Grace Bay Club is a five-star resort perched on 12-mile Grace Bay Beach, in the Caribbean island archipelago known as Turks and Caicos. It's where one lucky family will get to go for an over-the-top five-night vacation worth $16,000. Click here for details on how to become that family and everything that's included in the prize.

Today's featured A-to-Z Family Travel Contest entry comes from Frieda Mullowney, a Condé Nast Traveler reader who lives in Nashville and loves to travel with her two sons, George, 12, and Wyatt, 10. Check out what she's spelled: 

G is for Games: Visit a local book/game store that buys and sells DS, Gameboy, or Leapster games and trade in the old ones for new ones on the return trip.  It breathes new life into any child's handheld gaming system.

R is for Ratty Clothes: Go through your child's clothes and pick the ones you don't want to see anymore for the first leg of the trip.  The bag goes down in size, stays fresh when you leave them there, and allows room for your new purchases. 

A is for Agenda: Have a kid-friendly itinerary for each child.  This gives them a sense of time and cuts down on some of the questions.  These can be made together beforehand--something you type up and print out quickly, or a copy from your travel agent.  They like having their own.

C is for Cooking: Prepare a meal with your child from the country you will be visiting.  Becoming familiar with their food prior to the visit can be meaningful once there. 

E is for Events: Check for local events, even sporting events that might overlap with your trip.  You never know when the Lakers are in town! 

B is for Book Club: Start a family book club a month prior to the trip.  We read Steinbeck's Cannery Row before visiting Monterey, CA.  Wong's Grocery becomes meaningful.

A is for Activity: Create a digital photo scavenger hunt (mine use their iPod's).  Give them a list of meaningful statues, monuments, and significant places and let them check them off of the scavenger hunt list.  Repeating them back to you will engrain them.

Y is for Yearly:  Start planning for yearly family trips with your kids NOW!  There are only so many summers before they are wrapped up in football camp, swim team, or just want to hang with their peer group, and the moment is gone!   

Have you entered our Family Travel Contest yet?  You have until May 3 to blow us away with your creativity and travel-with-kids smarts.

My children with Tlingit kids in Sitka, Alaska, Aug 2009. You don't want to know how many cupcakes we bought at their bake sale.  

If you've read my article "Ten Easy Ways to Make Travel with Kids More Enriching" in The Huffington Post, then you know that most of the ten tips are relatively effortless ways to help your children connect with local kids. That's because I've always found that the most rewarding part of a trip with children is not the landmarks you see but the people you meet. In the spirit of connecting with locals, here's today's featured Family Travel Contest entry, from Andrea Guevara of Orange County, California: 

"Take time to make friends with the locals and a whole new world of possibilities opens up. Traveling with kids is, in my mind, one of the best ways to travel. Just the presence of children often sparks instant conversation which can lead to some of the greatest adventures of your life. The locals know what's good, fun and worthwhile (and they usually love kids). Imagine being the only foreign family at a puppet show in a tiny Italian village; or getting an extra couple hours of snorkeling at the locals' spot in Belize; or eating at the best restaurant in town (and it's not even on Zagat's radar); or a free four-wheel-drive jungle tour for you and your daughter. These are just some of the great locals-only perks that my kids and I have experienced from, well, just making friends with the natives. If you connect with them you will get so much more from your trip and, who knows, maybe even a new pal or two. One great way to start this connection is to stay at a vacation rental apartment, house, or farm owned by locals. Chances are they are proud of their locale and want to share the best of it with you."

It's not too late to enter our A-to-Z Family Travel Contest and share your best tip(s) for traveling with kids. The grand prize? A $16,000, five-star family Caribbean vacation. More details here. 

The Infiniti Bar at Grace Bay Club on the Caribbean island of Turks & Caicos

It's not too late to enter our A-to-Z Family Travel Contest and share your best tip(s) for traveling with kids. The grand prize? A $16,000 family vacation at Grace Bay Club, where you can hit the bar every day, if you like, because someone else will be watching your children in the Kids Town program. Bottoms up!

I've been highlighting the best of the incoming tips here on The Perrin Post, and today's featured tip comes from Corinne McDermott, a Toronto-based mom of two who writes a blog called Have Baby Will Travel:

"My number one tip, whether traveling as a family or as a couple, is to separate all your belongings amongst all your luggage. This way, if a bag gets lost or goes missing, one member of your party is not stuck with nothing when you first arrive. This tip is especially important when traveling with a baby, if baby supplies at your destination are expensive or difficult to find."

