A Guide to the Other Great National Parks

By now, most everyone knows that youth hostels are no longer just for youths. They've even dropped the word from their title ("Hostelling International" is the new name of the official hostel organization). But were you aware that most hostels nowadays offer what are billed as "family rooms?" Sometimes, a family room can be as fully private as a suite, with its own bathroom. More often, it's simply a standard dorm-type room equipped with bunks--but at least the place is all yours, privately, and that's the point. You can have a space of your own, often in a centuries-old building loaded with character, at a bargain price. Obviously, such lodgings aren't for everyone. They suit the energetic budget traveler who's eager to be out and about, who prefers to spend minimum time in a hotel room and maximum time in the local ambience. Pampered types, for whom the lodging and its amenities are a major part of the traveling experience, should clearly look elsewhere. That said, even the intrepid traveler should be warned about a few eccentricities common to family rooms at youth hostels. Sleeping facilities will almost certainly feature tall bunks, with vertiginous top beds. Four to six bunks will be in the room, and frequently there'll be only one light fixture: "Lights out" for the kids at a reasonable hour means that the grown-ups will be plunged into darkness too. But then again, perhaps early-to-bed is not such a bad thing, since early-to-rise is obligatory: Some hostels close during the day, and you may be required to vacate the premises as early as 10 o'clock in the morning. (You can, however, leave belongings in your room during "lockout.") Finally, don't expect to stay in a hostel with your family for a few bucks a night, as you might have done in your own youth. Each individual bed is bargain-priced: from $12 to $15, typically. With hostels, as with most hotels and pensions in Europe, you pay by the bed, regardless of the age of the person who sleeps in it. Thus, even the low price of $12 a bed can add up if there are five of you. On the plus side, it's unlikely you'll find a better bargain anywhere else, especially as your $12 to $15 includes breakfast, too. Often this is a simple bread-and-jam affair, but even in those cases you'll usually enjoy plenty of strong coffee, steamed milk, and hot chocolate. Sometimes inexpensive communal dinners are available, which brings up another selling point: Hostels are sociable places. If you feel friendly, you can meet individuals from many walks of life. Speaking of food, many hostels offer shared kitchen facilities, and when you travel with small kids, simply having access to a fridge (to store milk, for example) can be a great convenience. Just note that you're expected to clean up after yourself. Our own recent experience A particularly excellent feature of hostels, especially in Europe, is that many are located in centuries-old castles or former monasteries. On a recent trip to France and Italy with three kids, nearly every hostel we tried had something to recommend it. In Lyon, it was a megabreakfast with toast, jam, unlimited hot chocolate, juice, and those little boxes of cereal that kids love, plus a great view over the medieval rooftops. At the Villa Francescatti in Verona, we enjoyed the huge grounds of a sixteenth-century villa and the privacy of a separate building for families. The La Primula hostel, in Menaggio on Lake Como, offers friendly atmosphere, a library of books and board games, wonderful dinners at bargain prices (this hostel also organizes cooking classes), and the view from the balcony ain't bad either. In Cinque Terre, the Manarola hostel gets top marks, with helpful staff, individual bedlights, and private bathrooms. How did we find these hostel gems? An excellent guidebook, Hostels France & Italy: The Only Comprehensive, Unofficial, Opinionated Guide, by Paul Karr and Martha Coombs, describes many outstanding hostels and notes which ones have family rooms or reputations for excessive noise. Online resources are helpful, too. Hostels of Europe (hostelseurope.com) has maps with top locations and excellent listings that make note of family rooms, quietness, and kitchen facilities. The Italian Youth Hostel Association (hostels-aig.org) has details and pictures. Most Web sites also promote online reservations. Always try to make reservations for your family room well in advance, and get a confirmation by fax or e-mail. The two big questions But what about the bathrooms? And that bring-your-own-bedding thing? The BYOB policy is ancient history. Some hostelers still travel with their own "sleep-sheet" (two sheets sewn together to make a sack), but why bother? Typically, when you enter your family room, each bunk will be decked out with crisp sheets, plump pillows, and a blanket folded neatly at the foot of each bed. If a sleep-sheet is required, it can be rented at the hostel for a modest charge. Sleeping bags, meanwhile, are considered unhygienic and are often not allowed, so there's little