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If you're looking for a fun, affordable beach getaway, visit Puerto Rico, home to plenty of beaches and nightlife, and enough options to satisfy every foodie, nature lover, and history buff. And the best part? U.S. citizens can visit this island paradise without a passport. Visit El Yunque National Rainforest One of Puerto Rico's best attractions is El Yunque National Forest, the only rain forest in the U.S. parks system. Travel Services, Inc. offers great half-day or full-day guided tours including transportation from your hotel to El Yunque (pronounced "El Jun-kay"), from $64 per person. Stop by the Visitor Center to learn more about the area's wildlife, like the Coquí frog and the Puerto Rican parrot, and stop by La Coca Falls and the Yokahu Lookout Tower for amazing rainforest views. Even novice hikers will enjoy a quick 30-minute hike to La Mina Falls, where you can take a dip, if you can stand the freezing cold water! Remember to bring a poncho along as you are in a rain forest (emphasis on the word rain) and it can start pouring buckets at any given time, so don't say we didn't warn you! Eat where the locals eat Located just outside El Yunque a few more minutes down the road, you'll find Kioskos de Luquillo, a great place to sample traditional Puerto Rican favorites like arepas (coconut cakes!) and plantains, and treat yourself to a freshly made piña coladas (or fresh coconut water) straight from a coconut. In Old San Juan, head to Raices, a local favorite where the waitstaff dresses in tradtional Puerto Rican outfits. Everyone says to try the house specialty, mofongo, served in a wooden goblet and made of your choice of meat and mashed plantains, making for a delicious and very filling meal. For a unique blend of Asian and and Latin American influences, try swanky Budatai in the Condado Beach area for delicious dishes like El Churrasco con Ho Fun and Lo Mein de Chicharron de Pollo. Roam the colorful streets of Old San Juan You can tour Old San Juan with the folks at Travel Services, Inc. for $55 per person including transportation to and from your hotel, or, thanks to super-affordable sites and a free tourist tram, you can do it at your own pace for less. Start with a trip to El Morro National Monument, an impressive 16th century Spanish fort that's less than $5 per person to enter and offers gorgeous views of the Caribbean. Take a joyride around town on the free white tram located outside El Morro and stop anywhere along the way to take advantage of the area's quirky shops and boutiques. Take your camera for a spin and spend some time just walking around the streets admiring the city's colorful buildings. Kayak in the dark at Bioluminescent Bay You can't come to Puerto Rico and not see Bioluminescent Bay, one of the coolest spots on the island, if not on Earth. You'll have to rent a car to get to Fajardo (or take the tour with Travel Services, Inc. for from $95 per person). If you choose to go independently, keep an eye out for the yellow tent in Las Croabas Park, where you'll find Island Kayaking Adventures. Sign up for their Glowing Bay Adventure, which leaves every night at 6:30 p.m. or 8:30 p.m. for $45 per person. You'll embark on a two-hour paddle through a natural mangrove tunnel, following each other through almost-total darkness (kayaks have a glowstick attached to the back so you can stay in a single-file line) to Bioluminescent Bay. Near the end of the mangove tunnel as you enter the bay itself, you'll notice something peculiar... the water starts to glow as you paddle, a result of the algae reacting to movement in the water, definitely an incredible sight. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to get a good photo of this (since you must be moving the water beneath the surface at the same time and the lighting at night gets tricky), but the Island Kayaking Adventures crew does take photos of you kayaking and posts them to their Facebook page free of charge. Take a road trip around the island If you're feeling up for a little adventure, try renting a car and taking a good old fashioned road trip around the island, or taking a drive down La Ruta Panorámica, one of Budget Travel's favorite road trips (also featured on our brand new Ultimate Road Trips App). Roads in Puerto Rico are in excellent condition, comparable to driving around in the states, and there is no shortage of beautiful scenery. When all else fails, relax on the beach! Pick a beach, any beach. There's nothing like bring on the beach with your towel and a good book (or digital edition of Budget Travel magazine!) While the waters of the touristy Condado Beach area are rougher than others, it's the perfect spot to plotz in the sand and watch the local boogie boarders and body surfers do their thing. Strong swimmers can even rent a boogie board for $10 for the whole day from friendly beach vendors, but we strongly advise sticking to the smaller surf if you're not used to hitting the waves. Stay in the heart of the lively Condado district for less The San Juan Marriott Resort & Stellaris Casino has great recently updated rooms right on the beach in San Juan's bustling Condado Beach area, home to some of the island's best nightlife. The hotel itself has several lovely restaurants, an onsite casino, gorgeous beachfront pool with a slide, and nightly entertainment in the lobby—don't miss the chance to show off your best salsa dance moves on Saturday night to the music of a live salsa band.  Note: this is also open to the public even if you're not technically a guest of the resort. Rooms from $159 per night. Pay homage to the Piña Colada and all things Bacardi Pay a visit to the Casa Bacardi, the Bacardi Rum Factory, where you can learn more about the history of this drink, see how it's made, and taste samples of the finished product. Cheers!

