Categories
Florida

Our Top 10, Kid-Friendly Adventures in Florida

Heading to Florida on a vacation? Check out this Top 10 list of kid-friendly activities! From snorkeling on the Dry Tortugas, to swimming with Manatees at Crystal Springs, or drinking Butter Beer at Harry Potter World we have the ultimate list!

Even though we’ve traveled full-time for over 2 years, there are only a few states we feel that we have thoroughly explored. Having spent almost fourteen weeks in Florida this past winter, we feel that we can officially check Florida off the list! There are few spots we missed (Shark Valley in the Everglades for one) but overall we covered the state fairly well.

We sat down with the kids and while reminiscing about our favorite adventures we put together our top 10 list of kid friendly adventures for the Sunshine State!

Travel Dates: Dec 3, 2015 – Jan 24, 2016 & Mar 8-13, 2016

Ages of Kids: 10, 8, 5

1. Camping on the Dry Tortugas. Definitely number one. Its expensive to get there, but cheap to camp so definitely stay at least two nights. Snorkeling, a historic fort, plenty of wildlife and beautiful beaches and crystal clear water made the trip a magical vacation.

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2. Bahia Honda State Park in the Florida Keys – We spent Christmas here and it was perfect. One of the most popular spots in the Keys, the beach was usually crowded, but not overly so. We ate ice cream, swam, rented a paddle board, explored the bridge, and generally relaxed and enjoyed ourselves.

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3. Canoeing in the Everglades. If you do one thing in the Everglades, we’d recommend canoeing. The “Everglades” are sunny, open areas of water that look almost like meadows. Very enchanting. The fore-mentioned bike or tram ride at Shark Valley is also a good option.

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4. Mountain Biking. With a maximum elevation of about 300 feet, Florida has some impressive biking trails. We loved Markham Park down by Fort Lauderdale as well as Santos in Ocala, FL.

Mountain Biking at Markham Park

5. Swimming & Kayaking with the Manatees. We day tripped down to Crystal River from Ocala to meet up with @Drivingdownadream and swim with some Manatees. It was definitely worth renting our own kayaks rather than going with a tourist group. Much more freedom that way. Read the details here on The Outbound.

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6. Space Coast & Rocket Launch.  Sam motivated this adventure is he loves space, and rockets, and physics and stuff. I loved letting him take the reigns and decided what we did. Our two top activities were watching a rocket launch and visiting the Kennedy Space Center.

Kennedy Space Center_267. Butterbeer at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Fudge, Ice cream, hot, cold and frozen. Visiting Harry Potter Land in Orlando was definitely a highlight for us, as the older kids have read books 1-4, and all three have watched the associated movies. It was enough for them to really enjoy the experience and to be excited about all of the details we found at the park!

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8. Hiking Through a Cypress Swamp. Nothing screams Florida like a good Cypress swamp. This is honestly what I thought the Everglades would look like, but I was completely wrong. Our favorite spot was Highland Hammocks State Park. There’s a fabulous trail called the Ancient Hammock Trail that winds through the trees. We also loved the tram tour (and its cheap!) and saw a great variety of birds and some alligators. Definitely isn’t Florida without the alligators.

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9. Airboat Ride with Spirit of the Swamp. Just outside of Orlando, Florida this Airboat ride was an easy day trip during our stay there. Although the weather was overcast and slightly cold we actually saw more alligators because they were out sunning themselves in an attempt to stay warm.

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10. Boogie Boarding on the Emerald Coast. The stretch of the Gulf of Mexico coast between Pensacola & Panama City is beautiful. Crystal clear, turquoise water, and white sand beaches were prime for boogie boarding. The weather was great in early December (slightly too cold for me) but when we went back through at the end of February we got a lot of rain. Boo. Better to go in November or wait until April when it warms up a bit.

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While definitely not an exhaustive list, this definitely highlights the many different habitats and environments Florida has to offer! Even though I was frustrated and grumpy at first with all the people and the humidity, Florida grew on me and I really enjoyed our time there. After 14 weeks, however, it was definitely time to move on!

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Florida in the rearview!