point in carting them around. Do remember, though, to bring along your own towels. As for the bathrooms, even when there's no private toilet or shower for your room, facilities will probably be just across the hall; those we saw were very clean. I know, I know: Most North Americans have a phobia about shared bathrooms. Overcome this bias and a new vista of budget options will open. Meanwhile, your family room will always contain a sink, at least. The great decision One final point about hostels concerns memberships: Some hostels require membership in a hosteling organization; check on this issue when you make your reservations. With luck, you'll be able to buy a membership (approximately $15 to $25) at the first hostel on your itinerary. Nonmembers won't be turned away--in the worst case, you might have to pay a slightly higher charge for your room. Alternatively, you can buy a membership before your trip-head to the Web sites noted above or to www.hiayh.org or www.hostels.com, which can also answer your general questions about hosteling. Four recommended European hostels Auberge de Jeunesse du Vieux Lyon, 41-45 Montée du Chemin Neuf, 69005 Lyon, France. Tel. 011-33-4/78-15-05-50, fax /78-15-05-51, fuaj.org/aj/lyon. Villa Francescatti Youth Hostel, Salita Fontana del Ferro 15, 37129 Verona, Italy. Tel. 011-39-045/590360, fax /8009127, hostels-aig.org/shop-uk/verona.htm. International Youth Hostel "La Primula," Via 4 Novembre 86, 22017 Menaggio, Italy. Tel. 011-39-034/432356, fax/431677, menaggiohostel.com. Hostel 5 Terre, in Manarola, Cinque Terre, Via Riccobaldi 21, 19010 Manarola, Italy. Tel. 011-39-018/7920215, fax /7920218, cinqueterre.net/ostello/ostelloen.htm

You do it countless ways. You can introduce the kids to moose in a national park or to monkeys in a rain forest. You can navigate the rapids with a couple of teens on a wilderness river, help a seven-year-old conquer a mountain peak or a nine-year-old reach out and touch a glacier. Maybe you play Swiss Family Robinson in a tent in the treetops or take sea-loving youngsters snorkeling amid schools of tropical fish. Whatever the goal, you can-with proper planning and advice-keep expenditures for an authentic, out-of-doors vacation to a perfectly modest level. Here are 11 budget-priced adventures that take your family back to nature. 1. Maho Bay Camps Located on the exquisite U.S. Virgin Island of St. John, this camp has begun offering kids' arts-and-crafts classes, taught by visiting artists, which stress recycling and reusing materials. The kids can make birdhouses, musical instruments, or mosaics from recycled materials. You all stay in big, rectangular, canvas-sided platform tents, hidden amid trees along a hillside overlooking the sea. Each tented cabin comes equipped with lights, fans, and its own deck for watching the sunset. The seaside camp is surrounded by the Virgin Islands National Park and offers many watersports as well as places to snorkel. (The entire island of St. John is ringed by pristine beaches.) And units at Maho Bay are connected by wooden walkways the kids will love. Rates start at $75 for a canvas "bungalow" housing two adults and two children, with kids under 16 staying free. Call 800/392-9004 or access maho.org. 2. Yellowstone Association Institute This institute makes it easy for families to explore one of the nation's most popular national parks with summer and winter naturalist-led programs that include cold-weather sessions on wolves, honing outdoor skills, and snowshoeing. In summer, they focus on hiking, photography, and animal tracking. And there are also programs designed for those who want to cross-country-ski their way across the park. Over the course of the four-day program, parents can help their children earn a Junior Ranger badge. Lodging in park hotels, and some meals, are included. Rates for four days start at under $605 in winter for adults and $345 for kids. Call 307/344-2293 or access yellowstoneassociation.org. To see what family and educational programs are offered elsewhere, link to the park you'd like to visit from the National Park Service Web site at nps.gov. 3. Appalachian Mountain Club The nation's oldest conservation and recreation organization has both winter and summer family workshops that are proven winners. Build snow shelters and learn how animals adapt to winter, try wilderness cooking in spring, or act out stories inspired by your outdoor experience. Give the kids a taste of the backcountry without lugging camping gear and food: Hike from one historic high-mountain hut to the next, where you will be served hearty meals, sleep on cots in rustic bunkhouses, and join junior naturalist activities. Rates at the huts, including meals, start at $85 for adults, $52 for kids (less for AMC members). The new, kid-friendly Highland Center at Crawford Notch, New Hampshire, sleeps 120 and offers environmental education programs for adults and children. Call 617/523-0655 for more information or visit on the Web at outdoors.org. 4. Grandparenting with Elderhostel The famed senior citizen