten to experience everything we wanted to in Oban due to the weather, but still provided a nice vista as we said goodbye to the pleasant town.

Sun over Oban Bay on the day of departure

Summer Trip to Scotland: Road Trip through the Highlands Overview

01/21/202501/21/2025globegazers 4 Comments

Itinerary

We mostly based our itinerary on what Rick Steves recommends here, with some modifications for what we thought would be most interesting for our family. Along the way, we almost exclusively stayed in hostels run by Hostelling Scotland, which were nice, affordable options for our family of four. We also found it easy to work with them to book all of our stops ahead of time.

Day 1: Pick up car and drive to Stirling. Visit Stirling Castle. Drive to Oban and spend two nights there.
Day 2: Sightseeing in Oban. If the weather cooperates, consider a trip to the islands of Mull and Iona.
Day 3: Drive from Oban to Glencoe. Explore the scenic valley and do some hiking. Drive on to Glenfinnan and visit the monument (and maybe see the steam train on the viaduct). Spend the night in Arisaig (to be near the ferry port of Mallaig).
Day 4: Catch a ferry from Mallaig to the Isle of Skye. Drive to Portree, then around the Trotternish peninsula, stopping at scenic spots along the way. Spend the night on the island in Broadford.
Day 5: Drive off the Isle of Skye on the Skye Bridge, headed towards Inverness. Stop at Loch Ness attractions including Urquhart Castle. Arrive in Inverness. Spend two nights there.
Day 6: Explore Inverness and the surrounding area, including Culloden Battlefield.
Day 7: Leave Inverness. Head first to Nairn and play on the beach. Drive south to Newtonmore and visit the Highland Folk Museum. Spend the night in Perth.
Day 8: Drive from Perth to Edinburgh in the morning, leaving enough time to explore the city in the afternoon.

As we mentioned in previous posts, this was not exactly the original plan. We had originally planned on spending three nights in Inverness, and then on Day 8 we would have driven from Inverness all the way to Edinburgh (stopping in Newtonmore), only arriving in the afternoon/evening. Since we wanted to have more time in Edinburgh, we asked Hostelling Scotland if we could shift that last night. They didn’t have space in Edinburgh for an extra night there, but they did have a room at the hostel in Perth. Perth is only an hour away from Edinburgh, so that was our best option for spending most of the day in Edinburgh.

Driving in Scotland

We rented our car from Budget, using the location that ended up being walking distance from our Edinburgh Airbnb. We were happy to see that it was the same price (and maybe a little bit cheaper) to rent in town versus having to return to the airport.

One thing to note for travelers from the US like us is that the car selections are generally smaller than in the US. You don’t find many options for large SUVs like you might be used to! We chose a Compact SUV which we thought would be fine for our family of four (and hopefully big enough in the back for the younger kid’s car seat), plus maybe a little more able to handle any rugged roads we went on. We ended up being assigned a Nissan Juke. It felt a bit more “compact” than “SUV,” but it worked fine for what we needed.

Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed in one of the pictures above that the car had a manual transmission. That is another thing that travelers from the US may need to be aware of: in many cases it is easier and cheaper to get manual transmission instead of automatic. Fortunately for us, Della learned to drive a manual transmission growing up and still remembers well enough to feel confident enough to do it on this trip. Another thing to consider is that in Scotland the driver sits on the right side of the car, so they have to shift with their left hand. We did have some experience driving this way on our self-drive safari so we were pretty confident we could figure it out. Unfortunately, the UK is a little more restrictive than the US in terms of allowing multiple drivers of the car. We could have added Eric as a secondary driver, but it would have added a lot to the cost, so Della said she would do all the driving.

One big decision we had to make as traveling parents was what to do about seating for the kids. Back in the US, we hadn’t felt like our six-year old was big enough to ride in a booster, so he was still in a big car seat (and obviously the three-year old was as well). You can rent car seats from the car rental company or from local services, but the cost for eight days felt like enough to buy a brand-new nice seat! We didn’t want to bring our big seats from home, so we thought about bringing along some lightweight seats we have. Still, that wasn’t a great fit because we knew at the end of the trip we would be using the London Underground and we didn’t want to lug two seats around on that no matter how lightweight they were. Finally, we came up with a hybrid plan:

For the three-year old, we would bring a lightweight car seat that was very close to reaching its expiration date, so at the end of the road trip we could just dispose of it in Edinburgh and not have to have it in London
For the six-year old, we decided to purchase the RideSafer Travel Vest, a small harness that allows the child to be securely strapped into a regular seat. This packs down very compactly, so we thought it would be great for this trip and future ones as well

When stopping for a quick photo-op, it was easier to leave the vest on rather than take it all the way off

Yet another thing for drivers from the US to consider about driving in Scotland is that the highways may be much more narrow than you are used to, especially if you live in the western US like us and are used to wide-open spaces. Scotland does have some roads that are as big as interstates, but many of what were listed as highways were much smaller two-lane roads that we were used to. They also had in many places narrow shoulders with not much room for error, tight and blind curves, and large trucks coming from the opposite direction. Yet they still had a speed limit of 60 MPH! Not to mention the fact that we were driving on the opposite side of the road that we were used to, so we missed the intrinsic feel of where to put ourselves in our lane. All that probably combined to make the locals frustrated at us not feeling comfortable driving as fast as we could be.

Tried to capture a feel for what the highways were like

If you are planning to go to the Isle of Skye or another smaller location, you need to familiarize yourself with the rules for single-track roads. These are roads where there is only one paved line which is expected to be used by drivers going both directions! You should study how to use the marked “passing places” to yield to drivers coming from the other direction, and what the rules are for which driver yields. We saw someone (almost certainly a tourist) ignore these rules on Skye and cause a huge mess for everyone else, so they are definitely important to understand.

If someone were coming from the other direction, we could have pulled into this passing place on the left to allow them to go by. Never pull into a passing place on the right!

