What was your best US family holiday?

[Thethingswedoforlove]

We are planning for 2016 and looking for inspiration. Keen to take dds (who will be 11 and 9). We want to do some activities and some relaxing. Ideas we looking into are Florida to include keys and theme parks or Boston with cape cod or poss California. Where wd you suggest or recommend?

Someone ?

Are any of you history nuts? We had a great holiday in Virginia; early settlements and civil war stuff plus normal tourist gubbins and the blue ridge mountains. Plus Washington DC, plus way shorter flights than California.

But I totally recognise that's not theme parks!

We have enjoyed Florida, stayed at a villa in Kissimmee with a pool, and went into the various parks and also up to Kennedy Space Centre which was a highlight. Boys were probably similar age to your girls.

Since then we've done West Coast, 3 wks, with car, Vegas, Zion National Park, Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Death Valley, San Fran, Monterey, drive down beautiful highway road to LA, home from there.

Our last trip, they are now late teens was New York, train to Boston and a rest on Cape Cod.

Loved all three trips. The first was more "holiday-ish", in one place, pool, although it was busy at the parks each day. There is a brilliant book that will help you plan that we used called:

Brit Guide to Orlando 2016 by Simon and Susan Veness

The other two trips I researched myself and then went to Trailfinders to put it all together. I can definitely recommend them, it was good to have flights, car hire, hotels etc all in one place. They have great knowledge and can generally find 3 nights for the price of 2 hotel offers.

Our West Coast was a real adventure, never stayed more than 2 nights in one place, so saw many amazing places, our favourite sight was the Grand Canyon, it's just incredible. Great family memories of us at Zion hiking the rapids

utah.com/zion-national-park/the-narrows

And also hiring bikes and cycling over the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco one Sunday morning.

There are some great threads on mumsnet in the travel area, in particular regarding the West Coast section, also great recommendations and ideas for New York.

I would perhaps do Florida first and then the other places when they are a bit older.

At that age ours loved a week in Orlando then a week relaxing in the keys.

We have also done the west coast with another family. San Fran down to San Diego and across to Las Vegas via the Grand Canyon. It was a fantastic three week holiday.

Last year we did Atlanta, Nashville, Memphis and New Orleans. That was amazing but my DS are late teens/twenties now.

We have regularly done Boston and cape cod. That is a favourite of ours.

This year we are doing Washington, Philadelphia, New York then Boston followed by a week in the cape. We are taking 3 weeks to do this.

We love an American road trip in this family!

I mean next year we are doing that holiday. Wouldn't have much time to fit it in this year!

Oh yes I forgot Washington we did that before New York, so we flew to Washington, onto New York, then Boston, then Cape Cod, did that in 2 weeks. Washington is amazing, the museums are incredible and the buildings are just huge, you can really feel the power in Washington!

cashewnutty your trip last year sounds great, what were your highlights from that trip?

cashewnutty, I want to go on holiday with you!

Thanks- these ideas are amazing! Where do people stay in cape cod? We have friends to stay with in Boston so am probably favouring that as an option .....

we did this trip with 1 preteen and 2 teens. we flew into Miami, picked up a hire car (had a satnav as not an easy airport to get out of) drove straight down to Islamorada on florida keys. stayed there for a week doing lots of water based and walking type activities, drove up through the everglades, did a day long eco canoe trip, b and b over night then up to the theme parks for just under 2 weeks. was a perfect trip and we all had a fab time. flew back from Orlando.

We stayed in Falmouth, we had a car so drove all over exploring. We hired bikes in Falmouth, there was a really good bike path. Lots restaurants.

Oooh you're sounds fantastic too mummymeister

Yours obv - autocorrect grrrr

bluesky Atlanta was a bit weird but we enjoyed the World of Coca-Cola, CNN tour and the National and Civil Rights museum. In Nashville - well all of it really! The Grand Ole Opry and the Country Hall of Fame were brilliant. I wold love to go back and spend longer in Nashville. Memphis was lovely and we really enjoyed the Gracelands Tour. DH is a big Elvis fan! I found New Orleans a but frenetic but my DD's adored it. We did a bus tour and saw most of the sights. We also had a night in Montgomery on the way back. It was nice there too but we didn't have time to do much. The whole holiday was a bit of a whistlestop tour as we did all that in 10 days!

When in the Cape we usually stay in Hyannis. Plenty to do there and good for accessing Martha's Vineyard. Our favourite thing to do is play mini golf at Pirates Cove!

We loved California, San francisco, camping in Yosemite etc. The dc would probably say they loved Florida best, but they are mad about theme parks. New York and Boston make a great family holiday too.

Thanks cashewnutty, sounds brilliant

I've lived in the states and think it's a great place to travel. Florida Is one of my least favourite destinations though.

I've copied and pasted another posters trip as its roughly my favourite trip too.

st Coast, 3 wks, with car, Vegas, Zion National Park, Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Death Valley, San Fran, Monterey, drive down beautiful highway road to LA, home from there

I love Virginia, Louisiana and the Nirth East (Maine Boston etc) too

We took DS to New York last Halloween, stayed in Manhattan for 3 nights, did all the museums, harbour boat tour and took his scooter to Central Park, saw a show etc.

Then we took the train from Penn up the coast to Boston. Stayed there 2 nights and flew home. I've heard Cape Cod is lovely, but there's loads of lovely coastal resorts up the East Coast.

Without Dc we did the West Coast from SF to SD then biked round Yosemite, did Vegas and a couple of night is a spa at Palm Springs. I want to do that route in a Winnebago when DS is a couple of years older.

We did the Florida theme parks in October half term too, the US kids have no holiday then so it's relatively quiet, but we didn't enjoy it as much well I did but the DH and DS don't like rides or getting wet lightweights.

Last year we had a fantastic holiday.

Flew into San Fransisco 4 nts
Drove to Yosemite for 3 nts
Carmel 3 nts
Santa Barbara 3 nts
Laguna 4nts
LA (Santa Monica) 2 nts
New York 4 nts

It was fantastic - loved it all. Thinking of doing Boston/ cape cod and down to Florida this summer.

Frankly I don't think you can go wrong with a holiday that starts "flew into San Francisco"

You could always do the theme parks in California OP. They've got Universal and Disney there. I don't know about others but I didn't feel quite so Theme Parked out after doing it there as I did in Florida.