Other fun, kid-friendly adventures in Florida blogged by other traveling families:

Currently Wandering:
Disney World Animal Kingdom
DeSoto National Monument
Dolphin Encounter at Marineland, Florida
Cruise to the Bahamas out of Jacksonville, Florida
Fort Pickens – Gulf Island National Seashore
Florida Aquarium in Downtown Tampa
Jacksonville Zoo

TakeThatExit.com
O’Leno State Park and the Florida Museum of Natural History
Myakka River State Park, Airboat lake cruise, Tree Canopy Walk
Dolphins Plus! in Key Largo Florida
Curry Hammock State Park, Florida Keys

Bareneckers.com
Lloyd’s Tropical Bike Tour in Key West
John Pennekamp State Park
Manatee Springs State Park
Gulf World Marine Park

CrazyFamilyAdventure:
Palm Beach Zoo
7 Things to Do in Miami With Kids
Best Places to See Turtles in the Florida Keys
13 Things to do with kids in Key West
14 Reasons to Make St. Augustine Your Next Family Trip
Orange Picking at Showcase of Citrus near Orlando
Clearwater Marine Aquarium
Legoland!

Categories
Airstream Accessories

Gear Review: The Luminoodle by Power Practical And Their New Kickstarter Campaign

DSCF4783-EditA life with few possessions requires everything to have multiple purposes. That collapsible salad spinner? Also a bowl. And a colander. Single purpose things don’t serve us well, and are quickly dropped from our collection of gear.

We have two main types of lights for our adventures. Small area lights solve one person lighting problems, such as a bathroom run while backpacking or reading at night in the hammock. Such duties fall to small headlamps and our smartphones.

Our second light is a larger area light, useful for lighting a picnic table for dinner or games. This is a harder nut to crack. We have a few photography LED light panels that are plenty bright, but cast a bright light that isn’t very pleasant. We often attach those to a nearby tree or post with a GorillaPod. We have a smaller LED light that serves as a lantern, but the light doesn’t cover a very large area. We are stuck with a bright, harsh light or a more pleasant dim one, and neither is usually what we want.

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We were recently sent a Luminoodle for review, and I think this might be the answer for our needs. The Luminoodle is an LED light strip powered by USB. It launched via Kickstarter in 2015, and is currently for sale. My favorite things about this as a lightsource:

  1. Powered by USB. Luminoodle sells battery packs, but the power connector is a standard USB connector, just like your cellphone charging cable. This means it can be plugged into any existing battery pack or AC adapter that you likely already have. I much prefer this to a special battery pack that only works with this one product.
  2. Shapeable light. You can circle a game, run this down the center of a table, or hang it from above. The ability to ‘shape’ the light is amazing compared to the other options we’ve used.
  3. Durable AND packable. The luminoodle is flexible, which allows easy packing inside a small stuff sack. The sack itself doubles as a lantern for those times when you want a brighter light over a smaller area. The soft durable cover protects all the light components inside from scuffs and spills alike. (It is waterproof!)

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A few things I’d love to change:

  1. Longer. Our review unit is 5 feet long. They sell a 10 foot version, and I think this would be even more useful. 5 is just a little short for many of the things we would love to use it for.
  2. Dimmer. The light is quite bright, but every once in awhile I could use a little less. A dimmer would allow the right light level and save battery as a pleasant side effect.
  3. Easier Hanging. The rubber zip tie things included were not super easy to work with, and I think there is probably something better.

The Luminoodle is available, Prime shippable from Amazon. $20 for the 5 foot, and $30 for the 10 foot version, with battery packs also available.

Round 2

As it turns out, I’m not the only one with ideas for improvement. PowerPractical has a brand new COLOR version on Kickstarter, ending Friday, April 22nd. The new version comes in 5 foot and 20 foot lengths, and includes a dimmer, a remote(!) and 3 different white modes for different color temperatures. A new magnetic mounting option looks pretty darn nice. If you are lucky enough to catch it before it funds, great! If not, the new version will be available later this year.

I’m looking forward to testing the Basecamp versions as I think it would work well for our Airstream!

Categories
Mommy Diaries

We Need to Seriously Slow Down

DSCF4585-EditI’m a true believer in needing opposition in all things. Its hard to experience joy when you don’t know sadness. Beauty is all the same unless you’ve also seen something ugly. Travel and living adventure is fabulous, but only if you also have downtime.

We had a great time in Florida this winter, and I felt our pace was unhurried. We spent 14 weeks just bopping around the state from place to place and experiencing the different environments and ecosystems the state had to offer.

Then we headed west, and things started picking up. We ran into friends along the Emerald Coast, in New Orleans, and had a few meet-ups in both San Antonio and Austin. Combine friends with big cities, lots of tourist attractions, and plenty of outdoor activities and suddenly we started running ourselves ragged.

