The road into Monument Valley on one of our first big drives · photo: Nicole Damiano
North America Family Travel Guide
“We are from Kansas. We drove most of this continent before we ever got on a plane to anywhere else.”
This is the continent I know from the inside, because we are from it. Kansas. We sold that house in 2026 and left, but before we did we drove an enormous amount of this country. In 2017 we took the kids out for forty five days. Kansas to San Diego and back through Memphis and Nashville, in a van, with three children under six. It was the trip that made me believe we could actually do the big one.
Before the kids, Adam and I did the Southwest properly. The Grand Canyon in snow, Monument Valley, Sedona, Carlsbad Caverns, Taos. Tents and cheap motels and a lot of driving. Those photos are still my favorite ones we have.
And then Mexico. We spent three months living in Merida, not on a trip, actually living there. Rented a house in Centro, hired a tutor for the kids, learned which tortilleria was the good one. It is the place we keep talking about building something permanent.
Utah, USAWhy North America With Kids
Poppy marks the family parts. Wherever you see her, that section is written for traveling with children.If you are looking for family vacation ideas in North America, this is the continent where the trip starts the moment you close the front door. No passports for most of it, no jet lag, no currency, no language barrier, and a car full of your own things. That is worth more with young children than almost anything a plane ticket buys you.
If you are coming from outside, it is a different calculation. North America is not a country. It is three enormous ones plus everything in the Caribbean, and the mistake visitors make is treating it like a European itinerary. You cannot do New York, the Grand Canyon and Los Angeles in ten days without spending five of them in transit.
Nicole Damiano, ASTA Verified Travel Advisor with FG Luxury Travel
How long does it actually take to drive across this continent?
Longer than the map suggests. Kansas to San Diego is about twenty four hours of driving, which is three days once you have kids and are stopping every couple hours. Texas alone is roughly the size of France. Budget the extra days before you book, not after.
Universal or Disney?
Universal skews older, roughly seven and up. This is the single thing I sell more of than anything else on this continent, seventy five families and counting, because getting the ticket type, park order and hotel tier wrong costs you a real day and several hundred dollars.
Is the national park annual pass worth it?
Yes, almost every time. It pays for itself in about three parks and covers everyone in the vehicle. If you are doing the Southwest loop, Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Sedona and Arches, you will be through five or six parks easily.
Should we rent a car?
Yes, almost everywhere. Outside New York, Chicago, Toronto, Montreal and Mexico City, public transport will not get your family where you are going. Bring your own car seats if you can. Rental ones run about fifteen dollars a day and are often filthy.
Do we really need to tip?
Yes, in the United States it is not optional. Eighteen to twenty percent in restaurants, a few dollars for housekeeping, something for the shuttle driver. Budget an extra fifteen percent on every meal, and remember sales tax gets added at the till, not shown on the shelf price.
When is the best time to go?
Depends which corner you want. Spring, March to May, is best for the Southwest, Florida and Mexico, warm without being punishing and before full summer crowds. Avoid the week around Easter and American spring break, when Orlando doubles in price and line length.
The Car Is the Trip
You can bring the stroller, the cooler, the pillow, the ridiculous stuffed animal. You stop when somebody needs to stop. Forty five days on the road with three kids under six worked because we were never negotiating with an airline.
The Landscape Does the Heavy Lifting
Canyons, caverns, deserts, redwoods, glaciers. My kids remember standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon in snow far more clearly than they remember any museum. It is free or nearly free and it is the best of what is here.
Nothing Beats Orlando at What It Does
People roll their eyes at theme parks. I book more Orlando and Universal trips than anything else on this continent, seventy five families and counting, and they come back happy. When it is done properly it is one of the great family trips.
Who should think twice. If you are flying in from Europe or Asia with small children for a week, do not try to do the whole thing. Pick one region and stay in it. And if your family hates driving, be honest about that before you plan a road trip, because outside of a handful of cities there is no other way to move.
