Branson, MO - A Great Whole Family Vacation

This is a great time of year to start planning a trip in 2007. That's basically what I'm personally doing right now.

As I reflect back over the past year our vacation to Branson Missouri this past spring comes to mind. We had the opportunity to stay at a resort called Sunterra. We stayed in one of their units with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, and screened patio. The accomodations were very nice.

Most people know the demographic for people going to Branson is usually a slightly older crowd. We didn't know before arriving that this was also a great place to bring our children.

We did the duck boat tour and it was a blast (a WWII military all terrain vehicle). Everyone on the tour got a quacker to make noise. We rode around the town in our duck boat and quacked at people. The kids were laughing like crazy. Our vehicle drove on trails and then into the water, the kids were amazed. The driver made an announcement would any of the kids like to captain the boat. Both of our kids went up and got their turn (it was a great photo opp). It's a good thing that it doesn't go very fast in the water.

There were a bunch of places to play miniature golf so we picked one with a dinosaur theme. I believe one of them was a pirate theme too. There were tunnels and everything to go through. This was such a great family activity.

Our next activity was going to the Titanic museum. There were many hands-on activities for the kids to do here so we were pleasantly surprised. Things like how long can you keep your hand in this cold water, similar to the temp where the ship sank. There was a piece of a glacier to touch, lifeboats to climb into etc. They had even re-created the grand staircase and it was beautiful. We had a family picture on the stairs, a staff member took our photo. I would go here again someday.

On our last night we went to a dinner show. We went to Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede. Since most shows started too late for our kids this was the only one we planned on going to during our trip. I noticed the kids were so much into the show that they hardly ate their dinner even though the food was good. It was really a great time and even today many months later the kids still say remember when this happened at the show. It was a great end to our trip.

Want to personalize a vacation package to Branson with flight, hotel, and car rental? Just go to the 'vacations' tab at the top of our website, then 'more package destinations', Branson Missouri. You could even stay where we did at Sunterra Plantation At Fall Creek, it was very nice.

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Exploring the Black Forest

A few years ago, my wife and I went to Germany, Austria and Switzerland for our 10th anniversary. It was our first vacation in Europe, and we chose this area because of the wonderful history, the food, and the amazing breweries :) Rather than traveling throughout a large area, we decided to hone in on southern Germany (Bavaria and the Black Forest regions), as well as bordering areas of Austria and Switzerland, visiting Basel and Salzburg.

I'll write more later on the rest of this trip, but for now I want to talk more about the beautiful Black Forest region of Germany - the source region for the Danube River. Our homebase for exploring the Black Forest was a small resort community called Titisee, part of the larger Titisee-Neustadt area. We couldn't have picked a more wonderful place to visit for several days. We didn't rent a car when we were in Germany, so we took backpacks and 'rode the rails' throughout our journey. It didn't take too long to figure out that we were a little out of shape, but by the end of the trip we were so used to walking and hopping from train to train that it was strange to get back in a car again!

On our two week journey, we stayed in small, independently owned hotels, pensions, guest apartments and farm stays, and we never regretted staying away from the big chain hotels! In Titisee we stayed in a guest apartment, and to this day, we are in email contact with the owners - who even had goats in their hilly yard to eat the grass! We even were able to help put the goats into their pen at night (which was VERY interesting, by the way!) It was a remarkable opportunity to really experience the culture in the Black Forest. In fact, one evening after we came back from dinner (yummy by the way!), the owner - Max - asked us if we wanted to go to town for a walk with him. We jumped at the chance, and ended up walking for at least two hours. Max loved showing off his community, and we asked him about a million questions, which he loved!

You can pick just about any community in the Black Forest as a base, and if you are going to Germany, please do not leave this off your itinerary. The train trip into the Black Forest is one of the most scenic in all of Germany, so if you have a chance to 'ride the rails' - I would highly recommend it as well! Also, be sure you don't miss a trip to Triberg, the home of the cuckoo clock and the best Black Forest cake I've ever had!

We booked a vast majority of our travel right here at TravelHunters.com. We booked our flight, many of our small hotel/pension stays, activities, and more - right from one site!

To book a small hotel/pension throughout Europe, just visit this link
To book a flight to any International Gateway, just visit this link
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I also highly recommend going to the famed Oktoberfest in the fall - we had a blast ;)