One final thing to think about is what you want to listen to! We thought it would be fun to put together a playlist of songs from Scotland to match the beautiful scenery we were seeing – including plenty of songs from the Outlander tv show!

We hope this overview post helped to set the scene for our Scottish Highlands road trip! Next up, we will describe the different stops along the way in more detail.

Summer Trip to Scotland: Edinburgh

01/12/202501/11/2025globegazers 6 Comments

In the summer of 2024, we took a trip to Scotland with our two children, ages six and three. Our trip started and ended in the country’s biggest tourist draw, the city of Edinburgh.

We originally planned to spend three nights there at the beginning of the trip and one night at the end (with a road trip in between), but our travel troubles getting there meant we missed out on our first night. We ended up adjusting our road trip itinerary some to give us extra time in Edinburgh on that final night.

Arrival and Settling In

As mentioned in the post about getting there, we took the tram from the Edinburgh airport to the flat we had booked through Airbnb, located just to the northeast of the city center. We loved the location, which was right off a road with grocery stores and bus lines to help us get around. It was definitely nice to have multiple bedrooms for the first nights as we were fighting jetlag.

Nice sitting area overlooking the city street

After getting settled, we decided we needed to get out and enjoy the sunshine to try and help adjust. We caught our first of many double-decker buses, which the kids really enjoyed.

We rode the bus to the middle of the Royal Mile, the main tourist and historic road which runs through the city center. From here we walked downhill, using the second half of the Rick Steves’ self-guided walking tour to help describe what we were seeing. Some of the highlights were Canongate Kirk, Dunbars Close garden, and an alley where some scenes from Outlander had been filmed. The kids did not have a lot of patience for sightseeing though, so we were a little more rushed than we would have liked to be. We ended at the bottom of the Royal Mile by looking through the gates of Holyrood House palace.

From this point, we decided it was actually just as easy to walk back to our flat. On the way, we stopped at a grocery store and got some breakfast supplies and some prepared food for a simple dinner. We watched the movie Brave, then all crashed pretty early!

Exploring Edinburgh

After a good night of sleep, we were mostly rested and ready to explore Edinburgh on the only full day we would have in the city.

Our first destination was Edinburgh Castle, which sits at the top of the Royal Mile. To get there, we took the bus again and got off by the National Museum, then walked up the hill to the castle, passing by scenic Victoria Street in the process.

We had followed the advice and booked our tour online ahead of time, which turned out to be a good idea because the tickets had been sold out by the morning of. Instead of just buying entrance to the castle, we had gone ahead and purchased Explorer Passes, which are good for 14 days and would allow us entrance to many of the historical sites we were planning to visit.

To tour the castle grounds, we again followed Rick Steves’ self-guided walking tour to provide a route and context. The castle staff also gave us a kids activity guide that provided some information for their age range. We enjoyed touring the grounds, which provided great views over the city. The kids especially liked climbing on the cannons. We did stand in line for some of the interiors of the buildings as well.

After the castle, we headed down the Royal Mile. Almost immediately we decided to stop at an attraction called Camera Obscura and World of Illusions. We had wondered if it was a tourist trap, but it ended up being an enjoyable visit. We got to travel through different floors filled with many interactive optical illusions. On the top floor is a 19th century device called a camera obscura which uses lenses and mirrors to project images from outside onto a table, looking almost like a video feed.

We took a break from the Royal Mile and went back to Victoria Street for lunch at Bertie’s Fish and Chips. Eric got the fish and chips, and Della tried her first haggis of the trip (fried this time).

We returned to the Royal Mile and did the first half of Rick Steves’ self-guided walk, taking us past more scenic older buildings and atmospheric closes (alleys). It had gotten a little damp so we did pause for a bit in St Giles Cathedral. We made it back to the middle of the Mile and caught the bus back to our flat for some nap / quiet time.

Then, for dinner we went to a food hall called Edinburgh Street Food. Here we met up with our friend Christine from Denver along with her niece, who were coincidentally visiting Edinburgh at the same time! We were able to order an eclectic mix of food: plant-based tacos for Della, bao buns for Eric, and pizza for the kids. The kids also got some interesting flavors of soft-serve ice cream for dessert.

Before heading to bed, we decided to try one other amenity of our flat: a chest full of dress-up clothes to allow us to dress like Scotsmen!

The next morning, we had to check out of our flat and go pick up our rental car for the Highlands road trip. Stay tuned for a future post about that!

Return to Edinburgh

After a fun trip in the Highlands (foreshadowing!), we returned to Edinburgh for one night. Since we had missed some of our sightseeing time at the beginning of the trip, we made some changes to the road trip itinerary to allow us to get back to Edinburgh in the morning so we could have most of the last day to explore as well. We were able to drop off our luggage at our accommodations for the evening (more on that in a bit), and then headed out into the city to explore.

We caught a bus (double-decker!) back to the National Museum area. We first got lunch at MUMS Great Comfort Food, a homey diner serving some traditional Scottish food. Eric got the haggis tower which came with mash (mashed potatoes) and turnips. Della got two different types of sausage with mash.

From there, we walked through the nearby Greyfriars Kirkyard to find some of the headstones with names that appear in Harry Potter, like Thomas Riddle.

We then visited the National Museum itself. It is free which was a nice perk, although that did mean it was crowded. We once again used the Rick Steves self-guided tour to help us chart a path through the varied exhibits. We walked through the technology section to a separate wing with different eras of Scottish history on different floors. The floors were ordered chronologically, but we found ourselves a little frustrated that within each floor there was not a well-defined path to follow for a good story of the era. We had to just poke around randomly on each floor, looking at items that interested us. After finishing on a nice rooftop terrace, we went back into the main wing and explored some of the exhibits on animals. We paused to rest our legs, and then decided to head back to the hostel to relax.

