I Don't Think I Would Take My Kids To New York City

A year or two ago, a friend of mine was asking for travel advice since she was taking her infant to New York City for a few days. And I am afraid that my reaction scared her. I was shocked that someone would take their kids there and I might have even said that I wasn't ready to take my kids. I did give her some advice and tried to encourage her and was silently a little skeptical that she would still have a good time. Well, since then I have eaten my words and even had a change of heart about the whole thing.

Would you take your kids to NYC? What planning would it take? How would you need to be prepared? My 3 kiddos were 3 and under when we headed off to the Big Apple and we made it just fine. Were we prepared? yes. Did we know where we were going? yes. Did we know what we were going to do? yes. Did my kids know and understand certain rules? yes. We were only in New York City for a day but we had plans and kept those strollers moving. And our rules, you ask? Well, they are 1) listen 2) obey and 3) stay in the stroller. Oh, we did let them get out and run around every once in awhile-but definitely not in Times Square!

Even though my kids are small, we had read stories about NY and they were able to recognize the Empire State building and the Statue of Liberty. Since they knew what they were seeing, they were much more interested in it. They were also excited about seeing taxi cabs and riding on the subway-the little things in life are what make great vacations. We didn't even need to ride the subway since we were just on it for one stop, but in my son's eyes our trip would not have been complete without that ride. They are still talking about it.

So, moral of the story is hop on that plane and visit some big city. Yep, it is hard work but it is worth it. Your kids will always remember it. Heck, my kids are still wondering how the taxi cabs we see in our city came all of the way from New York City!