The Distances Are the Whole Problem
This is the correction I make most often, and it matters more than anything else on this page. A continent this size is not a long weekend trip unless you already live here. People look at a map, see two places that appear close together, and lose three days of their trip to a highway.
Kansas to San Diego is about twenty four hours of driving. Not a day. Three days if you have children, because you are stopping every two hours and nobody is doing eight hour legs willingly. We budgeted three and we needed three.
Texas is bigger than France. So is California, roughly. Crossing one state is not a travel day, it is a travel week in European terms. Look at the drive time, not the map.
Pick one region per trip. The Southwest. Southern California. Florida. New England. The Canadian Rockies. One of those is a good two week trip. Two of them is a bad one.
Flying internally is normal and often cheap. If you want two regions, fly between them and rent a car at each end. Do not drive it just because it looks drivable. This is where an open jaw booking saves you an entire day.
Day something of forty five. The car was the hotel, the kitchen and the argument venue for most of that spring.
Orlando and the Parks. My Specialty.
This is the biggest single thing in my business and I am not going to be coy about it. Universal and Orlando is what I sell more of than anything else on this continent. Seventy five families and counting.
The reason people hire someone for Orlando is not the hotel booking. It is that the parks have become a logistics problem with about forty moving parts, and getting three of them wrong costs you a day of your trip and several hundred dollars. Ticket type, park order, hotel tier, which mornings you go early, when you eat. That is the job.
Universal vs Disney
Universal skews older, roughly seven and up, and it is more intense. Disney holds younger children better. Families with a big age gap usually need both, and that is the split I spend the most time working out.
Where You Sleep Changes Everything
On-site hotels get you into the parks before everyone else, and at some Universal hotels the skip the line access is included rather than bought. That perk alone can be worth more than the room price difference. This is the calculation people get wrong most.
Build in a Rest Day
Four park days in a row breaks children and it breaks adults. Three on, one off, three on. The off day is a pool day. Every family that ignores this messages me from day five.
Budget
Orlando is not a cheap trip and anyone telling you otherwise is selling something. Tickets, the skip the line layer, food and the hotel add up fast. Know the real number before you book so you are not making cuts on day three.
One more thing. Orlando is not the only park city. Southern California has its own version and it pairs with beaches, and Legoland in Carlsbad was one of the better days of our 2017 trip because it is sized for younger kids in a way the big parks are not.
Legoland, California, day six of forty five. Smaller park, shorter lines, exactly the right size for the ages they were.
Road Trips and National Parks
This is the part of the continent I love most and it is the cheapest thing on it. The national parks are amazing, an annual pass covers a carload for a year, and children are free. If you want one of the best family trips North America has to offer, it is a car, a park pass and three weeks.
Buy the annual park pass. It pays for itself in about three parks and it covers everyone in the vehicle. If you are doing the Southwest loop you will be through five or six of them.
The Southwest loop is the best first one. Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Sedona, Arches, and Carlsbad Caverns if you swing that far east. Big scenery, short walks that small children can actually do, and everything is a couple of hours apart instead of a couple of days.
Go in the shoulder season and take a coat. We stood on the rim of the Grand Canyon in snow in November and it was empty and I still think about it. Summer is hot, crowded and the lodges are booked a year out.
Book park lodging absurdly early. Inside the park beats outside the park by an hour of driving every single morning, and those rooms open up months ahead and vanish the same week.
The roadside junk is half the point. Caverns, rattlesnake ranches, a place calling itself Hole N The Rock, whole towns built around one novelty. My kids talked about those longer than the canyons. Leave room in the day for them.
Canada belongs in this section too and I have not given it the page it deserves yet. Banff, Jasper and the Icefields Parkway are the equal of anything in the American parks, and Quebec is the closest thing to Europe on this side of the ocean. Both are on the list to write properly.
The Grand Canyon in November, in snow, with almost nobody there. Still the best decision we ever made about timing.
Getting Around
Rent a car. That is the opposite of what I tell people about Asia and it is just as absolute. Outside of New York, Chicago, Toronto, Montreal and Mexico City, public transport will not get your family where you are going.
