The Travel Savvy Mom tag line says it all.  Where to stay when you go?  Heck, when kids are involved, sometimes where you stay is even more important than where you go.

When you travel with children, a hotel room is not just where you lay your head. It’s also where you go when your kids are just too wound up or worn down to do any more sightseeing. It’s where you need to entertain said children if a time change has them up at odd hours.  It’s where you’ll while away the hours if you end up tucking your little travelers into bed early.

Staying too far away from the action can be a mistake if it means dragging kids back and forth endlessly, but staying in the “best” hotel in the heart of it all can be just as fatal if there’s breakable decor at stake. Grunge is bad. Glam is equally bad. And employees who don’t much care for children?  They’re the kiss of death.

That’s why I never book a hotel without consulting review sites like Travel Savvy Mom.  Been there, done that information is invaluable when you’re traveling with kids, and I never cease to be impressed by the honesty and helpfulness of strangers’ advice.

Even if reviews are glowing, I always double check a property by visiting its website directly. You can learn a lot about a place from its marketing materials.  I don’t need endless copy about children’s amenities or a furry mascot who promises “non-stop fun.” But too many photos of couples and romance packages make me a bit suspicious about how welcome my kids will actually be upon our arrival. At a minimum, I want to see the word “families” appear a few times on a property’s site.  If they don’t want us enough to market to us, we probably don’t want them either.

“Your children have been so well behaved that it’s been a pleasure to have them,” a B&B owner once told us at checkout. We had selected the place in large part because it was advertised as family-friendly, so her next sentence threw us a bit. “If all kids were like yours, we’d actually want to have them stay here.”

We thanked her politely and ushered our kids quickly out of the house before someone screamed or touched something and blew our well-behaved facade. And then as we drove away, I carefully drew a black line through the words “family friendly” in our library-borrowed guidebook. Word of mouth is a powerful thing.

February 22nd, 2009 | by Rebecca Tompkins 3 comments