Molly

Formerly the education and family reporter and currently food editor for the Bay Area’s San Jose Mercury News, Contra Costa Times, and Oakland Tribune, Jackie Burrell is no stranger to putting her family experience into words. She’s also writing online for the Bay Area News Group’s parenting blog, aPARENTly Speaking, and About.com’s Young Adults section.

We caught up with Burrell to ask her about planning family vacations — what to do, what not to do, and how to avoid disaster.

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Life360: You have four children and have gone on numerous family vacations to fun places in the U.S. and abroad. How do you plan ahead for family trips? How do you decide where to go?
 
We start planning six months to a year ahead and do a lot of research on the internet to find really memorable experiences, whether it’s luge rides in Austria (highly recommended) or a dinosaur dig in Montana (ditto). As the kids have grown, we’ve given them a lot of say in what we do and where.
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