With Kids In Tow

By By Lisa McLaughlin

With spring break and summer vacation looming, parents looking for a little quality travel time with their children can page through a new crop of travel guides--and some reissued classics--geared toward their special needs. Offering tips for finding the best activities for young and old and for minimizing the inevitable meltdowns, these books make planning a successful trip seem like child's play

ADVICE FROM A TRAVEL PRO Travel writer, parenting expert and mother of two, Emily Kaufman draws on her expertise in all those areas in The Travel Mom's Ultimate Book of Family Travel. She suggests a variety of destinations and itineraries and provides work sheets to help design trips that satisfy adults' interests and kids' dreams. She also offers tips on how to pack like a pro and includes Boredom Bags, suitable for long car rides and airport delays.

JUST THE FACTS, MOM Cadogan's Take the Kids Traveling gives comprehensive travel advice for parents looking to find suitable vacations for toddlers to teens, from luxury cruises to low-budget camping. Other books in the series offer specific ideas for trips in England, France, Greece and the U.S. There's also a Pick Your Brains series to introduce 8- to 12-year-olds to a range of countries through quirky facts about customs, sports, schools and culture.

68 LOCAL ADVENTURES The books in Fodor's Around the City with Kids series are all by parents who live in the place they write about. For each of 15 U.S. and foreign cities covered by the series, the authors suggest exactly 68 museums, monuments and activities--kid tested and rated for age appropriateness. The books provide info boxes filled with trivia about the attractions, pointers to child- and adult-friendly places to grab a bite to eat and warnings about when it's wiser to pack a lunch. There's a game section to keep everyone occupied while waiting in line.

A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY Young readers ages 4 to 8 can learn all about their vacation destinations from Miroslav Sasek's iconic This Is series. Beginning with This Is Paris in 1959, Sasek spent more than a decade writing and illustrating these charming picture-book guides that explore the sights, history, foods and local customs of more than a dozen destinations, including New York, San Francisco, Venice, London and Edinburgh. The beloved books have been reissued and updated for a new generation of travelers and their nostalgic parents.

MAKING THE MOST OF MICKEY Theme parks are often not the first choice of parents, but sometimes the lure of Disney is unavoidable. Fodor's Disneyland and Southern California with Kids offers detailed maps, descriptions of rides (including age ranges and scare factors) and lists of attractions and shows you can skip. Also useful are its tips on the best rest rooms for toddlers and where to find the least crowded stroller rentals.