Its been a real struggle for me. More than just our most recent schedule, however, I’ve had an underlying feeling of needed a bit more community, and honestly less route planning would go a long way in reducing my stress levels. A frantic schedule on top of those feelings led to me being a bit of a mess the last few weeks. I apologize if you’ve seen me and I’ve been ragged, tired, and a bit short with my attention span.

We’ve been holed up in Hot Springs, AR for almost a week. In a campground where most people only spend a night, we’ve been here six and its been fantastic. Drizzly, overcast weather has helped keep us indoors to just get things done. We’ve been cranking on school, work, blog organization, and I’ve even read a few books.

While its a temporary fix, slowing down and spending a week in places where we normally would only spend 3-4 days will hopefully help us bridge the gap until we execute Phase 2 of the Currently Wandering plan. While we aren’t exactly sure what that phase will look like, we have goals and and ideals we’d love to incorporate into our family life that are difficult to do full time on the road.  So, maybe we’ll graduate to a more hybrid approach. Whatever we end up doing, this year is bound to be exciting!

Categories
Fitness & Recipes

Airstream Kitchen: Italian Meatball Wedding Soup

Its a rainy day here in Arkansas, which is a perfect day for soup! This is one of our recent favorites, although I apparently don’t make it enough. Each time I was asked what’s for dinner, and responded with, “Italian Wedding Soup”, I received an “Ooooh! Yum!  I LOVE that!” comment. Cara is our pickiest eater (at 5.5 years old) and she’ll gobble down the meatballs and turn her nose up at the spinach. That doesn’t fly around here and I make her eat it anyway. So mean.

I usually make the meatballs one day and we’ll eat half of them over zucchini noodles (or zoodles),  and then freeze the other half of them to make this soup later in the week. The ingredients for both meals are very similar, but they are totally different meals. Works great when you have very little fridge space.

I serve the soup with our Cast Iron Skillet Vegan Cornbread or a salad. Depends on my mood and how many other veggies we’ve had that day.

Italian Wedding Soup

Serves 6, 2 cups each

Ingredients

1 tsp olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic
6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 cups spinach (or greens, but we usually just have spinach on hand)
20 Italian Meatballs (or however many you have left over after eating pasta – see recipe HERE)
2 large eggs
2 Tbsp grated parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp ground black papper
2 tsp lemon juice (or fresh lemon cut into wedges – which we never have)

Directions:

  1. Heat oil in large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and cook for 4-6 minutes or until translucent.
  2. Add garlic, stirring frequently for 1 minute.
  3. Add broth and bring to a boil.
  4. Add greens. Reduce heat to low and boil uncovered, gently for 10 minutes.
  5. Add meatballs, cook for another 5 minutes stirring occasionally.
  6. Combine egg and cheese in a small bowl and whisk to combine.
  7. Slowly pour egg mixture into hot soup, stirring constantly. Boil, uncovered until eggs are just set (takes about 30 seconds).
  8. Add lemon juice, and season with salt and pepper. Serve immediately!

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Categories
Florida

Visiting Universal Orlando’s The Wizarding World of Harry Potter

Our Christmas presents this last year to the kids were tickets to Universal Studio’s Harry Potter World and coupons for Butter Beer. They couldn’t have been more excited to open them on Christmas morning as we had talked about this for months beforehand. Unfortunately, for them, we wouldn’t be going until the end of January so they still had some more waiting to do!

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We were joined on this adventure by my younger sister who flew out from Utah for the week to hang with us in Orlando (see: We Have a Visitor in the Airstream). It was great having her along as she is a huge fan of all things Harry Potter.

When We Visited: January 25, 2016

Ages of Kids: 10, 8, 5

Where We Stayed: Bill Frederick Park at Turkey Lake

We did a bit of research to decide what exactly we wanted to see in the park. Our friends over at TakeThatExit.com gifted us the Unofficial Guide to Universal Orlando and while I was skeptical at fist, it actually proved fairly helpful!

The book has a description of each ride and how scary it is, plus touring plans for the parks. They even have a 1 day, park hopper touring plan we used for our visit. We tweaked the plan a bit to fit in Seuss Landing and a stunt show, but otherwise we followed the outlined plan and everything went great!

Harry Potter Land (or The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, as an employee nicely corrected us) is split between the two parks: Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure.  If you want to visit both parks (and you really do) you have to get a park hopper pass. We found this was totally worth it as we spent most of our time exploring just the Harry Potter themed areas, as the rest of both parks were either too intense for the ages of our kids or did not interest us.