We were staying at the Edinburgh Central Youth Hostel, part of a network of hostels across the country called Hostelling Scotland. We had stayed at a number of these hostels on our road trip (more foreshadowing), so we knew what to expect. The Edinburgh Central hostel was definitely the fanciest one we stayed at! We got a private room with an ensuite bathroom, so it was basically the same as a hotel room, except that the beds were bunk beds. The kids’ favorite feature of the room was that our window looked out on a major road where they could watch the trams and buses go by.

For dinner we walked to Vittoria Italian restaurant (the “on the Walk” location). We had seen this on lists of good restaurants for families in Edinburgh so we thought it would be a good stop for our final meal out in Scotland. Both the adults and kids found some good things to eat, including some nice ice cream for dessert.

After dinner, we debated taking advantage of the late light of Scottish summer evenings and doing one last Rick Steves walk in New Town, but we could tell the kids would probably rather just go back and relax in the room, so we listened to our parenting side over our traveler side and called it a night.

The next morning, we got the breakfast at the hostel which was included in our rooming package – called the “Wee Breakfast,” it was your standard continental breakfast of cereals and breads with some fruit. Each hostel did it slightly differently. The main difference at Edinburgh Central was that we had to fight through swarms of other travelers trying to eat at the same time – it’s a big and popular hostel. After fueling up, we caught the tram to Waverley Station, where we caught a high-speed train to London. We would spend the night there and then catch our flight back to the US the next day!

A Hot Day in Halifax

11/22/2019globegazers 2 Comments

We visited Halifax during our 2 week road trip of New England and Canada. We rented a car in Boston, explored Maine, spent some fun days along the Bay of Fundy, and relaxed in Prince Edward Island (PEI) before heading to Halifax.

We knew that it was a bit out of our way and that it was a long way to go for a short visit, but we were still excited to get into Nova Scotia and to explore the harbor town of Halifax.

We arrived in town by around 1 pm and got set up in our room at Homewood Suites (booked for free with points earned from a Hilton credit card signup bonus). Then we headed out to explore. It was a very hot day!

What We Did

We grabbed a quick lunch in the food court of Scotia Square which was only a few blocks from our hotel. It was a big food court with lots of options. Eric got Indian food and Della a shawarma plate. We hadn’t brought our highchair so Kiddo had to sit in his stroller and consequently didn’t eat much. We were in a bit of a rush though, so it didn’t matter too much.

We roughly used this self-guided walking tour to follow throughout our day. Our first stop was City Hall and St. Paul’s Church, the oldest still-standing Anglican church in Canada. We then headed down to the waterfront. Our first destination was the Maritime Museum…. err.. rather, the maritime themed playground outside of it. In an ideal trip, we would have spent some time poring over the 30,000 artifacts here, but we knew Kiddo was a bit too young and we were definitely pressed for time. As mentioned above, it was a HOT day and playing around the playground got us all a bit red-faced! So, we did the most natural thing – we got some icecream at Cows and relaxed in the shade while we ate it.

City Hall

Looking up at the clock tower of the Citadel

maritime playground

The waterfront

Our next stop was the Farmer’s Market. We had intended to do a quick stroll through and at least get to the Pier 21 Immigration Museum, but as soon as we saw the market was indoors, we decided we would spend a little more time there. By this point, we also knew for sure that, to our disappointment, we were likely not going to make it into the museum. Kiddo didn’t seem likely to relax or take a second nap. Unfortunately, while the Farmer’s Market was indoors – it did not have air conditioning! We also were arriving late in the day so many of the market stalls were closing up. However, we stopped a the Ursan Mead stand which was offering free tastings. We tasted several different kinds including spritzer-like fruity meads and, the most unique, a baklava flavored mead. This was a fun stop and we purchased a few bottles! (It was also a good short celebration because we had just found out that Della’s sister had gotten engaged!)

We walked by a couple more buildings on the tour we were following, but didn’t really stop until we reached the Public Gardens. Holy cow! These Victorian era gardens are beautiful! You can easily imagine people wearing lovely dresses and top hats strolling through them. We enjoyed a leisurely walk ourselves, stopping for a Kiddo snack.

Our final stop was the Citadel. Getting up this fortified hill was a bit of a hike, but it was, at least, on the way back towards our hotel. We were all hot and tired at this point and Kiddo actually did end up falling asleep in his stroller. For that reason, and because the Citadel itself was closing quite soon, we didn’t go in. Instead we just enjoyed the views of the city before heading back down.

We took advantage of the fact that Kiddo was still napping and stopped for a beer at a brewery called 2 Crows which was right next to the hotel. It was actually the most perfect timing. It had lovely air conditioning and Kiddo slept long enough for both his parents to enjoy a semi-leisurely pint.

Kiddo was a bit grumpy when we woke up so we decided to stay in for dinner. Eric headed out to grab a local specialty donair which was actually quite a bit like a gyro.

We really wish we had more time to spend in Halifax. While it was quite a drive ultimately out of our way, we are glad we went!

Traveling With Kiddo (Lessons Learned)

Most parents know that traveling with snacks and drinks is a must. We try to mostly keep Kiddo on a schedule where he eats regular snacks and meals, but sometimes a well-timed snack can save an afternoon! On this trip, we found one of the best snacks was little Clementine oranges. You can carry them un-refrigerated in your bag all day, they have a good amount of juice to keep you hydrated on really hot days, and Kiddo LOVES them.

We’ve mentioned in other posts how important the right stroller can be!

We’ve also mentioned how our baby tent helped us out quite a bit. In Halifax, we used cushions from the couch in the room to set him up in the kitchen area of our room. That meant we had a little more distance between us and him after he went down and we didn’t worry about our reading lights disturbing him nearly as much.

mde

Kindred Spirits in Prince Edward Island

09/13/201909/09/2019globegazers 3 Comments

We visited Prince Edward Island (PEI) during our 2 week road trip of New England and Canada. We rented a car in Boston, explored Maine, and then spend some fun days along the Bay of Fundy before arriving in PEI.

