San Diego

San Diego Botanic Garden in Encinitas is perfect for a family day trip near kid-friendly beaches, parks, and restaurants.

Alta Vista Botanical Gardens in Vista wasn’t really our destination. We were searching for Brengle Terrace Park, but I noticed on the map that the park has an amphitheatre, the …

Southern California aquarium trips and touch tidepools are almost rites of passage for California kids. Most feature local sea life, and some include tropical highlights from Mexico or the South Pacific. …

Birch Aquarium at Scripps in La Jolla, in my opinion, is the best Southern California aquarium for families.  If you’ve been following my blog for any length of time, you know I’m …

Reader Question: I’m going to Northern San Diego for Saturday and Sunday this weekend.  It’ll be mostly with my 3 year old and myself so I’m thinking about spending most …

It’s no secret that I like to find secret places for our family to explore — wherever we go. This is what I call our Secret Family Hike on the …

Sometimes families ask me for a park with a stream, sometimes it’s rocks to climb, or a shaded oak grove, and sometimes it’s a playground or hiking trails. This park …

In between holiday weekends in January and February (or right after Labor Day) is a less-busy time to visit Legoland California with the Kindergarten and under crew. Here are my …

Legoland California is the perfect theme park for our family — who thrills at building our own LEGO creations and marvels at how model builders can make square LEGO blocks …

Pennypickle’s Workshop Temecula Children’s Museum seems far from Orange County — until you go there. We rarely head inland during the summer, but it when we visited it was one …