organization now offers more than 100 well-priced trips all over the world for grandparents to share with grandchildren and has begun to add vacation packages for three generations as well. Each of the trips is designed to teach-many about the outdoors, ecology, or animal life. Domestic journeys typically start at $500 per person, including accommodations, meals, and activities. Go to "camp" in the Adirondacks or Catskills and study trees, lakes, and streams. You're guaranteed the presence of other grandparents and children of similar ages, and full-time counselors will enable tired grandparents to grab an occasional break. Call 877/426-8056 or access elderhostel.org. 5. The Sierra Club The club makes it easy to introduce the kids to the outdoors with savvy leaders attuned to kids' likes and dislikes on their 30-plus family trips. Some are especially designed for families with younger children, like the "Toddler Tromp" in Maine's Acadia National Park. There is even one Sierra Club adventure in California's Tahoe National Forest for moms and their daughters ages 11 through 14. See the Grand Canyon from rim to river. Raft through Dinosaur National Monument in Utah. Leaders plan meals and activities; trips typically last a week or less. Weeklong trips start at under $500, with most trips less than $800 a person, including food and activities. Call 415/977-5500 or log on to sierraclub.org/outings. 6. Outward Bound This not-for-profit organization has been successfully sending people into the wilderness for more than 50 years. Parents and teens set off on weeklong family adventures designed to help them face new challenges and grow from the experience. Go sailing in Maine, dogsledding in the Northwoods of Minnesota, white-water canoeing in Texas, or mountaineering in the Cascades in Washington State. Eight-day trips average just over $1,000 per person. Call 866/467-7651 or visit outwardbound.org. 7. Cows, pigs, and more The young 'uns in your gang will love a farm, where they'll quickly discover that milk and eggs don't come from the supermarket. They can gather eggs, feed the pigs, and maybe milk a goat or a cow. Check your state tourism office: Some local farmers in Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Wisconsin, among other places, welcome a family or two at a time. Others, like the 140-guest Inn at East Hill Farm in Troy, New Hampshire (800/242-6495, east-hill-farm.com), are resorts as much as farms, with indoor and outdoor pools, and kids' programs complete with crafts and magic shows. Inclusive rates start at $90 a night for adults, $75 for kids. Emandal Farm in Willits, California (707/459-5439, emandal.com), offers summer family weeks and seasonal family weekends where kids can help care for the baby animals in the spring and make cider in the fall. Weeklong prices start at $805 for adults, $196 for kids. Find more than a dozen guest farms at familytravelnetwork.com. 8. Ride 'em cowboy! Horse-loving kids and their parents will think they're in heaven at a dude ranch that caters to children, with special riding programs that enable them to learn about horses and the surrounding countryside. Parents get to relax while kids join in organized children's programs, even preparing for a junior rodeo. Hike or fish as well as ride. GORPtravel (gorptravel.com) lists dozens of affordable kid-friendly ranches around the country. The Mayan Dude Ranch in Bandera, Texas (830/796-3312, mayanranch.com), promises meals, horseback rides, and kids' activities for under $900 a week per adult and under $400 per child under 13. Rocking Horse Ranch Resort in New York's Hudson Valley (800/647-2624, rhranch.com) costs just a little more. Visit in winter for fun in the snow. 9. Safe white-water rafting On river-based trips, you'll also have the chance to hike, fish, or play volleyball on the shore. Experienced river guides lead expeditions through wilderness areas that can be as big as Rhode Island. Even better, they plan the meals and help entertain the kids. Go for a few days or a week. Dvorak's Expeditions in Nathrop, Colorado (800/824-3795, dvorakexpeditions.com), offers some western river trips where kids go free (adult prices start at $950 for five-to-seven-day trips) and other four-day family trips priced by the number of people. Northern Outdoors, with two resort centers in Maine (800/765-7238, www.northernoutdoors.com), gives families a chance to kayak, rock climb, and raft. Family overnights, which include two days of rafting on the Kennebec River, camping, and all meals, average about $200 per person. 10. Family RV-ing Parents who don't enjoy camping can still get up close and personal with nature by choosing to travel in an RV, staying in national and state parks across the country. The kids will love the chance to make new friends at campgrounds. Figure on paying $1,000 or more to rent a motor home for the week, plus about $22 a night for campground fees. Find coast-to-coast rental outlets at gorving.com. The largest national rental chain is Cruise America (800/327-7799, cruiseamerica.com).