We arrived in PEI after a long day exploring Fundy National Park. We were all hungry and tired so as soon as we crossed the Confederation Bridge and arrived in the town of Borden-Carleton we pulled off to eat. We had been excited to try Cows Ice Cream because we had heard so much about it so we just ended up eating Subway because they were in the same building. We arrived in our accommodations in Summerside in the later evening and pretty much went right to bed.

Della was so excited to be driving into PEI that she took a screenshot on the long bridge

Subway-Cows dinner combination

What We Did

Explore Summerside

Summerside is a cute town! We drove to town center and headed into the visitor center which was right on the harbor. There was a harbor walk and a lot of shops, but it was pretty early and it was dead while we were there. We had seen online that there was a newly founded historic walk that went through town starting at the Lefurgey House. It was strange that the visitor center didn’t actually have the walking tour brochure, but once we made our way to the Lefurgy House we were able to get a brochure and some good information. The house belonged to John E. Lefurgey who was a leading Summerside shipbuilder, produce dealer and politician. It was sold by one of his sons, but then repurchased by his granddaughter Wanda Wyatt who helped turn it into a sort of cultural center. The tour brochure let us to several historic buildings and monuments in the town. It was a nice way to spend an hour and a half in the morning before Kiddo’s morning nap.

Summerside marina

Lefurgey House

Monument to the local soldiers in WWI

Charlottetown

We started our day in Charlottetown, the capital and largest city of PEI, at the Founder’s Court Visitor Center where we got some information on walking routes to see the best parts of the city.

We explored Charlottetown using a combination of a Heritage Walk and a scavenger hunt for Eckhart the Mouse. Sprinkled throughout town, there are 9 statues of Eckhart the mouse who is, apparently, a beloved storybook character. They are in historic or culturally significant places and the tour gives you a little info at each one. We enjoyed searching for the little statues and could see that Kiddo would have loved this way to see the city if he was a bit older. There was also another kid-friendly scavenger hunt type tour of the city where you find different animal statues that starts at the Visitor Center.

Can you spot the Eckhart statue on the windowsill?

Our tour included Founders Hall which is where the delegates of the Charlottetown Conference arrived in Charlottetown in 1864. The conference was pretty important in the history of Canada because it would eventually lead to the Confederation of New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and the Province of Canada (which contained what became Ontario and Quebec) into the Federation of Canada. We visited the Province House where many meetings of the delegates took place. We also visited St. Dunstan’s Basilica which is one of the largest buildings of its kind in Eastern Canada.

We did a brief break in the middle of the day for Kiddo to play in the park. He’s getting really good at climbing!

We ended the day walking along the waterfront where we stopped at another Cows to pick up ice cream and raspberry cordial!

Anne of Green Gables House

This was the reason we came to PEI! Della had been a fan of Anne of Green Gables as a child, both the books and the CBC TV movie. We’re a little embarrassed because we initially kind of misunderstood what the Green Gables House was. Della had thought it was the location where they did some of the filming for the movie and she was very pumped to see it. (Again, she has wanted to visit PEI since she was a kid specifically because of that film!) However, that it not really what the Green Gables house on PEI is at all.

Lucy Maud Montgomery, the author of Anne of Green Gables, lived on PEI near the town of Cavendish. Her parents died/left when she was young, so she grew up with her grandparents. Her grandparents’ cousins lived in a house with green gables that inspired her to write the Anne of Green Gables series. There were other things there that inspired the locations in Anne’s adventures like the the Haunted Woods Trail and Lover’s Lane. There is also a real lake that becomes “The Lake of Shining Waters” in the stories. So, we figured this out – a little sheepishly – and then thoroughly enjoyed our time. The whole area is now a national historic site. When we entered there was a very short but enjoyable museum about Lucy Maud Montgomery’s life.

Then we toured the inside of “Green Gables.” They have set it up as if it were from the book so there is a room dedicated to Anne and then one for Matthew and one for Marilla.

That’s Anne in the background!

After exploring there, and taking a picture with Anne herself, we headed off to walk the Haunted Woods Trail. We didn’t find it very scary, and Kiddo walked almost the whole thing himself. This, of course, made it go quite slowly.

We then eventually got him to calm down and take a bit of a nap in his stroller while we did the Lovers Lane trail and then watched another short video about the life of the author.

Near the Green Gables House, they have set up a representation of the fictional town of Avonlea (from the books) which was mostly a tourist trap. We intended to visit later in the day, but ended up running out of time.

Cavendish Beach

After thoroughly exploring the Green Gables House, we decided to head to the coast near Cavendish which inspired Lucy Maud Montgomery to write many poems. We entered PEI National Park along the northern shore. We stopped briefly at an overlook where we could see the gorgeous red sand cliffs.

We had been planning on visiting Cavendish Beach and we saw that we could walk there from the overlook. It said it was a short walk and we knew it would be beautiful, so we set off. Upon reflection, we really wish we had better prepared for this. We didn’t bring the stroller OR the carrier, so we ended up just carrying Kiddo. It was too far for that to be comfortable. The walk was lovely- taking us through the dunes, near the coast, and across the Lake of Shining Waters.

We hadn’t expected Cavendish Beach to be so crowded! In our head, we thought, why would anyone swim? The water is so cold! However, we were sorely mistaken. We made our way down to the beach and sat for a little bit. Kiddo really enjoyed digging in the sand… and getting it ALL OVER himself- like into every nook and cranny. We also let him put his toes in the water. However, we weren’t really prepared to swim so we had to cut the trip short. We wanted to change him completely before the semi long drive back to Summerside and it was getting late. Eric ran back to get the car while Della tried to give Kiddo a shower and get him changed without getting too wet herself.

Scenic Drives

Throughout our 2 days in PEI, we ended up doing most of the Central Coastal Drive. We did the southern Red Sands Shore on our way back from Charlottetown to Summerside and did some of the Green Gables Shore on our day exploring Cavendish. There are lots of scenic drives throughout the island because the entire place is gorgeous!