My family does the same thing. Although we avoid checking luggage as often as possible, sometimes we're forced to check a couple of suitcases, and for those trips I'll divide our clothes among each case, so that each contains, say, one swimsuit, two shirts, one sweater, one pair of pants, one pair of shorts, one pair of shoes, etc., for each member of the family. That way, should a bag go astray, we'll all be covered for at least a few days. 

Got a travel-with-kids tip you'd like to see published here?  If so, by all means enter the contest and/or share your tip (and your site URL, if you have one) in this comment space. Good luck!

My family loves to visit BIG things--here are my kids with the world's largest revolving globe in the DeLorme map store in Yarmouth, Maine--so I was intrigued to discover that another family is devoting an entire blog to just such an enterprise.

Today's featured travel-with-kids tip comes from Traci Suppa of Go BIG or Go Home, a travel blog chronicling "What Happens When A Small-Town Family Visits The 'World's Largest'...Whatever!" Traci's advice:

1. Lower your expectations. The younger your children, the less you will see/do/accomplish, so just enjoy the small moments. If you can still afford to travel after they go to college, return to see what you missed. 

2. When taking photos, think in terms of what will make the most entertaining image for your holiday cards. Say yes to quirky! Hold up the Leaning Tower of Pisa, or sandwich Mickey between kids kissing him on both cheeks, or sit at the feet of the world's largest garden gnome (our choice for 2010). 

3. Three words: grocery delivery service. When you get home, you'll be too tired and grumpy from Post Vacation Blues Disorder (PVBD) to shop for food. Go online on the last day of your trip, order, and schedule delivery for the day you get back.

Good advice, huh?

It's not too late to enter our A-to-Z Family Travel Contest and share your best tip(s) for traveling with kids. The grand prize? A $16,000 family vacation in the Caribbean!  More details here. Good luck!  

And, if you'd like to read my personal alphabet of A-to-Z tips for traveling with kids, you'll find them in Condé Nast Traveler's April issue or online here.

Two of these kids belong to me, two to Debbie Dubrow, a longtime Condé Nast Traveler subscriber who writes the blog Delicious Baby. We all met up at Molly Moon's Ice Cream in Seattle a couple of years ago.

Have you entered our A-to-Z Family Travel Contest yet?  Submit the best travel-with-kids tip ever and you could win a $16,000 family vacation in the Caribbean. Submit one of the best and you could see it published here on The Perrin Post. Today's featured contest entry comes from Debbie Dubrow, a Seattle-based mom of three who writes about how to make travel with kids fun. I couldn't agree more with her advice, below:

"For me, the most important thing is to allow plenty of time. If you're frazzled and trying to squeeze in too much, your kids will pick up on that.

When you're flying, get to the airport early. You'll have plenty of time to get through security even if there's a long line, and you can get a snack and encourage the kids to run or jump in a quiet gate area (some airports also have a playground).

When you're sightseeing, you might need to divert to a playground, an amazing bakery, or something else that catches your child's eye. Allowing extra time means that you can follow their whim and still squeeze in the Eiffel Tower. Sometimes those stolen moments following a butterfly instead of rushing to see a landmark end up being the most memorable parts of your trip.

Here's one more way to give yourself some time: On the day of your departure, hire a sitter to watch and play with your kids while you make any last-minute preparations. With any luck, they'll tire your kids out before you hop in the car and you'll be significantly less frazzled."

Got a tip for hitting the road with kids? Then by all means enter our contest. Good luck!

In case you're arriving late to the party, here at The Perrin Post we're running an A-to-Z Family Travel Contest throughout April. The grand prize is a $16,000 family vacation at Grace Bay Club in Turks and Caicos. The challenge?  Send us your best tip or tips for traveling with kids. You can enter the contest here. First, though, read these details about the prize and how to win it. 

Today's featured contest entry comes from Jen Leo, who lives in London with her toddler Cora and is co-founder of BestKidsApps. (That's Cora in the photo, on an airplane at age one; the app she's using? FirstWords: Spanish.)

I love Jen's imaginative entry:

G is for Gadgets rule! iPod, iPhone, iPad, Leapfrog--all great for family travel.
E is for Educational! Teaches kids the alphabet, math, storytelling, art.
T is for TEN hours of battery life. You won't believe it till you see it.

A is for Airplane passengers in awe of you--not annoyed.
N is for Never too young. My daughter has been playing apps since she was less than one.

I is for Internet access--download movies/shows/apps before leaving home.
P is for Peace that you'll have when you need it most.
A is for Always buys us an extra 20 minutes at restaurants.
D is for Down time. Yours and theirs.

N is for Not all kids can give it up without a tantrum. Learn to take turns.
O is for One might not be enough!
W is for Wonderful to see your child having fun and learning at the same time.

