Tuesday Travel Tips: Ways to Save Time, Money and Your Sanity on your Way to "are we there yet"!

No. You didn't miss last Tuesdays Travel Tip. I had to take a little detour and got a bit behind, but here we go, back on track. In this week's travel tips I would like to share some ideas on ways to save your time, money, and sanity on your way to the"are we there yets" you and your family want to visit over the summer. Whether you are doing a staycation, traveling abroad, doing a cross country road trip, or visiting family in a nearby state. Many of these ideas will not only save you tons on your way to your destination, but will also work in saving you money while you are there!

During the course of the next few weeks I will be breaking down some of the Tuesday Travel Tips into smaller bites. A few of the posts I will be doing are a step by step tutorial for the Family Vacation Travel Binder, giving you some great ideas, a few how-to's and lots of links for savings and coupons for your Travel Binder. I will be demonstrating some packing methods which have worked for me when traveling with a large family, packing my favourite Duffel and overnight bags, as examples. For packing basics, please visit here.

I will also be sharing ideas, helpful how-to and keep'em busy links, important numbers, coupons, and maybe even some freebies for helping you pack a healthy and helpful Mom's Bag and a Family Friendly First Aid Kit.

Here are a few spectacularly helpful sites to assist you in planning your family vacation,

I was looking through my tweets last night and came across a message from PicPocketBooks for MomswithApps. MomswithApps share so many great ideas to make your summer travel easier with a simple touch of a button! One of them is MomMaps. I went to their blog and they did an AMAZING post on Summer Travel.

I "met" the owner of PicPocketBooks on CafeMom one day. In fact she was kind enough to let me have a downloadable book to have and do a review on (look for that coming up very soon!) PicPocketBooks has bunches of books for the kiddies to enjoy during the road trip. These also come in very handy while you are waiting in a line anywhere! The Line at Its a Small World at Disney miles long? Never fear! PicPocketBooks is here!

Mom Maps finds playgrounds, parks, restaurants, museums, indoor play areas, and more. Mom Maps supports over 18,000 family fun parks and activities in over 18 metro areas through out the U.S. They are not in Charlotte [yet - they are adding places daily], here is their current city listing:

West Coast:
San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Orange County,
San Diego, Seattle, Portland, Hawaii

Mid West:
Albuquerque, Salt Lake City, Boise, Cincinnati,
Chicago, St. Louis, Milwaukee

East Coast:
Philadelphia, New York City

South:
Dallas, New Orleans, Raleigh, Jacksonville, Charlotte

To help you make the most of your vacation, no matter where your family adventure is taking you, they created a family travel forum where you can find advise on travel destinations as well as some travel deals. Visit their site to find out more. You can download their app for free onto your iPhone :-)


Pit Stops for Kids has an amazing listing of kid friendly attractions along most major highways. They have real parent reviews on all the road-side attractions, restaurants, motels, parks, and airport play spaces you’ll need along the way during your family vacation.

Travel Mamas. WOW! This site is packed full of packing ideas, travel tips, blog and trip reports, trip planning, and so so much more.

For some great ideas on toys to take a long,
visit Kids Travel Happy!

Smarter Travel is a fantastic resource to assist in your plans as well. Their recent post on Got Bedbugs might give you the heebee jeebies, but it is an important and helpful one to read. They also did a post on the World's Worst Tourist Traps which could save you a bundle of money and aggravation, AND if you decide to go ahead and take that Gondola ride in Venice at least you will know how much to budget out for it. They also have loads of travel guides and such to help you out too!

If you are going to be stopping in a city or two on the way to your vacation spot, check out City Pass. They offer savings up to 50% off on entrance fees for zoos, museums, botanical gardens, and other tourist attractions. These are also a REALLY GOOD thing to buy when you have company coming in for a visit and you know you will be doing the tour guide thing ;-). You can read my post on the Atlanta City Pass for more details. City Pass is in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Hollywood, Houston, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, Southern California, and Toronto. If you are traveling abroad you can also find similar deals. Visit here for information on the Paris Pass.

The City Mommy Network has over 15 Mommy's blogging about the best deals, events, freebies, and more for their city. Visit My City Mommy to find the cities you can currently find our mommies as well as a huge array of the best family friendly deals in town!

TravelingMom has a fantastic link to help save you money while traveling called Free in 50 States. You just click on the states you will be traveling to and you will find some great freebies for different cities. Click here to see map.

Another way to save is to use Kids Meal Deals. There is a widget on the right sidebar of My NCTriangle Mommy or you can use your iPhone, or Blackberry applications to find kids meal deals wherever you and your family travel.

Please feel free to share any ideas and tips. Thanks for stopping by. Happy Travels!

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