Where We Ate

Our best meal by far was near Cavendish. We went out to North Rustico for a late lunch at Blue Mussel. We shared a seafood chowder poutine, Della got a lobster roll, and Eric got a bubbly seafood bake. The setting was lovely and the restaurant quite pleasant!

Traveling with Kiddo (Lessons Learned)

In one of our prior posts, we shared our strategy for eating out so much with a toddler. That strategy worked pretty well for *most* of the trip. However, at the halfway point, in PEI, he had started getting sick of it. There were one or two difficult meals where he was pretty antsy and grumpy. So, in PEI we made the choice to order in to our hotel a couple of times. This meant that Kiddo could run around the room and play with his books and toys while we ate.

Swimming with a toddler is a much more difficult proposition that we were anticipating. He doesn’t really understand the concept of “just putting your toes in.” If you’re swimming in the ocean with a toddler, ideally, you do not have to get there in the car and you have multiple people to help with the showering/cleaning up afterwards. The idea of putting a wet toddler in a car seat you need to use again soon with sand caking the inside of his diaper is very unappealing.

Kiddo was at a stage where he really wanted to do a lot of walking himself. However, that makes the hikes go very very slowly. We struggled to keep him moving forward and not stopping to check out every single rock and leaf. That was until we figured out that he was super excited about trying to run with help. He couldn’t really run by himself yet, but we we both held his hands and said “run run run” he would move forward at the quickest pace he could!

We have never visited so many playgrounds than we did on this trip. There were often times when Kiddo just needed a chance to run around and enjoy himself. We downloaded a playground app called Playground Buddy which seems to be a crowdsourced app to give information about playgrounds near you. It worked OK, but it needs more people! Join and give info about your playgrounds. (If you happen to know another app that you use for this purpose, please share!) We also just ended up googling to find the nearest places. Kiddo was much happier even if we just took a break to play for 15-20 min. We even found one near our hotel in Summerside so he could play before our long drive to Halifax.

Fun Days Exploring the Bay of Fundy

09/06/201909/01/2019globegazers 4 Comments

We explored the Bay of Fundy along the Canadian province of New Brunswick as part of our 2 week trip to New England and Canada. We rented a car in Boston and then traveled through parts of Maine.

The overland border crossing from Maine into New Brunswick was quite easy. We had no wait and were asked only very general questions about where we were going and coming from.

What We Did

Our first stop in Canada was St. Andrews by-the-Sea. We had rented a room at the Salty Towers on Airbnb. It was a large old house that felt a lot like a hostel (not a “party” hostel though, more for older travelers). Our room had a private bathroom and they had a pack n play for us!

As we were driving into town, we saw a lot of people wearing red and a lot of Canadian flags out, so we thought that it was either a very patriotic town or something special was going on. As it turns out, just by coincidence we had arrived on Canada Day! We walked the main drag in downtown and it was just alive with people strolling up and down in their patriotic gear. The energy was great! However, it was a bit hard to find a place to eat with a table available and a high chair. We eventually settled on Water St Diner. We shared a poutine for an appetizer – fun to be back in Canada! After finishing dinner (and exploring briefly a Canadian Dollar Store), we paused in the main square to listen to some music. They had several kids come up to Floss to the music which Della thought was hilarious.

Canada Day

Poutine- fries with cheese curds and gravy

Once we were back in our room, we got ready for bed, but then a fireworks display started. We had an excellent view from our bedroom window so watched for awhile. Unfortunately, it did mean that Kiddo had a little bit of trouble getting to sleep and stayed up quite late!

Trying to fall asleep post fireworks

From St. Andrew’s we took the 2.5 hour drive to Fundy National Park. The drive into the park was scenic, but before doing anything in the park itself, we continued on just past the park into Alma to eat lunch. We were a little disappointed with our lunch choice. The Octopus Garden had a very long wait for our food to arrive. We actually ended up having to take Kiddo outside for awhile because it took so long and he was getting antsy. It also, unfortunately, cut into our time for exploring the park.

After lunch we did a quick stop at the Visitor Center and decided that we only had time to do part of a hike. We ended up doing the first half of the Matthews Head hike which took us through dense forest out to a viewpoint over the bay. We took a few minutes to sit in the classic red Adirondack chairs to contemplate life. Then we headed back. Kiddo rode in a baby carrier for the way out and then did a bit of walking himself on the way back. Unfortunately, we only scratched the surface of Fundy National Park on a day that was a bit cloudy.

After spending a few days exploring Prince Edward Island and Halifax, we returned to the Bay of Fundy. The Bay is know for its extremely high tides, so we were excited to check out Hopewell Rocks. We rushed in, driving the approximately 3 hours from Halifax, hoping to arrive before high tide. Our timing was actually quite good. At lowest tide, you can apparently walk about 250 yards out on the sea floor. We arrived with about an hour left of access to the ocean floor. The Hopewell Rocks themselves are distinctive rock formations. We walked down to explore around them by foot. As the time passed, we enjoyed watching the water come closer and closer, until, eventually it got so high, we had to exit the sea floor and head up several flights of stairs to re-access the trail on the cliffs above.

When we arrived on sea floor

exploring the ocean floor and rocky caves

tide farther in after we climbed up

The difference in high and low tide!

Back at the main visitor area, there was a playground. We let Kiddo play for awhile and we all ate a picnic lunch before we headed off for our afternoon drive to Saint John.

We arrived to a heavy covering of fog. Right after we got checked in to our hotel, the skies opened up and it began to pour. We had been hoping to walk into downtown for dinner, but chose to drive to avoid getting soaked. It was a frustrating drive- while only a mile away, we made multiple wrong turns! And, due to the way the roads went and some construction, for every wrong turn, we had to essentially come all the way back to the hotel and try again! We were all getting quite frustrated and hangry!