From my 2007 family album: My husband and our then-four-year-old doing morning calisthenics in our cabin on Celebrity Cruises' Constellation. Why am I sharing this photo? Read on.

Today's featured entry in our A-to-Z Family Travel Contest is from Kim Moldofsky, a Chicago-area mom of tween boys and the founder of MomImpact.com. Remarkably, she submitted an entire alphabet of advice, via 13 sets of consecutive letters:

"Always Bring snacks: Hungry kids are crabby kids (same goes for adults).

Check Departure times: No one needs to get to the airport too early and you certainly don't want to arrive too late.

Eat Frequently (see item 1).

Give Hugs, especially after the inevitable tantrum or meltdown.

Install Just as many apps as you need to keep the kids occupied during slow times.

Know Limits for yourself and your children, and don't push too far beyond them.

Many Nights you will wind up sleeping with your kids instead of your spouse.

Occupy Personal space between your kids so they can't poke/annoy/fight with each other.

Quiet Rest time each day renews body and spirit, especially when followed by a snack.

Some Times you need a break; that's what kids' clubs and babysitters are for.

Unnecessary Valuables should be left at home, but priceless lovies must come with and should be accounted for often.

With Xylitol, your teeth get protection; stick to sugarless gum while on the road.

Yaks, Zebras, koalas, squirrels, deer, naked mole rats. Learn about the local fauna and flora wherever you go."

And now, the reason for the photo: It illustrates six of Kim's tips. My husband and I spend Many Nights on trips sharing beds with our kids rather than with each other. In our cabin pictured above, we were worried that the boys might fall out of the upper berths, so my husband slept up top, while I slept sandwiched between the kids in the big bed, thus Occupying the Personal space between them. Is it any wonder that SomeTimes my husband and I took full advantage of the free babysitting offered by the ship's kids' club?

It's not too late to enter our A-to-Z Family Travel Contest and share your best tip(s) for traveling with kids. The grand prize? A $16,000 family vacation at Grace Bay Club in Turks and Caicos! More details here.  If you'd like to read my personal alphabet of A-to-Z tips, you'll find them in Condé Nast Traveler's April issue or online here. 

It's not too late to enter our A-to-Z Family Travel Contest and share your best tip(s) for traveling with kids. The grand prize? A $16,000 family vacation at Grace Bay Club in Turks and Caicos. More details here. 

So many clever tips have been streaming in from moms and dads that, as promised, I'm going to start sharing my favorites here. As some of us prepare for spring-break trips and others for hitting the road with our kids this summer, the advice should come in handy.

First up, this tip submitted by Jamie Pearson of Travel Savvy Mom: 

"K is for Kicking. Kids of any age can't help kicking the airplane seat in front of them, but toddlers seem to actually enjoy it.  The people in front of them?  Not so much. Physically restraining your child stops the kicking but starts the screaming. Avoid this nightmarish scenario altogether by reserving your family's seats in consecutive rows instead of side-by-side. It's counterintuitive, but the best seat assignment for your husband is the one directly in front of your toddler."

Personally, I always make my boys take their shoes off on the plane so that, if they inadvertently kick the seat in front of them, the impact isn't as bad as if they were wearing shoes. But Jamie's tip is better, and I wish I'd thought of it back when the kids were toddlers.

Got a tip you think should be featured here on The Perrin Post?  If so, enter our contest or share your tip (and your blog or site URL, if you have one) in this comment space. Good luck!

Enter our contest and you could find yourself here.

Have you got an awesome tip for making travel with kids easier or more fun? Then by all means enter our A-to-Z Family Travel Contest. The prize is five nights for one lucky family at Grace Bay Club, a five-star resort on the Caribbean island archipelago of Turks and Caicos. 

Even if you don't win the grand prize, you could get published here on The Perrin Post or in the pages of Condé Nast Traveler. I'll be selecting the best tips submitted to the contest and featuring them here in April and May. 

But here's the best reason to share your travel smarts:  With spring break upon us and the summer travel season around the corner, parents need all the help they can get. So let's pool our hard-earned family-travel wisdom. Frankly, I see it as a public service. If more parents felt equipped to introduce their kids to other countries and cultures, it would go a long way toward solving many of the world's problems. Is there any better education -- or incubator of global understanding -- than travel? 

