I love lists. And I especially love Top 10 lists. So, National Geographic’s 10 Best of Everything for Families: An Ultimate Guide to Travel was appealing to me from the get-go. The book’s colorful collage of cover photos and its square shape also made me just want to start flipping through the pages. (I’m the crazy girl who insisted on square-shaped wedding invitations, even though they cost twice as much to mail.)
Inside are lists that range from the 10 best ice cream spots in the Northeast to the 10 best family-friendly St. Patrick’s Day celebrations nationwide to the 10 best packing tips — and hundreds more lists in between.
Some lists are grouped by geographical region of the United States, others by interest (Ski Spots, Art Museums, Amusement Parks, Asian Events). The focus is definitely on the U.S., but there is a small section listing great places for families to visit around the world.
The good thing is that all of the information is indexed in the back of the book. So I can flip to the “C” section and find out what the author recommends to see and do in my home state of Colorado. And I love the section on tips for recording family vacation memories, which includes suggestions for road-trip music playlists, arranged by genre.
Does this book cover a lot of ground? Absolutely. Will all of it apply to your family? No way. It really is a potpourri of information that absolutely whets my appetite for travel, but it also has a lot of extraneous information that I can’t see using in my lifetime of traveling with kids.
Would I buy this book for myself? Probably not. It retails for $21.95, and there is just too much in the book that doesn’t apply to me and my family’s travel plans (as much as I’d love to pack the kids in an RV and take off for three months to see our country, it’s not a reality right now). But I would recommend it as a gift for any family who’s embarking on a multi-state road trip this summer or who regularly travels to different regions of the United States.