Rental Cars
Book early, especially near the parks and in Florida, where prices swing wildly. Check if your own insurance or your card covers the waiver before you buy theirs at the counter. Car seats rent for about fifteen dollars a day and are often filthy, so bring your own if you can.
Internal Flights
Cheap, frequent and the right answer for anything over about eight hours of driving. Budget carriers charge for everything including the seat next to your child, so price the real total, not the headline fare.
Trains and Buses
Amtrak is scenic rather than efficient and the long routes are an experience in themselves, not transport. In the northeast corridor and in Canada between Toronto, Montreal and Quebec, the train is good. Everywhere else, no.
RVs and Campers
Popular for the park loops and expensive once you add the site fees, the mileage and the fuel. Worth it if you are out for three weeks or more. Not worth it for ten days.
Money and Practical Basics
Three countries, three currencies, and a set of small habits that catch visitors out constantly. None of this is difficult. It is just different from everywhere else.
Tipping is not optional in the United States. Eighteen to twenty percent in restaurants, a few dollars for housekeeping, something for the shuttle driver. It is baked into wages and skipping it is not a protest, it is just underpaying someone. Budget an extra fifteen percent on every meal.
The price on the shelf is not the price. Sales tax is added at the till in the US and Canada and it varies by state and city. Nothing you see advertised is the number you pay.
Entry paperwork is real and it is cheap to get wrong. Most visa waiver visitors need an ESTA for the US and an eTA for Canada, both bought online in advance. Mexico is straightforward for most passports. Check the official government sites four to six weeks out, not a travel blog.
Buy real travel insurance for the United States. Healthcare here will bankrupt you. A broken arm on a trip is a five figure problem without cover. This is the one place I will not let a client skip it.
Mexico is where your money goes furthest. Once you leave the all inclusive strip, a family eats well for a fraction of what the same day costs in the US. Three months in Merida cost us less than a fortnight in California.
Food
Nobody thinks of North America as a food trip and it is three of the best food countries on earth stacked on top of each other.
Mexico is the one that changes people. Tacos al pastor off a spinning spit in Mexico City for a dollar each, cochinita pibil in the Yucatan, mole in Oaxaca that took someone two days to make. Canada is poutine and Montreal bagels and a lobster roll on the Atlantic coast. The United States is regional in a way visitors do not expect. Barbecue in Texas and the Carolinas that has nothing in common with each other, a lobster roll in Maine, Creole in New Orleans, a diner breakfast anywhere. With kids the American portions are the practical thing to know. Order one plate for two of them.
When to Go
This continent has different answers depending on which corner of it you want, so the season question is really a region question. Here is how I split it.
Spring
March to May is the best window for the Southwest, Florida and Mexico. Warm without being punishing, parks not yet at full crowd, and desert wildflowers in April. Avoid the week either side of Easter and the American spring break weeks if you can, because Orlando doubles in price and in line length.
Summer
Peak everything. It is the only window a lot of families have, so it is not wrong, but know what you are buying. Florida is hot and thunderstorms roll through most afternoons. The desert parks are dangerous hot. The Rockies, the Pacific Northwest, New England and Canada are all at their best.
Autumn
September and October are the quiet win. Kids are back in school, prices drop, hurricane risk on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts is the one caveat, and New England foliage is worth planning a trip around on its own. This is my favorite time to send families to the parks.
Winter
Florida, southern California and Mexico are at their best and priced accordingly, especially over Christmas. The Southwest parks are cold, empty and beautiful if you pack for it. Canada is a ski country and a very good one, and Quebec in winter is its own thing entirely.
Somewhere in Arizona. This is the sort of thing that is only reachable by car and it is most of why the drive is worth it.
Family Logistics
Most of what goes wrong here is not exotic. It is car seats, hotel room capacity and how long a child will actually sit in a vehicle. Forty five days on the road taught us more about this than any guide could.
Car Seat Rules Change at Every Border
Every US state has its own law, and Canada and Mexico differ again. Bringing your own is usually cheaper and always cleaner than renting one, and it is the thing that most often catches visiting families out at the rental counter.
