Traveling with Your ChildrenDorothy Jordan's Adventure and Nature Guidesby Martha Hollis"There are no limits to the mind-broadening effects nature trips will have on your children—and you" states Dorothy Jordan in Great Nature Vacations with Your Kids
The obvious venues of national parks are omitted recognizing their significant coverage elsewhere. And she is generously aware of other authors writing on these and related subjects giving brief insight into their works, which serve as an invaluable learning guide before you go. Involving everyone from the start is one of the keys to a successful trip. The suggestions for reading before the vacation by the family are important tools for recognizing sites, people, animals and places upon arrival. Globe and map prestudy can reveal insight into climatic and time zones. Enroute map-readers know “we are not there yet.” Making journals, words and pictures, are highly recommended and are one of the most lasting souvenirs. Listings of organizations arranging trips are extensive. In the educational category are exciting options from Canyonlands Field Institute and Discovery Tours of the American Museum of Natural History. Who could pass up the dino dig from the Dinamation International Society in Colorado or a dolphin encounter with the Underwater Explorers Society? Tour operators with options such as Abercrombie and Kent's 15-day Kenya Family Safari or the 21-day trip on the ship Explorer to Antarctica, the Falklands and South Georgia Islands? Not so elaborate an adventure, but equally exciting, might be American Wilderness Experience's Pecos Wilderness Llama Trekking or the Backside of Hawaii. Ten destinations come fully described with kid-friendly daily adventures. Phoenix is a prime spot for dressing in protected clothes and heading out into the desert to meet the cactus and hike in the world's largest municipal park, South Mountain Park. Jeep tours of the desert, gold mines, ghost towns, trail rides or hummer rides are all good nature and fun trips. The Wisconsin Dells area features canoe trips ballooning, hellicoptering, rides on WWII amphibious crafts or Ducks, fishing at trout farms, nature trails, tours of the International Crane Foundation and Wonder Spot where things defy gravity and roll uphill. An entire chapter highlights particular resorts featuring tons of nature activities such as the Maya Mountain Lodge & Educational Field Institute in Belize; Chenay Bay Beach Resort, St. Croix; Keystone Resort, Colorado; Wintergreen Resort, Virginia; and over a dozen Hyatt Resorts with special Family Camps. The choices are excitingly diverse and the Appendix helps one choose for families with children by particular ages, multigenerational, intergenerational and with single parents. Jordan advises that Great Adventure Vacations "focuses on the active aspects of outdoor vacations, rather than the glorious scenes and sights you are apt to discover in your journey”—which is the concentration of Great Nature Vacations. Her second book is much more detailed the organization improved and the style as delightful as in the previous volume. Seriously lacking for Internet fans are any addresses for tour operators, travel companies, resorts, recreation areas and campgrounds on the web. There is no end to the adventures: river rafting, kayaking, rock and ice climbing, trekking the Himalayas, fly fishing, snowmobiling, dog sledding, skiing the backcountry, RVing, hiking, biking. More importantly, there is no end to families enjoying both nature and adventures together. Great Adventure Vacations was awarded the "Best Travel Book of the Year" by the North American Travel Journalist Association. Want to Find Out More?
Family Travel Times, is a family newsletter published by Jordan since 1984 through the organization she founded, Travel With Your Children, 40 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10011, 212 477-5524.
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After more than 28 years researching and living through travel with her own children and others, Dorothy Jordan is a travel writer and founder and director of a children’s travel organization with insight. She knows the special joys of a family's experiencing the outdoors together as well as the importance of not trying to do too much. With two books in World Leisure Corporation's With Your Kids series, Jordan latest titles are 
The World Leisure Corporation, publishes both of these books as well as the excellent reference book by Charles Leocha