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Start with Diagon Alley

We started our day at Universal Studios in Diagon Alley. They’ve recreated the brick wall which is the entryway from the Muggle world to the magical Wizarding world. I couldn’t believe the excitement on my kids’ faces as they stepped through! We explored the shops, visited Ollivander’s and the Wand Ceremony, and rode the Escape from Gringotts which had a super short line early in the morning. Cara rode it once and then promptly decided she never wanted to ride it again. Definitely a little too intense for our 5 year old, but the older two thought it was great!

There are also two different puppetry performances from of  tales of Beedle the Bard and we were able to watch “The Fountain of Fair Fortune” while munching on our snacks from the sweet shop.

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Speaking of sweets, one of our kids’ main reasons for visiting the park was to try Butterbeer. Not only do they sell straight up Butterbeer, but also sell it frozen, hot, as ice cream and also as fudge. Definitely need to try them all! Butterbeer is sold in both sides of the park, so don’t stress if you only make it to one. I really wanted to try a pumpkin pastie, but by the time I made my decision late in the day they were all sold out. Lesson learned – don’t wait to buy your snacks!

The kids received money for Christmas from Grandma & Grandpa to spend while at the park and they had a great time deciding which treats to buy. Both Rachel and Cara bought a Chocolate Frog, and Andrew was adventurous enough to buy Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans. There were a few he threw away, but he dared Cara to try a dirt flavored bean. That didn’t end so well! We also tried Fizzing Whizbangs, salt water taffy, and Exploding Bon Bons, but I think the Butterbeer Fudge was definitely my favorite treat.

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Visit London & King’s Cross Station

After exploring Diagon Alley, we headed back to “London” and visited Stan and the Knightbus. Stan was pretty entertaining and we got a good look at a possibly Airstream upgrade. Just kidding.

Next, we entered Kings Cross Station and found our way to platform 9 and 3/4, where we boarded the Hogwarts Express to Hogsmeade Station, which is over in Islands of Adventure. This 5 minute ride saves a 20 minute walk, but was an unexpectedly awesome ‘ride’ all by itself! While sitting on comfy seats, you experience beautiful scenes out the magical window, and witness the shadows of shenanigans just outside your compartment. The return ride was different still, and made it an all around wonderful experience. 

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Explore Hogsmeade

Once off the train in Hogsmeade, we wandered through the shops on our way to Hogwarts and Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. We knew this ride would be too intense for Cara, so we took advantage of the child swap program. The line snakes its way through the castle (the dungeons, outside in the Herbology lab, past Dumbledore’s office, etc.) which Cara really enjoyed and then we hung out in a small room near the ride loading area where they were playing Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on a video screen. Fairly fitting I thought.

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Also in Hogsmeade is a fairly tame roller coaster themed after Hagrid’s Hippogriff (Cara loved this one), The Dragon Challenge (a set of “dueling” dragon roller coasters themed after the Tri-Wizard Tournament), performances by the Frog Choir and students from both Durmstrang and Beauxbatons. We ate lunch at the Three Broomsticks, which was pretty good, and the bathroom haunted by Moaning Murtle was also a really fun surprise!
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Seuss Land for Little Kids

Many of the rides we enjoyed were really too wild for little Cara. She was an incredible sport as we used the child-swap system of those rides. During the afternoon, we took a break from Hogsmeade and headed over to Seuss Landing for something more her speed. She loved every minute, and her joy was rewarding for all of us.

We also watched the Eight Voyage of Sinbad Stunt Show since we were in the area at the right time. Lots of flames, sword fights, and plenty of ridiculous banter to keep us entertained.

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While not quite to Disney levels, Universal has done a great job with the details of the magical Wizarding World. We loved catching a glimpse of Hagrid’s “Monster Book of Monsters”, and even found ourselves a Howler.

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With her money, Cara decided to solve all our mail problems with the purchase of an owl she’s dubbed “Hedwig” (never mind that Hedwig is white – we don’t pay that much attention to detail).

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We had a fabulous time! We did take the train back over to Diagon Alley to finish up with one more ride on Gringott’s and some Butterbeer ice cream. We thought we’d stay for the fireworks in the main area of the park, but they were such a disappointment (and frankly rather boring) that we left early.

Overall, the kids (and adults) were super happy, and we were impressed that we were able to cover both sections of the park in one day!

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