Cheap Family Vacations - Some Suggestions
The real secret to cheap is to be opportunistic. When a friend offers you their cabin on the lake, say yes. Can you have as much fun at the cheaper, closer amusement park? Then that's where you need to be. Do the kids like the idea of cooking dinner over a campfire? Drive right on by that reastaurant. Find out what everyone really enjoys.

It's sad to spend MORE on a trip for LESS enjoyment.Examples Of Cheap Family VacationsIn Michigan, and many other places, you can find reasonable motels on the beach. Cheaper, and usually more scenic, are the numerous campgrounds on the beaches of Lakes Michigan, Superior, and Huron. You can find these in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and in Ontario, Canada. Below are a couple beach-based vacation ideas.Treasure Hunting VacationsTwo metal detectors will cost less than a few nights with the family in a hotel. Why not camp near a ghost town or beach, and spend your days hiking, exploring, and hunting buried treasure? We always find interesting things when we take our metal detector to the beach.

The kids will love the adventure, and when they get bored with digging up quarters, they have swimming nearby.Beachcombing VacationsThis is cheap, and the whole family can enjoy it. You can find all sorts of things washed up on the beaches of the Great Lakes and the Oceans. In Michigan, we used to find bouys, parts of houses, and light bulbs. The light bulbs actually worked, a mystery solved years later when a sailor told me they throw them overboard for target practice. We were finding the ones that escaped the bullets.We also found chunks of coal that had fallen off freighters.

We burned them in the campfire. We found balloons with messages attached, sea shells, fossil rocks, odd-shaped driftwood, pieces of styrofoam big enough to use as rafts, and - you get the point.Camping VacationsIf your family is willing to live in tents for a few days, or if you already own an RV, camping is the cheapest of cheap family vacations. We recently stayed at Williams Landing in Florida for eight days. We stalked alligators, watched armadillos walk through camp, saw a dozen other forms of wildlife, and sat around the fire trading stories with new friends from England and Texas every night. The cost, including the hot showers: zero.

Woodall's catalog, available at any big RV dealer has listings of free campgrounds.Other Cheap Family VacationsHow about a Montana testicle festival? Festival vacations can keep the whole family happy. You'll usually find carnival rides, music, events, contests, and more. By the way, Montana's testicle festivals are billed as family events, but good luck trying to get the kids to eat the "Rocky Mountain Oysters."Boondocking is all about parking your recreational vehicle where you don't have

Walt Disney World, did you know that....?
Disney World never, ever has any ?lost children? at their theme parks. It is the parents that are lost! Cast members undergo special training to make sure that children who become separated from their parents are made to feel comfortable. This way is it hoped that the children will not become stressed and it makes it easier for the missing parents to be found. The bricks in Cinderella?s Castle become smaller the higher up they are. This is a particular method called ?forced perspective?. It gives the appearance of the castle being taller than it actually is. Every mosaic in the Moroccan pavilion in Epcot has one cracked or flawed tile within it. Artisans, who were brought to Orlando from their home country of Morocco, created the mosaics and their belief is that only Allah can produce something which is perfect. So in order to respect this belief they purposely included flaws in all the mosaics. Animal Kingdom is the largest Disney theme park in the world. It is five ...
Disney Character Meet and Greet - part 2
Disney Character Meet and Greet ? part 2 ????. continuing on from my first article about Disney Character Meet and Greets: If your child wants to specifically meet one of the characters, you can call in at Guest Relations /b in any of the parks or City Hall /b at Magic Kingdom and ask them where this particular character will be appearing that day. Ask the Cast Members /b in the parks where and when your favourite characters will be appearing. They have a special telephone number which they will call for you to find out. If you are visiting Animal Kingdom early in the morning, walk over to Camp Minnie-Mickey /b as this is the least crowded place and time to meet your favourite characters. Everybody else will be heading over to the Safari ride or Expedition Everest. So you?ve found the characters, what do you do now? If you know what time they will be appearing, try to arrive a little earlier /b to avoid having to wait in a long line. Make sure your chil...
Spiderman the Ride - Universal Studios Islands of Adventure
The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman is located in Universal Islands of Adventure. The ride is based on a state of the art 4-D experience that totally immerses the riders in a visual and physical onslaught from start to finish. If you have not been on this ride before I would seriously recommend it! Having not really been a fan of the 3-D style rides and preferring the roller-coaster style on offer I was a bit dubious of the intention of a 4-D ride. I must admit I was also taken back by the age of some of the riders themselves, some as young as 4 years old. This ride was bound to be not as good as I had imagined. The entrance to the ride itself is set back into the scene of comic book land and as such the only thing that tells you it is the Spiderman Ride is the sign above the entrance door. They have made you think you are entering the daily bugle offices that are set in lower Manhattan, New York. If you hit the ride at peak times or during the summer months the wait can be...
Daytona Beach - Alternative day out
When looking for a day out away from the hustle and bustle of Disney why not look towards the Florida coastline to get away from it all. The East coast of Florida is around 1 hour from Orlando and is within easy reach due to the excellent freeways that take you there. The part of the East coast I am going to talk about is Daytona and surrounding area. Daytona is well renowned for its World famous speedway circuit; however it is the beach area that draws in the mass crowds. Mile after mile of flat sandy beach area is the main attraction and due to the beach being on the coast it tends to have more sun in the summer months than the Orlando area. We tend to go to Daytona beach in our second week of our holiday once we have done a few of the Disney or Universal Theme parks and are looking to do something a little different rather than the rides and attractions. We always tell guests no matter how hard they think they are to day on day on at the parks it is always nice to be abl...

to pay. If you aren't sure that kids will enjoy being in the middle of nowhere, find a ghost town or other treasure hunting locale. In Arizona, an old Mayan Indian showed us where to look for arrowheads, semi-precious stones, and ancient pottery.

The desert is a great place to escape to in the winter, and treasure hunting is cheap vacation as well.There are many more cheap family vacations, and many ways to keep any vacation cheaper. Stock the cooler with 25 cent pop instead of paying pop-machine prices. Keep the kids full on healthy snacks to avoid restaurants. Be an opportunistic vacationer..