I've done some pretty exciting things in my life, usually on vacation as a way of checking amazing things off my travel bucket list. I've zip-lined over alligators at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm & Zoological Park in St. Augustine, Florida. I was part of a "Splash and Dash" during a hot air balloon ride in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a stunt where the hot air balloon pilot drives the basket into the Rio Grande, skirts the surface of the water, and shoots back up to regular flight height. I've kayaked in almost complete darkness through mangrove tunnels at Bioluminescent Bay in Puerto Rico to get a look at the famous plankton that light up underwater as your paddle passes by them. I guess you can say I've become kind of a travel adrenaline junkie, as long as it's within reason and I'll end up with a great travel story for when I get home. Honestly, I'm not sure if I'll ever have the nerve to try something like bungee-jumping or jumping out of a plane (too many "what-if" scenarios to make me feel comfortable enough for something that extreme), but this time next week I am going to be facing one of my biggest fears: swimming with sharks in Cancun, Mexico. I'm going to be visiting Cancun for the first time next week, spending a long weekend exploring the beaches, hotels, nightlife, and nearby hotspots like Isla Mujeres. I will be posting from the road, so please follow along on our @BudgetTravel Instagram page! The highlight of my trip is going to be the opportunity to swim with whale sharks. I know what you're thinking: But whale sharks aren't scary, they don't eat people! They're like giant, friendly, vegetarian sharks. The truth is I'm not afraid of that part, it's the fact that we're going to be in very deep water to meet them and I'm nervous about what else will be swimming around out there with us at those incredible depths. The boat ride itself takes about two hours to get to the sweet spot off the coast where we'll be able to see them, and I'm just hoping not to bump into any other kinds of sharks out there along the way. I've never had a run-in with a shark or even come close to it, a remarkable feat given the fact that I grew up in Hawaii and Florida, both of which have had their fair share of shark attacks from time to time. I know people who have visited the Galápagos Islands and went swimming with sharks at Kicker Rock who told me it was a very peaceful experience that totally cured their irrational fear of sharks. Maybe someday I'll get to that point, but for now, I'm sticking with whale sharks and hoping for the best. So now it's your turn. We want to know: have you ever conquered your greatest fears while traveling? Did you feel better about it afterward and was it worth the experience? Tell us your story below!