Dinner was at St. John Ale House which we enjoyed OK, though it was a little slow for a frustrated family with a toddler. Della got a blueberry ale which was quite delicious and Eric enjoyed a taster tray of local ales. The food was tasty.

Even though it was almost dark at this point, we had checked the tide charts, and we had only one potential chance to see the famous Reversing Falls. Because the tides are so high, the river flowing into the bay actually reverses direction at high tide. We thought we arrived within 30 minutes of high tide, but the river still seemed to be flowing into the bay. We were too tired to stick around. We later read that the reversing might only happen at the very highest tide for a few minutes. We were bummed to miss it.

still appears to be flowing downstream…

The following day was lovely and sunny! We walked back into downtown for some sightseeing. We walked along the Harbour Passage trail into town from our hotel. It was a lovely walk along the Bay full of joggers and bikers. We particularly enjoyed walking next to the fragrant rose bushes planted all along the way. We decided to take a self-guided historic tour we found online here. We took the Prince William Walk which helped us explore the merchant heritage of Saint John. Some of the highlights were a Market Square, the old city hall, and several old banks. All the buildings were beautiful and we generally enjoyed the ambiance. We ended up at the “Three Sisters” light fixture where we took a jelfie before heading back up Germain St. Kiddo enjoyed doing a little bit of walking on his own. It was fun learning a bit of the history- apparently Saint John was essentially built by loyalists to Britain who escaped from the USA after the American Revolution.

We enjoyed our time along the Bay of Fundy – especially exploring St. Andrews and Saint John!

Traveling With Kiddo (Lessons Learned)

We had been planning on bringing a pack n play with us on this trip. We have a nice one that is quite light and packs into a bag that can carried on our backs – As far as pack n plays go- it’s a great one for travel. However, the more we thought about it, the more we knew we just didn’t want to carry it. It is another piece of luggage that would take up space on our backs getting to and from the airport, and in the our possibly compact car. Della had joined several Traveling Family facebook groups before the trip and she heard about a baby tent! We purchased a Kilofly Pop Up Portable Baby Travel Bed. There are many of these out there, but we chose this one because it came with a pad. Originally, we thought we would put this on the floor and it would contain Kiddo a little bit. As we went on, we ultimately decided that the pad wasn’t padded enough so throughout the trip we put the tent on cushions, a mattress on the floor, and a folded blanket. In several hotel rooms, we had 2 beds so we put it on the other bed. He rolls a lot in his sleep and could crawl out of the tent if he tried, so we often barricaded it on the bed with other luggage. This made us nervous a few nights, but ultimately, it worked really well! AND, it folds up so small, you can just pop it in your suitcase!

We bought and used a LOT of milk on this trip. Kiddo was at a stage where he was done with nursing/formula but still counting on milk for a lot of his calories. Because we were often driving all day, the milk would be in our hot car. We brought a folding cooler with us on the trip and were so glad that we at least had a way to try to keep the milk cold! We did purchase a small ice pack at one point, which would have been nice to have the whole time.

Marvelous Maine (Mane-O, Mane-O!)

08/30/201908/23/2019globegazers 5 Comments

We visited Maine as part of our 2 week New England and Canada road trip.

We were able to see several friends in Maine and explored mostly the coastal region of this state that we had never visited!

The title of this post hearkens back to a children’s board book, Good Night, Maine. One of our good friends gave this to Kiddo as a gift when we visited her in Northport and it quickly became an absolute favorite. We had to read it over and over again. He would let us know loudly that he wanted to read it by yelling “Mane-O Mane-O!”

What We Did

Our first stop in Maine was in Kennebunk. We used this time to catch up with a friend who experienced the Nepal Earthquake with us. We didn’t really get much of a chance to see Kennebunk except for a quick drive through. It looked like a beautiful town!

Portland

We spend one night in Portland. Our evening involved exploring downtown and struggling to find a place to eat that had no wait and seemed baby friendly! The town was quite cute. The following morning we explored Fort Allen Park on the Eastern Promenade. It was a lovely day and we all enjoyed the walk with a beautiful view of the bay.

Bangor

We spent an afternoon in Bangor. We were mostly looking for a place that was halfway between Portland and St. Andrew’s (NB, Canada). But, Eric had read about how Stephen King lives in Bangor and how several of his books use it as an inspiration for location. We drove by the house and then ate a quick lunch in downtown which was also quite cute. We walked around briefly and then drove to another attraction we had heard about – the Paul Bunyan Statue. We wish that we had found another park to enjoy because Kiddo wasn’t really ready to be back in the car after our sojourn in Bangor, but we had to move on!

Steven King’s House

Downtown

Paul Bunyan

Machias and Wild Blueberry Land

After spending several days in Canada, we returned to the USA. We stopped for lunch in Machias where we enjoyed a Haddock Rueben and a Clam Chowder at Helen’s. In our attempt to find interesting things to do halfway between Saint John (NB, Canada) and Northport (our final destination for the day) Eric had explored the Altas Obscura and read about Wild Blueberry Land. We stopped at this unique locale for a short while so Kiddo could explore and stretch his legs. It did look like it had seen better days, but it is still a place to find wonderful blueberry everything. We purchased some preserves and a delicious slice of pie. We also watched the workers briefly doing some painting on the miniature golf course which was currently closed.

Northport

We spent 3 lovely nights with a friend in the town of Northport. Her family owns a cottage right on the water. We spent one relaxing day on her front porch taking in the scenery and then playing in ocean while the tide came in. It was also a nice place to stay that wasn’t too far away from our next day trip…

hanging out on the porch

view from porch during sunset

sunrise

Acadia National Park

Our first stop in Acadia was the visitor center to pay our park fees and get our bearings. From there we decided to drive to the top of Cadillac Mountain. It was a pretty short drive. Upon reaching the top, we took a short walk around just taking in the views. Before heading out, we had a small picnic lunch on the rocks.

