Your Guide to Family-Friendly Day Trips in New Jersey, New York…and Beyond
I had a visitor coming in town and was looking for things to do. KahKow, a New Jersey chocolate maker was advertising tours and truffle making classes. Bingo! I signed up that morning for an afternoon class. Hint: don’t sign up day of. More later.
Do yourself a favor and take a trip to Hyde Park, New York. Make a weekend of it. You can visit the Franklin Delano Roosevelt house and library, the Vanderbilt mansion, and the 170 acre Culinary Institute of America. The CIA is especially good to visit if you and your kids are foodies.
I bet you didn’t know this year is the 200th anniversary of Frederic Church’s birth. You probably haven’t even heard of him. Admittedly, I had not either, when I went to visit his home and property at Olana New York State Historic Site in Hudson, New York.
In September 2024, I went to the AriZonaLand grand opening and media tour of its new factory in Keasby, NJ. And then I waited for them to open for public tours. I waited. And waited. And finally in November 2025, they opened. So now I can publish my post on touring the AriZona Iced Tea factory with kids.
Since my tour was more than a year ago, it’s possible some things have changed. I plan to go back. But in the meantime, here’s what you’ll see at the AriZona Iced Tea factory with kids.
Continue reading “Tour the AriZona Iced Tea factory with kids”
Have you ever pet a capybara? I’m guessing you have not. We hadn’t either, until we visited the Ghost Ranch Exotics and Funny Foot Farm outside of Tucson. You get to pet more than capybaras – you can pet warthogs, bulls, emus, porcupines and even hold baby goats. This Tucson exotic petting zoo is a lot of fun.
Continue reading “Tucson Exotic Petting Zoo – With Kids”
Here’s something you don’t usually do on vacation in Phoenix – visit a worm farm in Arizona. But that’s what we did in December, and we loved it. These worms are grown for composting and fertilizer. The Arizona Worm Farm sells worms, castings and black soldier fly larvae direct-to-consumers (gardeners and farmers). This is a 10-acre urban farm (though the area itself does not feel urban).
Continue reading “Visit a Worm Farm in Arizona With Kids”
If you’ve been in the Atlantic City area, you probably have heard about or seen Lucy the Elephant. Touted as the top roadside attraction in America, Lucy has been around in various forms since 1881, in Margate – just south of Atlantic City.
If you’re in need of a vacation away from the kids, and don’t want to go far, go to New York City. Spend the weekend in New York without kids. It won’t be cheap, but if you live within train or bus distance, you save on plane fare. Here’s a sample itinerary for a weekend in New York without kids.
We’ve stayed at a number of hotels in New York City, from StayPineapple, to Hotel Elysee, to The Muse, to Hotel Giraffe, to Yotel. And that doesn’t include all the more corporate hotels I’ve stayed in for conferences, since I didn’t want to head home late at night. This time we stayed at the Archer Hotel in midtown. It was a few blocks from Bryant Park, a good place in the summer to go for outdoor drinks.
Continue reading “Weekend in New York Without Kids”We took a Scott’s Pizza Tour with kids in 2013 and loved it. We learned so much and we constantly refer to things we learned when taking that tour. We decided to take another Scott’s pizza tour with kids this summer, and we were glad to see Scott’s business survived the pandemic.
I write about supply chain management (logistics, operations, transportation etc.) so touring an Amazon fulfillment center (FC) seems like more than a fun thing to do – it seemed necessary for work! There are currently 23 warehouses/fulfillment centers in the U.S. that give tours, including 3 in New Jersey. You can take an Amazon tour with kids, but most tours are on the weekday, which can make it difficult unless you’re home schooling. Here’s what I learned on my Amazon tour.
By the way, you can’t take photos inside the warehouse, so these photos are screenshots from a virtual tour last week, run by Amazon for FIRST Robotics – an international STEM robotics program I’m involved with. You can watch the virtual Amazon tour here which was meant as an Amazon tour with kids, or at least for kids.
Continue reading “Amazon Tour with Kids”