Sarah Ricks is a travel junkie who writes in Philadelphia. More of her travel writing is at TravelingMom.com Your kids can be your favorite traveling companions. Really. Even when one of your party needs a nap, won't eat the weird food, or won't visit museums, you can still travel smoothly. Here are six ways to make your next trip with kids more fun for everyone: Bring friends. Sharing a vacation rental with another family means built-in buddies. Every night is a sleepover. Every day is a playdate. When kids have built-in playmates, a shared beach house sets the stage for an exciting game of hide & seek. A picnic in a park is transformed into a rollicking chasing game. Another benefit: Parents can swap babysitting nights and let the other couple go out for a grown-up dinner or a live performance that does not involve puppets or talking animals. Let them sleep. A sleepy kid is a cranky kid and crankiness and travel are an unhappy mix. For little kids, bring a stroller so naps can be "on the go" while others enjoy the street scenery or explore a museum. Or schedule a midday car, train, or bus ride for needed downtime. For teenagers, consider letting them sleep late or text with friends while you go out for early morning exploring. Meet up for a late breakfast after you've had coffee and a lovely stroll. One beauty of traveling in Spain is the expectation that everyone benefits from mid-afternoon downtime. A rejuvenating siesta creates the possibility of a late night, almost a second day in one. Adjust expectations of what they'll eat. If you're visiting a foreign country, consider bringing peanut butter or a favorite cereal to alleviate worries that there will be nothing kids will eat. But likely your kids will surprise you—and themselves—at how much they enjoy trying new foods, or just exotic types of pizza or toppings for pasta. We traveled to rural Italy with a trusty box of Life cereal as a back-up for our picky eater—but our daughter thankfully enjoyed eating at Italian cafes. Build anticipation before you go. My kids and I both get more out of trips by reading about the place before we leave. Picture books, youth fiction, detective novels set in the area, biographies—all give insight into culture and history and help build anticipation for the trip. Before visiting the Grand Canyon, my kids learned geology from picture books and enthusiastically devoured horrific stories about unprepared hikers and their tragic fates. The irreverent Horrible Histories—such as The Vicious Vikings or The Terrible Tudors—are accurate but play to kids by emphasizing gory facts and scatological humor. Horrible Histories began as a book series and expanded into DVDs, games, and costumes. Watching movies set in the place can help build anticipation. Visiting Anne Boleyn's palace felt more dramatic because we had just watched our scheming heroine in Anne of 1000 Days. While the audio tour of the Colosseum in Rome was a bore, my kids already had a sense of the gruesome (and exciting) former uses of the ancient building from the movie Gladiator. Your kids may enjoy helping to plan visits to a place they learned about before leaving. Create memories during the trip. Give each kid a blank book to draw or write in during downtime, or to glue in postcards, tickets, and other scraps. Try interviewing your kids and jotting down their answers in the blank books. I've asked questions like: what's the biggest surprise about the place we're visiting, worst new food you tried, favorite joke of the vacation, favorite song right now, who you look forward to seeing when we get home. Doing a short interview with your kid can make waiting in line or in a restaurant speed by. (Years later, those interviews are vivid and cherished reminders of my children's personalities as little tykes.) Create memories after the trip. After you return home, you can create a photo book or use iPhoto or other programs to publish a book and include captions by your kids. Canvas on Demand can turn photos into pictures you hang on the wall as daily reminders of places you've explored together—and build excitement for your family's next adventure.