It seemed like a fairly easy trip to plan. Debbie Escobar, of Visalia, Calif., hoped to bring her sons Evan, 11, and Andrew, 10, to Washington, D.C., for sightseeing and history lessons. The boys--both involved in Scouting, with their father, Anthony, as troop leader--could see the Capitol Building and fulfill part of a merit badge in their quest to become Eagle Scouts. Any state capitol or federal building would have sufficed for the merit badge, but Debbie thought this was a great excuse to visit D.C. "We've traveled a lot, but never to that part of the country," said Debbie. "We especially want our boys to see up close what they're studying in school." Since they'd already be on the East Coast learning about history, Debbie thought, why not check out Philadelphia too? (New York City and Boston seemed to warrant separate vacations.) The problem was that after two years with the trip in the back of her mind, Debbie still hadn't nailed down the details. Figuring out when to go was a challenge in itself, what with busy work schedules for both parents, family engagements, school field trips, soccer tournaments, and Scouting. Debbie and the boys had a window of time in May. (Anthony was too busy, so it would just be Mom and the kids.) Evan and Andrew would miss school, but heck, they'd get a great education on the trip and they could catch up with their classes when they returned. "We want to do this trip, but the time is quickly approaching and I'm not totally sure we can get it together," Debbie said. "I usually love planning trips, but this one has me stumped." We were more than happy to help. They would be flying out of Fresno, and our first step was to price flights on Orbitz. (We also checked with Southwest Airlines and JetBlue, which aren't listed on Orbitz, but neither flies to Fresno or nearby.) For the dates the Escobars needed, America West Airlines had the best rates (800/235-9292, americawest.com/). Flying into D.C. and out of Philly made the most sense. It's a bit more expensive than a standard round trip in and out of the same city ($427 versus $411), but they'll save the time and money of retracing their steps. And we advised them to book directly through America West, rather than pay a $5-per-ticket surcharge to Orbitz. How to travel from D.C. to Philly was an easy call. This is one of the few areas where it's affordable and convenient to use Amtrak: $90 total for the three of them on the two-hour ride (800/872-7245, amtrak.com/). The major sights in both cities are accessible by foot and public transportation, and they won't have to worry about parking and traffic. Hotel location was important, especially with no car. "We'd like someplace safe and clean," said Debbie. "Budget is definitely a consideration." We directed them to the Hotel Harrington, which sits a few blocks from the White House and the Mall and charges $105 a night for rooms with two double beds. In Philadelphia, we suggested the Comfort Inn Downtown. Within a 10-minute walk of the city's most historic sights, it's a fine value at $89 a night. We recommended that on the travel day from D.C., they should check out late from the Harrington and take an early-afternoon train--that way, they can check right into the Comfort Inn. (If they leave D.C. earlier, they might have to wait a while before check-in is allowed.) To cut down on any complaining, we suggested that the boys go to each city's visitor website (washington.org/ and gophila.com/) and pick out a few things to see and do. In D.C., they might want to check out artifacts from the Apollo expeditions to the moon at the National Air and Space Museum. Or Evan and Andrew may be drawn to the International Spy Museum, which has dozens of hidden cameras and sneaky weapons on display. There will still be plenty of time for the things everyone has to see, such as the Capitol Building, the Supreme Court, and the Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln Memorials. The Philadelphia site has a link to theconstitutional.com/, where the boys will want to download a free walking tour of what is probably the most historic square mile in the U.S. The sights include the National Constitution Center, where they can trace the history of the document from Revolutionary to present times in kid-friendly, multimedia exhibits; the Liberty Bell Center; and Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was signed. The Franklin Institute Science Museum, near Logan Circle, is cool and educational, loaded with interactive exhibits that let kids earn their wings at pilot-training stations and test their balance on a surfboard simulator. Finally, the boys might want to swing by the Philadelphia Museum of Art--if not for the Manet exhibition (through May 31), then for the chance to run up the steps like Sylvester Stallone in Rocky. Washington D.C. & Philadelphia Lodging Hotel Harrington 436 11th St. NW, D.C., 800/424-8532, hotelharrington.com Comfort Inn 100 N. Christopher Columbus Blvd., Phila., 215/627-7900, comfortinn.com/ Attractions National Air and Space Museum Independence Ave. at 4th St. SW, D.C., 202/357-2700, nasm.si.edu/, free International Spy Museum 800 F St. NW, D.C., 866/779-6873, spymuseum.org, $10-$13 National Constitution Center 525 Arch St., Phila., 215/409-6600, constitutioncenter.org, $5-$6 Independence Hall and Liberty Bell Center 143 S. 3rd St., Phila., nps.gov/inde, 215/597-8974, free Franklin Institute 222 N. 20th St., Phila., 215/448-1200, fi.edu, $10-$12.75 Philadelphia Museum of Art 26th St. and Benjamin Franklin Pkwy., 215/763-8100, philamuseum.org, free-$10