We headed back to the visitor center to drop off the car because we had decided to take the park shuttles for the rest of our adventure. There are several different shuttles that take different routes throughout the park and you can get all that info at the visitor center as well as view signage at the different stops. We headed first to Sandy Beach. We didn’t actually go to the beach, but instead walked along the Ocean Path to Thunder Hole. The walk was quite nice visually, but it was hot and right along the road so it wasn’t as pleasant as we had initially hoped. If we hadn’t been carrying Kiddo, we might have explored more along the rocky shore.

Unfortunately, Thunder Hole was very crowded and was not doing its thing. We understand that often the waves crash loudly over the rocks and explode up quite high so it is both visually and aurally interesting. However, at the point we were there it was really quite tame.

We caught a shuttle onward to Otter Point. This was one of our favorite spots of the day. It was quiet and pleasant with lovely views. Unfortunately, we were starting to feel a time crunch. Our host had a dog that she had left at home which was 1.5 hours away and we knew we needed to get back.

We made only one more stop at Jordan Pond where we only had a brief time to walk down to the pond and a few minutes around the trail.

Acadia was, as many national parks are, crowded so it didn’t really feel like we were getting out in nature. However, there were several less popular spots that we wish we could have spent more time exploring!

Traveling with Kiddo (Lessons Learned)

Our plan of driving morning and late afternoon really worked quite well. Kiddo was able to explore during the afternoon and slept during the car rides. This strategy lead us to some lesser visited and more unique places. We did decide that for the most part, stopping for just a lunch was not enough give Kiddo the time he needed to stretch his legs.

Our hook-on highchair was really useful for staying with friends who don’t have kids themselves!

While we were glad we saw as much as we did on the two week trip, it was really nice to spend an off day in the same place without a ton of sightseeing involved!

We had brought several books for Kiddo along with us on the two week trip, but we acquired a few more from different friends along the way and it was definitely a good thing to gain more options as the time went on. This kept it fresh and new for Kiddo.

Eating with Kiddo at restaurants can be challenging sometimes – especially when he just spent multiple hours in a car and is much more anxious to be stretching his legs. We built a pretty good “keep kiddo entertained” strategy for eating as our trip went on. We always carried crunch snacks with us like Cheerios or other baby foods. As soon as we sit down in a restaurant, those come out. It normally keeps him entertained through ordering. As we are waiting for food to arrive, we often would take out a toy or two in addition to the crunchy foods. He currently is really into anything with wheels. If we were lucky, that would take us until food arrives, then he would be busy eating more and trying all the food we had ordered. As he got sick of that, we would pull out his bottle of milk. In order to give us the time needed to finish our meal and pay our check, our last strategy was to give him a baby squeeze pouch which he really enjoys. This got us through *most* meals with no problem!

Flexibility was key. While we did try to make sure that our journey gave Kiddo an opportunity for 2 naps, we never really timed anything. Occasionally, he had to be ready to go down for first nap as early as 9 and other times we ended up pushing it back to 11 or so. So, the fact that we did this trip when he still took 2 naps but probably only truly needed 1 was really helpful.

Hello, Boston!

08/21/201908/13/2019globegazers 5 Comments

Boston was a part of our 2 week road trip of New England and Canada.

We flew to Boston direct on Southwest. Unfortunately, our flight was quite delayed so we didn’t arrive until very late. We were staying with some family friends in Belmont who were very generous to wait up for us.

Napping in the airport during our looong delay. Reclining stroller again to the rescue!

The title of this blog post hearkens to a children’s board book written by Martha Day Zschock. We had purchased this book for Kiddo a couple weeks before our trip and read it often to get him excited. Strangely, it was a great way to plan for the trip. We tried hard to hit all of the sites that were mentioned in the cute rhyming story!

Things We Did

Quincy Market and Fanuiel Hall

We were able to get a ride from our hosts to Alewife Station and then took the T into downtown Boston. We started by grabbing lunch at the iconic Quincy Market. There were an amazing amount of choices for food and it was quite crowded. After a short wait, we were able to grab a seat while Eric enjoyed a clam chowder and Della went for pizza. Kiddo had some munchies and a large glass of milk! We then went across the street to check out Fanuiel Hall. It was under construction from the the outside, so not too interesting to look at. But the inside was beautiful. We enjoyed checking out the hall itself which has held meetings, protests, and debate for 275 years!

enjoying lunch

Freedom Trail

We walked north from Fanueil Hall on the Freedom Trail through the North End. The Freedom Trail is a fun red brick path that you follow through the heart of Boston that takes you to several interesting, historic sites.

The next stop would have been Paul Revere’s house. We were interested to go in, but the line was awfully long and it didn’t look like it would easily accommodate our stroller so we continued on.

Then we were on to the Old North Church of Paul Revere “One if by land, two if by sea” fame. It is also the oldest church building in Boston, built in 1723. There is a lovely shaded park in front of the church that we hung out in for awhile, letting Kiddo run around. He enjoyed splashing in the fountain and then staring in wonder at the statue of Paul Revere.

We decided at this point to turn around and head back south on the Freedom Trail, but first we needed to refresh ourselves with a cannoli from Mike’s Pastry. Delicious!

Next we headed to the Old State House. The Declaration of Independence was read from the balcony in 1776. We enjoyed looking at the lion and unicorn statues on top. These two animals appear on the British Royal Arms. The lion represents England and the unicorn Scotland. We also looked at the monument on the pavement in front of the Old State House to the 5 people who were killed during the Boston Massacre.

We checked out the Old Corner Bookstore which is one of the oldest brick structures in Boston (1712). It is now a Chipotle!

Up next was the Old South Meeting House which is a church where those who planned the Boston Tea Party departed from.

We saw a monument to the Boston Latin school which was the oldest still operating school in America! It was started in 1635! It was no longer at this location, but we enjoyed the monument.

Next, we took a minute to get out of the hot Boston sun by stepping into King’s Church. We enjoyed looking at the enormous pews and reading about various people who had purchased each one.