After a few minutes in New Bedford, MA, a welcoming little city of about 95,000 people less than an hour's drive east of Providence and south of Cape Cod just off I-195, you'll notice that the residents love to talk about their town. A few more minutes and you'll totally understand why. Few places in New England pack as much history, food, and fun into a handful of cobblestoned blocks. I started my visit, appropriately enough, at the New Bedford Whaling Museum (18 Johnny Cake Hill, whalingmuseum.org, adults $14, seniors $12, students 19+ $9, children and youth $6). In the 19th century, New Bedford was the epicenter of the international whale-oil industry (comparable at that time to today's oil industry in its importance to the world's economy), and the city's whaling museum is the largest of its kind in the U.S. As my 11-year-old daughter and I walked into the museum's beautiful big lobby, with its impressive whale skeletons hanging from the ceiling, I was anxious. After all, my daughter was brought up to understand that hunting these amazing sea mammals is wrong, and she was extremely vocal in her objection to the very idea of a whaling museum. But as soon as our guided tour began, I breathed easy: The staff of the New Bedford Whaling Museum love these animals as much as any of us, and a good portion of the galleries are devoted to ecology, conservation, and putting history—including not only whaling but also the slave trade, New Bedford's ethnic diversity, and the city's role in the Underground Railroad—in a clear context. I recommend setting aside an entire day or more to take in all this museum has to offer, including replicas of whaling ships (one of which is half-life-size and can be boarded and explored by grown-ups and kids alike), beautiful works of art, and multimedia presentations. Step outside the whaling museum and you're smack in the middle of the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park (nps.gov/nebe), which includes a number of restored 18th-century buildings and a superb visitors center at 33 William Street, featuring displays about the city's history, a theater, and presentations by rangers. Stroll the streets and you'll meet New Bedford residents who can't wait to tell you about their downtown's great food, public gardens, bustling harbor, and festivals. Admire the stately homes that once belonged to whaling captains and their families and you may recall what Herman Melville wrote of the city in Moby-Dick: "... all these brave houses and flowery gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. One and all, they were harpooned and dragged up hither from the bottom of the sea." Speaking of Melville, one of the most popular sites in downtown New Bedford owes its celebrity to that author's wild imagination: In the 1840s, Melville himself set sail aboard a whaling vessel out of New Bedford and, like many sailors before and after him, attended services at the Seamen's Bethel (15 Johnny Cake Hill, admission free), which he immortalized as the "Whalemen's Chapel" in Moby-Dick. I was blown away to discover that the pulpit of this little chapel is actually shaped like the prow of a whaling vessel—exactly like the one Melville describes in the chapter "The Sermon" in Moby-Dick. My enthusiasm was only slightly dampened when I learned that the pulpit was, in fact, added more than a century after Melville's visit in order to delight visitors who had enjoyed John Huston's 1956 film adaptation of Moby-Dick (starring Gregory Peck as the monomaniacal Captain Ahab), in which Orson Welles, as Father Mapple, climbs a rope ladder to deliver a booming commentary on the story of Jonah—from an elaborate, prow-shaped pulpit. Spend some time exploring the chapel's artwork and enjoy friendly and informative conversation with one of the enthusiastic docents on duty (and don't forget to leave a donation). New Bedford abounds in historical, artistic, and just plain fun sites. Rotch-Jones-Duff House (396 County Street, rjdmuseum.org, adults $6), with its gorgeous articles of furniture, handpainted wallpaper, crystal, and gowns lets you see how the other 1 percent lived in the 19th and early 20th centuries thanks to both the whaling and oil industries. The New Bedford Museum of Glass (61 Wamsutta Street, nbmog.org, $5) is a must-see, with a growing collection of art glass that includes masterpieces of New Bedford's fabled Mt. Washington and Pairpoint factories. And after all that history, kids of all ages will enjoy a walk on the wild side at the Buttonwood Park Zoo (425 Hawthorn Street, bpzoo.org, adults $8, children $4), with lovely exhibit areas and habitats for animals as diverse as elephants, coyotes, river otters, and harbor seals—and super-helpful staff who give user-friendly talks and demonstrations throughout the day. Hungry? Cork Wine Bar and Tapas (90 Front Street, corkwineandtapas.com) blew me away with its pan-seared scallops over sticky Jasmine rice and quirky multicultural riffs like cheesesteak spring rolls. You can order main courses, or do what we did and keep the small plates coming, happily sharing till you cry "uncle." You'll appreciate New Bedford's cultural melting pot when you tuck into traditional Cape Verdean cuisine like Shrimp Mozambique at Izzy's (72 Spring Street, 508/977-7077). Tia Maria European Café specializes in Portuguese favorites, including Portuguese-style nachos and an amazing egg-topped steak (42 North Water Street, 508/993-8900). In the midst of all this history, the lovely, comfortable rooms at the thoroughly modern Fairfield Inn & Suites (184 MacArthur Drive, marriott.com, from $164) are a welcome place to catch some shuteye after a day of pounding the cobblestones. You'll enjoy elbow room, a spacious pool, hot tub, and fitness center, a very short walk from the historical district and harbor.