American Hotel Rooms Are Big
Two queen beds is a standard room and it sleeps five. After Europe this feels like a luxury. Free breakfast is common at mid range chains and it is a real saving over three weeks. Ask about the pool, because the pool is what buys you the evening.
Four Hours Is the Real Limit
Plan legs around four to five hours of driving with a proper stop in the middle, not a fuel stop. We tried the long days early on and stopped trying. Shorter days and an extra night somewhere beats arriving with everyone furious.
The Dog Can Come
Poppy rode along on our US road trips. Pet friendly hotel chains are everywhere, rest stops make it easy, and there is no border paperwork until you cross into Canada or Mexico, so check those rules before a three country loop.
Two more that matter. Grocery stores are your friend, because a cooler in the boot and a supermarket stop every other day cuts the food bill in half and gets everyone eating something other than fried. And do laundry on the road, not at the end, because packing for three weeks is what makes the car unmanageable.
What Surprises First-Timers
Mostly from visitors, occasionally from Americans discovering their own continent.
How empty most of it is. You can drive for two hours in the Southwest and pass four cars. That emptiness is the actual attraction and it is nothing like the America people see on television.
How expensive the final bill is. Tax on top, tip on top, resort fees, parking charges. A hundred dollar dinner is a hundred and forty. Build that in from the start rather than discovering it in week two.
How good the national parks are at families. Junior ranger programs, short paved trails to enormous views, rangers who are great with children. It is public infrastructure done properly and it is nearly free.
How much of Mexico is not Cancun. Merida, Oaxaca, Mexico City. Colonial cities, real food, safe walkable centers, and a fraction of the cost. Most American families have no idea and it is the biggest gap between what I know and what people ask me for.
How much the roadside nonsense matters. Novelty campgrounds, caverns, a stagecoach parked outside a diner. Our kids remember those better than the famous things, and you only find them if you are driving.
Planning Orlando, a park loop, or a first trip to Mexico
Orlando and the Universal parks are what I book most, and I will tell you when a road trip would serve your family better than a park ticket.
Where I Would Actually Start
Family vacation ideas in North America usually come down to one question: parks, road trip, or beach⁉ Here is where I would start for each.
Orlando. The parks, obviously. Direct flights from nearly every US city, one hotel for the whole stay, and the rides do the entertaining. I have planned more Orlando trips than any other single destination.
The Southwest loop. Fly into Las Vegas and rent the car there. Zion is two and a half hours away, Bryce is two more, and the Grand Canyon’s South Rim finishes the week. One loop, three parks, and no repacking every night if you base smart.
The Yucatán. We lived in Mérida for three months. Fly into Cancún, skip the hotel zone, and within two hours you have cenotes to swim in, Mayan ruins the kids can climb around, and beach towns that move at half the speed.
Whichever one you pick, resist adding another region to the same trip. The distances are the whole problem here.
Beyond the Bookshelf
Stories to carry you deeper into North America. Books, films, music and a few cookbooks from across the continent. Read one before you go and the trip means more when you get there.
- The Grapes of WrathJohn Steinbeck
- A Walk in the WoodsBill Bryson
- The House on Mango StreetSandra Cisneros
- Anne of Green GablesL.M. Montgomery
- Undaunted CourageStephen Ambrose
- Little House on the PrairieLaura Ingalls Wilder
- HolesLouis Sachar
- Esperanza RisingPam Muñoz Ryan
- HatchetGary Paulsen
- Salt, Fat, Acid, HeatSamin Nosrat
- My Mexico City KitchenGabriela Cámara
- Magnolia TableJoanna Gaines
North America, Answered
The ones that come up in almost every planning call. If yours is not here, ask me.
How long does it actually take to drive across this continent?
Longer than the map suggests. Kansas to San Diego is about twenty four hours of driving, which is three days once you have kids and are stopping every couple hours. Texas alone is roughly the size of France. Budget the extra days before you book, not after.
