Museums Kids Will Love – Really!
Posted by Amy Clyde
on 8/6/2015
Posted in: Tauck’s Travelogue
Tags: Family Travel, Europe, France, Italy, Museums, National Parks, Paris, Rome, Sistine Chapel, USA, Vatican, Vatican Museums, Wyoming, Yellowstone
When families travel together, one of the big challenges is to make museums enjoyable for all ages – because, frankly, if the kids aren’t having fun, nobody’s having fun. But if just the mention of the word “museum” causes your children’s eyes to glaze over, you are not alone. Traditional museums tend to give my kids mental indigestion, not to mention antsy fever – that is, if I can even convince them to set foot inside. To their credit, they’re more open to museums when we’re traveling, because it’s all part of experiencing a new place, but usually at a certain point their eyes will definitely go blank. I bet you know that look.
One of the secrets we’ve found to designing happy museum visits on a Tauck Bridges
family trip is to get the kids excited by involving them in an interactive way with the art. So in Paris when we’re at the
Louvre, our Tauck Directors – the most fun, family-oriented, and creative tour directors in the business specifically recruited to lead our family journeys – conduct a scavenger hunt with clues hidden in plain sight among the works of art. It’s a great way to keep the younger set engaged while sneaking in a bit of art history.
Tauck Directors add an extra layer of fun to another museum experience during
Castles on the Rhine: Family Riverboat Adventure when we come ashore to visit the Carnival Museum in Köln, Germany. While the kids learn about the colorful history and customs of the Carnival festival from ancient through modern times, they’re also gathering ideas for the costumes they’ll create with the Tauck Directors afterwards for the Carnival party onboard our riverboat that night.
Securing special access is another secret to making
museums kid-friendly. That’s why on all of our
Tauck Bridges vacations in Rome, we go the extra mile to arrange an after-hours private guided tour of the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel so families can experience them in peace unbothered by the typical
daily crowds and lines. Without fail, the kids are bowled over by Michelangelo’s chapel ceiling and they’re enthralled by the tales the guides tell. We love to hear
the kids’ reactions. “I learned to never cross
Michelangelo,” a guest called Annie, 13, told us. “He’ll put you in one of his pictures. He’s like a manlier, less emotional Taylor Swift.”
And then, of course, there are museums that are so fun and family-friendly that they don’t feel like museums at all. On
Cowboy Country we take our guests to one of our favorites, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming – and introduce them to its five museums filled with knockout artifacts, like tipis and bear claw necklaces, along with all the legends and lore that make this part of the world so fascinating. At the Buffalo Bill Museum, the famous showman himself is in residence so his larger-than-life personality comes alive for the kids. They also enjoy the Plains Indian Museum, the Draper Natural History Museum, the Whitney Western Art Museum, and the Cody Firearms Museum. Being able to choose for themselves is part of the fun.
Check out all of our Tauck Bridges family vacations at
tauckbridges.com where you’ll find 19 trips designed specifically for all generations to enjoy together – family river cruises and journeys by land throughout Europe… African safaris and adventures in Costa Rica and Peru… a Galápagos Islands cruise on an expeditionary ship… and trips through the spectacular national parks of North America, with lodgings right inside the parks.