More than 60 years after Jackie Kennedy first visited this small island in the Cyclades and thrust it into the limelight, the pull of glittering Mykonos is still strong. During summer, the jet and yacht set cruise in alongside throngs of travelers eager to party, snap Instagram photos, and see and be seen. And with the island's sprawling and sandy beaches (a rare find in the rocky Cyclades) it’s not hard to see why. But the island has a long-beloved, quieter side than the beach party scene would lead you to believe.
I took my teenage niece and nephew to Paris for the first time. Here are 6 things I wish I knew before our trip.
26.07.2023 - 09:47 / insider.com
I'm a pretty goal-oriented traveler. I fill my days with as much sightseeing as I can handle. Forget the hotel pool. I'm checking off national landmarks and natural wonders from a carefully researched list.
This approach serves me well as a travel writer. Over the past 15 years, I've gone swimming with manatees, climbed a Roman aqueduct, and ziplined over canyons. But one thing I've never done? Travel with kids.
This year, my husband and I decided to take the kids on our trip to Paris. Not our kids, mind — my sister's. Things didn't go as planned, but I learned a lot along the way. Here's what I wish someone had told me before we did it.
Before our flight, I had a four-page Google Doc detailing every stop down to the hour. There were directions, ideas for where to eat, notes about opening times, and prices. It was a thing of beauty. We did about half of it.
There was a lot of change, not always because of the kids. Versailles was closed due to a strike, so we wandered the 300 years older though arguably less cool Château de Vincennes. And when the kids were exhausted with our 12,000 steps and six to eight monuments a day routine, I scaled things back and built-in midday breaks. It turns out, the slower place let us savor Paris as we never had before. Flexibility can be freeing.
Booking hotels is usually easy for us. One king, please. Not so with two teens needing separate rooms. I scoured the internet for budget-friendly solutions until I discovered apart-hotels.
It's just what it sounds like half apartment, half hotel. We had a front desk, continental breakfast, and other hotel amenities, plus a full kitchen and on-site washer and dryer for that last-minute laundry run. But most importantly, there was plenty of room for some much-needed alone time at the end of a long day.
I generally prefer exploring on my own, but our tour of the Eiffel Tower was one of the best things we did. The guide knew all about the tower, entertained us in line, and kept everyone moving along so my husband and I could take a back seat and just follow the group. Elsewhere, I was the de facto guide, the presumed expert on everything from 19th-century carnivals to cheese production in medieval France.
While I typically fill my phone with landscapes of architecture and nature, my 13-year-old niece was all about selfies. We spent over an hour in the courtyard of the Petit Palais, snapping pics of each other by the cherry blossoms. We stopped for action shots of cartwheels under Jeff Koons' 41-foot Bouquet of Tulips — they did the cartwheels; we did the photos. My niece even showed us how to take shadow selfies. And thanks to her encouragement, we have some of the best souvenirs from our trip.
This tip came from my sister
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