Universal or Disney?
Universal skews older, roughly seven and up. This is the single thing I sell more of than anything else on this continent, seventy five families and counting, because getting the ticket type, park order and hotel tier wrong costs you a real day and several hundred dollars.
Is the national park annual pass worth it?
Yes, almost every time. It pays for itself in about three parks and covers everyone in the vehicle. If you are doing the Southwest loop, Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Sedona and Arches, you will be through five or six parks easily.
Should we rent a car?
Yes, almost everywhere. Outside New York, Chicago, Toronto, Montreal and Mexico City, public transport will not get your family where you are going. Bring your own car seats if you can. Rental ones run about fifteen dollars a day and are often filthy.
Do we really need to tip?
Yes, in the United States it is not optional. Eighteen to twenty percent in restaurants, a few dollars for housekeeping, something for the shuttle driver. Budget an extra fifteen percent on every meal, and remember sales tax gets added at the till, not shown on the shelf price.
When is the best time to go?
Depends which corner you want. Spring, March to May, is best for the Southwest, Florida and Mexico, warm without being punishing and before full summer crowds. Avoid the week around Easter and American spring break, when Orlando doubles in price and line length.
Numbers Worth Knowing
North America, by the numbers
Ways to travel
North America is not one kind of trip
How you move through it changes the trip more than which country you pick.
Road Trips
This is a driving continent, built around the interstate and the open two lane highway alike. A rental car unlocks more of it than any other single choice you will make.
For example: the old Route 66 alignment through northern Arizona, gas stations and allOcean Cruising
Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and Vancouver put entire regions within a week, no unpacking required, and a doctor and a kids club on board the whole time.
For example: a Western Caribbean loop out of Miami touching Mexico and the BahamasWalking and Hiking
The national park system is the best reason to get out of the car. Boardwalks and easy rim trails put toddlers within sight of things most adults only see in photos.
For example: the paved Rim Trail along the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, stroller friendly the whole wayGuided and Small Group
Mexico City’s history, a ranger-led walk through a national park, a local guide through Mexico City or Mexico’s ruins. A good guide fills in what a self-drive tour misses.
For example: a ranger program at Yellowstone timed around the geyser basinsExplore by interest
Or start from what your family actually likes
Sports
Major league baseball, football, and hockey in nearly every big city, plus the Olympic legacy sites scattered across both Canada and the US.
History
Colonial Williamsburg, the Alamo, Mexico City’s Aztec ruins beneath its own streets, and national monuments that trace the whole continent’s story.
Food and Drink
Tacos al pastor in Mexico City, poutine in Quebec, barbecue that changes personality every few hundred miles across the American South.
Nature
The Grand Canyon, the Canadian Rockies, and a national park system that runs from desert to glacier without ever leaving the continent.
Arts and Culture
Broadway, Frida Kahlo’s Mexico City, and a music history running from New Orleans jazz to Nashville country to Motown.
Something unexpected
Unique Things About North America
Read before you go
One for the kids, one for you
For the kids. Locomotive by Brian Floca, a Caldecott winning picture book about the transcontinental railroad, the thing that first stitched this whole continent together.
For you. Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon, an account of driving only the back roads, the small roads on old maps colored blue, across the entire country.
Watch before you go
Cars
Pixar’s 2006 film is set almost entirely along a fictionalized stretch of old Route 66, and the real towns it is based on, decommissioned when the interstate bypassed them, still exist to drive through.
From here
The 365 day calendar
Refined by the Maya, whose astronomers tracked the solar year with an accuracy that would not be matched in Europe for centuries, at cities like Chichen Itza in what is now Mexico.
Only in North America
Niagara Falls
More than 3,000 tons of water go over the Horseshoe Falls every single second, and the view from the Canadian side, looking back at it, is the one almost nobody expects to be the better one.
Canada, Mexico, and the United States can be a first trip, a long weekend, or a lifetime of returning to the same national park every summer. Send me the ages, the dates, and what this trip is supposed to feel like, and I will tell you what fits and what does not.
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