TripLearning

We quickly decided that when travelling with children we do not like to stay in hotel rooms. Our main reason is that our children don't want to miss out on anything and if we want them to go to sleep then we have to shut off all the lights and go to sleep too or hide out in the bathroom. That is not a vacation to us. So, a few years ago I found the website that has solved our problem. Are you ready? It's www.vrbo.com and it stands for Vacation Rentals By Owner. Now we are able to stay in a condo or a house for about the cost of a hotel room (depending on the location and season). Examples: We rented a 3 bedroom, 2 bath corner condo unit for a week on the beach in Alabama for about $115 a night in March. We rented a 3 bedroom, 1 bath duplex unit for $80 a night for 2 nights in New Orleans at the end of February. We rented a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home for a week in the mountains of VA outside Winchester for less

Instead of a romantic getaway for our 10 year anniversary, we took a couple days to get away as a family. We have been to the Lancaster, PA area several times in the 5 years we have lived in Maryland. It is about 3 1/2 hours away. On this summer trip we decided to go to Dutch Wonderland (only open during the week in the summer & some weekends in May, September & October) and the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. On Wednesday we went to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania . They had family days in August, so kids were free. Normally the prices are $8 for adults, $6 for children 6-17 and FREE for kids under 6. So we saved $6 on the admission of our 7 year old. The railroad museum is a large building with many trains and displays. They have a great kids area with hands-on activities and displays. We had about 2 hours until closing, so we spent most of our time walking up and down the aisles between all the full-size train engines and cars. The kids enjoyed being able t