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10 Tips For A Smooth Family Road Trip

Do you find yourself dreading the annual family vacation? Does the idea of a road trip with your kids make your toes curl? Sure, family vacations can be stressful, but the joys can far outweigh the woes if you begin with realistic expectations and plan carefully. The following tips will go a long way toward making your family road trip memorable for all of the rights reasons.

1. Schedule twice as much time as you think you will need. If you are planning a 4-hour road trip to the family reunion, leave 8 hours before the scheduled event. If you arrive early, find a local playground and let the kids run off some steam before they have to politely greet all of their aunts and uncles.

2. Print the map. It tempting to do a quick check on MapQuest and head on out the door. But taking an extra 2 minutes to print out the map can save you two hours of wandering around, lost in Amish country or on the big city expressway.

3. Stay clean. Kids (and parents) get sweaty and grimy on hot car trips, so bring plenty of wet wipes to wash hands and faces at each rest stop. Take a few minutes to de-trash your car at each rest stop, and you’ll feel much more relaxed and energized when you reach your vacation destination.

4. Try to maintain regular routines. Try to get the kids to bed no more than a half hour past their regular bedtimes. If your young children still nap at home, try to arrange a similar nap schedule while on vacation. An all-day adventure will quickly turn to chaos if you two-year-old misses his afternoon nap, so why not plan to enjoy the amusement park in the evening when the weather is cooler and the crowds are thinner?

5. Plan short excursions. This allows you more flexibility to work around nap and meal schedules.

6. Schedule time for goofing around. The kids (and parents) get cranky when they are constantly dragged from one activity to the next. Why not take the morning off to hang out at the hotel pool, or let the kids play with their own toys in the hotel room.

7. Keep plenty of snacks on hand, but skip any perishable foods. A bag of goldfish crackers can be a lifesaver when find yourself stuck in the slow line at Disney.

8. Pack lightly and be prepared to do laundry. Laundry day offers a wonderful bit of downtime during a hectic week of vacation and allows you to travel much lighter.

9. Let your kids take some of the pictures. You will probably be amazed at the quality and creativity of photographs taken by kids. If you want to hold on to the expensive digital camera, why not give each of your kids a disposable camera of their own for the week?

10. Keep your sense of humor! Whether it is a wrong turn, a forgotten item, or even a forgotten kid, it would not be a family vacation if something did not go amiss. But the biggest vacation bloopers usually make the best vacation memories – the ones you and your kids will be laughing about for years to come. So keep a smile on your face at all times. If you laugh, your kids will laugh along with you.

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The Secret To Food Ingredients You Thought Were Safe

These days everyone knows that eating healthier is the key to looking and feeling better and living a long life. The first thing we think of when our doctors tell us to eat healthier is incorporating more fruits and vegetables into our diets. While we need fruits and vegetables for their nutrients, there is something that the government and the Food and Drug Administration don’t want you to know. If fruits and vegetables are the most important foods that we need to be healthier, then why are Americans getting sicker every year and dying of heart disease, diabetes and cancer? Most of the foods and produce that we enjoy today have been genetically modified, which means that the genes of a species of food is being forced into the DNA of another species, causing them to lose all of the nutrients that they once had, which in turn causes a variety of harmful side effects.

GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) are the root cause of most of the deadly diseases that affect us today including Alzheimer’s, cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and even asthma! Why do they put GMOs in food you ask? So they can have a longer shelf life and because it’s easier and faster for manufacturers to produce GMO foods in order to satisfy the demands of the consumers. The foods that we should be eating are not safe anymore. Some of these foods include corn, soybean, sugar beets and canola, which are incorporated into our diets everyday whether we know it or not. Some people think that the reason they’ve been diagnosed with these conditions is because of what they eat when in reality, it’s the chemicals and ingredients in those foods that cause them. Think of those diseases as allergic reactions to all of those unsafe GMOs that are secretly hidden in our food.

Reading the nutrition label of every single item that you buy from the grocery store has never been more important until now. If you want to improve your health, reading the nutrition label is one of the best things you can do to become more aware of what you’re putting in your mouth. Honestly, the government and the FDA don’t care if you get sick from eating foods with GMOs as long as you continue to buy their products. While it’s somewhat impossible to avoid these cancer causing organisms, there are steps we can take to bring more awareness and eventually take them out of our food supply. We should tell everyone we know about GMOs and how they negatively affect the body. We should choose to eat more organic foods because if you’ve ever been to a health food store, their products are mostly made with natural ingredients. I believe that one day our foods will be GMO free and our overall health and well-being will greatly improve.

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What to Look For With Your Cheap Travel Insurance

In 2009, a major financial survey brought some rather worrying figures to light…

Even though only 14% of holidaymakers will need to make a claim on their travel insurance, around three-quarters of us do not bother to take any out at all!

Now this is all a little strange… There are plenty of cheap travel insurance packages to be found online. Perhaps it must simply be put down to laziness?

But taking out insurance to protect you whilst you are travelling overseas is a must!!! It is just as important as remembering to take your passport!

Here are a few things to be aware of when you are organising your cover…

• Higher Prices for the Over 65’s

A traveller over 65 years of age is thought to be three times more likely of making a claim on their policy… and these claims are normally three times the size of one that is made by someone younger. These figures come from The Association of British Insurers and all insurance companies will take them into consideration…

So you can understand why insurance will be more costly for the older traveller. However, some insurers will still be far cheaper than others… So it is still worth shopping around for cheap travel insurance, even when you are a senior citizen!

• The Merits of Price Comparison Sites

Don’t be fooled into thinking that travel agents will provide the lowest holiday cover! This isn’t the case at all.

Taking out your policy at the same time as you book your holiday can result in you paying around 90% more than a cheap travel insurance company!

It is always worth looking for your holiday cover on price comparison websites! This will normally result in you paying a great deal less for your insurance. And if you take out a policy from a company you are already using for something else, then you stand to make an even bigger saving!

• The ‘Multiple Policy Excess’ Danger

You should always make a point of checking the small print in a travel insurance policy. One of the biggest reasons to do this is because some insurers will turn one claim into two separate ones…

Imagine if you fell down a flight of steps and broke your mobile phone. Would your insurance company see this as one claim or two??? It’s your job to find out because it could save you a great deal of money!