We walked into the Granary Burial Ground in which many famous people are buried including 3 signers if the Declaration of Independence, Paul Revere, and relatives of Benjamin Franklin.

Finally we were to the Boston Common and the State House. Boston Common is the oldest public park in the US! It was created as a common space for grazing cattle and for people to meet. We mostly just took a little time to rest and do a failed jelfie.

At this point we had completed the majority of the Freedom Trail! Kiddo slept in our new reclining stroller from after we ate cannollis until we arrived at the Boston Common.

Boston Public Garden

Our next stop included a statue of the the ducks from the children’s book Make Way for Ducklings. Kiddo was awake now and ready to enjoy the time in the park. He is a big fan of ducks, though he was a tad scared of the statues. He liked watching the real ducks and seeing the big swan boats go by.

Commonwealth Mall to Copley Square

We next wanted to head to Copley Square where we knew there was a statue of the Turtle and Hare (thanks Hello, Boston book!) We walked through the beautiful Commonwealth Avenue Mall. It is 32 acres designed in the French Boulevard style and it is lovely, shaded, and has many statues lining it. We spent a little time in the sunny, crowded Copley Square checking out the statues before deciding to head back toward our lodging.

We’ve joined the race!

Harvard

We stopped at Harvard on our way back out to Belmont. We were a little tired at this point, so we just walked around Harvard Yard and read about some of the buildings. We laughed quite a bit when Kiddo said a huge “Wow!” right as we entered the quad. He doesn’t talk a lot yet, but something about Harvard clearly impressed him!

Boston College

On our second day in Boston, the weather was a tad dreary. We also had a few social activities planned – meeting up with the family of our hosts, and enjoying a lovely lunch with college friends! Our friends work at Boston College and Della’s father attended there, so we decided to do a walkabout on campus. We enjoyed the tour by our college friend and trying to take pictures of things that Della’s dad might remember from his days there. Kiddo napped in our reclining stroller while we enjoyed chatting with our friends!

JFK Library

We had a busy final day in Boston. We met up with different college friends for brunch and then rushed through the JFK Presidential Library before heading back to the airport. We started getting into Presidential Libraries in the last year and were excited to add another one to our growing list. We really wish we had more time as the library was well laid out in a creative way. Unfortunately, kiddo wasn’t really into being in his stroller at the time. We had hoped he would nap, but he never really was able to relax. Therefore, we missed out on most of the videos which would have really enhanced the experience.

Picture of JFK’s famous speech at our alma mater. “Why does Rice play Texas?”

Traveling with Kiddo (Lessons Learned)

As mentioned above, using children’s books (even board books) can be a good way to get kiddos excited about travel destinations. They can also be useful in helping you plan out good kid-friendly activities and sights for when you get there!

We’ve mentioned above and in other posts how the reclining stroller is a game changer.

We struggled with which car to rent when traveling with Kiddo. We ultimately booked a compact car which we may have been able to fit in. However, we got upgraded when we picked up to a full-size we think and it was probably much more comfortable. Also- driving in Boston is insane!! Not even just in downtown, but everywhere! The streets make NO sense and have no discernible pattern. We realized quickly that you need a full time navigator AND google maps step-by-step driving instructions to get anywhere.

There is a ton to do in Boston and, like many places we’ve visited, we wish we had more time to explore. We look forward to visiting again when Kiddo is older.

2 Week Itinerary: New England and Canada

08/12/201907/13/2024globegazers 6 Comments

This was our first international trip with Kiddo! It was also the first trip we were to embark upon with him where we were not completely visiting friends/family or taking family with us. We were a bit nervous, but ultimately, it worked out really well!

At this point in time, Kiddo was still taking two naps per day – though to be fair, he mostly didn’t need them both. We were holding on to the 2nd nap because we liked it for ourselves! However, it did give us an outline for how we would plan this trip. Initially, we decided to fly to Boston because there was a direct flight on Southwest. (We currently hold a companion pass!) We knew we had a few friends scattered throughout New England that it would be fun to see. We also each had a few states up there that we had not been to. In addition, we saw that you could easily drive up to Canada, and in particular, to Prince Edward Island (PEI). We were excited that Kiddo could cross an international border and Della has been a fan of Anne of Green Gables so has always wanted to get to PEI. We decided to plan around those locations. We knew that Kiddo would nap in the car in the morning but then need something to interest and excite him in the afternoon before he would sleep in the car again in the afternoon. So, our goal was to never drive more than about 3 hours at a time and to always pick somewhere interesting to be in the middle of the day.

The 2 week itinerary was as follows:

Day 1: Arrive Boston
Day 2-3: Explore Boston
Day 4: Boston to Portland, Maine. We spent the middle of the day visiting a friend who we had experienced the Nepal Earthquake with us in Kennebunk, ME.
Day 5: Portland to St. Andrews, New Brunswick (Canada). We spent the middle of the day in Bangor, ME.
Day 6: St. Andrews to Summerside, PEI. We spent the middle of the day exploring Fundy National Park.
Day 7-8: PEI: one day exploring Charlottetown and one day exploring Cavendish
Day 9: PEI to Halifax, Nova Scotia. This was only a 3 hour drive.
Day 10: Halifax to Saint John, NB. We spent the middle of the day exploring Hopewell Rocks along the Bay of Fundy.
Day 11: Saint John to Northport, ME where we met a good friend of Della’s. We stopped for lunch in Machias, ME and then we explored Wild Blueberry Land near Columbia Falls, ME.
Day 12: Northport, ME
Day 13: Explored Acadia National Park
Day 14: Northport, ME to North Conway, New Hampshire. We stopped for lunch and a playground in Bridgeport.
Day 15: North Conway back to Boston via the scenic Kancamagus Highway.
Day 16: Boston with an evening flight home!

We really enjoyed the trip and our strategy of having Kiddo nap twice a day in the car worked almost flawlessly!