But you're probably still thinking about that flashy $16,000 prize, so here's what it includes: 

* Five nights at Grace Bay Club in a two-bedroom villa that accommodates two adults and two children (age 17 and under)

* Membership for the two children in the resort's Kids Town Club and Very Important Kids program

* Full American breakfast for four daily, $100 spa credit, complimentary Wi-Fi and international phone calls

* $2,000 toward four airline tickets

Equally important, here's what you need to know to rock this contest:

"It's not a lazy river--it's a crazy river!" said my six-year-old of the mile-long whitewater ride at Atlantis in the Bahamas. It's actually my favorite ride in the whole 141-acre water park. My husband filmed it with his waterproof point-and-shoot camera (and with our six-year-old practically in his lap) so I could experience it vicariously while stuck in our hotel room chained to my laptop during the first three days of our recent Bahamas getaway. On our last day, not only did I finally hit the rapids, but my eight-year-old insisted I accompany him down The Abyss--a water slide with a near-vertical drop of 50 feet inside a dark tunnel. Never again. But I did have a blast racing all three boys (husband included) down the high-speed Challenger Slide that clocks your times.

The thrill of victory: My six-year-old raced my eight-year-old down The Challenger Slide...and won!

Note the absence of theme-park insanity in this view from my 21st-floor balcony at The Reef, one of the five hotels that comprise Atlantis in the Bahamas. 

Just back from my second visit to Atlantis, the behemoth Bahamian waterpark resort that practically every East Coast family ends up at for one school break or another. The biggest question most families face: Which of the five hotel towers to choose? I spent my first visit wishing I was staying at The Reef.  I spent my second visit actually staying there. Here are the five reasons why I think it's the best choice for most families:

1. It's an oasis from the crowds and craziness.

The Reef is situated at one far end of the Atlantis complex--the less built-up end. When you need to venture into the hubbub--say, the restaurants and shops of Marina Village--you can just hop on the resort's shuttle bus. There's a shuttle every 15 minutes. And the supervised kids' club, Atlantis Kids Adventures, is only about a 10-minute walk from The Reef.

2. You get your own kitchen--plus a grocery store and Starbucks.

This saves you from having to spend a fortune on restaurant meals. If you're like my family, you won't even need to purchase a dining plan. Just an elevator ride from your room, in the lobby, is a well-stocked Starbucks that sells not only breakfast foods but also sandwiches and salads for lunch. Also in the lobby is a small store where you can buy milk, bread, cold cuts, ice cream, and the like. Prices are expensive compared with the

My sons were 3 and 4 when we rented a villa in Jamaica. We could not have had more fun, been more comfortable or safe, or gotten better value for our dollar. Read all about why. 

"We are a Mom and Dad and three boys, ages 5, 3, and 1, and we love to travel. My oldest son has entered Kindergarten this year. Therefore, I now have to battle vacation time with the rest of the school-age groups. Any suggestions for a sunny Presidents' Week Vacation or Spring Break in April to avoid the crowds? This is painful for me because I usually love finding the "deals" at the off-peak times. I do have plenty of AAadvantage miles to use. Thanks!"

by Wendy Perrin

Attention, families: Just a quick reminder that Walt Disney World's unprecedented buy-4-nights-get-3-free deal (which includes 3 days' worth of free theme-park tickets) ends this Sunday, March 29. It's for travel to most Disney resorts from April 27 through May 18, May 23 through June 6, and June 26 through August 15. By all means, book your trip through Susan Kelly of Travel Magic, the Disney specialist on my list of the world's best travel agents. She's been to Walt Disney World more than 20 times and knows every resort, restaurant, and ride like the palm of her hand. She advises 300 families a year on everything from bed configurations at your hotel to the perfect spots for viewing the parks' shows, parades, and fireworks. (She's at ask@travelmagic.com or 800-810-2844.)

by Wendy Perrin

Just stumbled upon the hilarious TravelSavvyMom.com article "Weirdest Places I've Changed a Diaper" and, after reading the comments from the like-minded moms who've been reduced to all manner of embarrassing diaper-changing scenarios worldwide, couldn't resist sharing this photo of yours truly back in October 2005, changing my then-one-year-old's diaper in the Piazza del Campo in Siena, Italy:

Yes, that's the same piazza where the Palio is run. I kept Doug still by giving him a view of the Palazzo Pubblico and its campanile.

All I can say is thank God my days of diaper changing on the road are over.

That's my 5-year-old at Loterie Farm, Feb. 18, 2009.

by Wendy Perrin

Remember when I asked the Twitterverse for travel tips for the island of St. Martin, and DineSXM recommended zip-lining and lunch at Loterie Farm? Well, I just wanted to report back that the three males in my family loved it so much they did it twice.

Loterie Farm is located on the French side of the island, in a 150-acre rain forest preserve at Pic du Paradis, St. Martin's highest point. There are three different tree-tops challenge courses to choose from: junior, adult, and extreme. Leave it to my family to test all three.

Each ropes course includes all manner of challenges in addition to zip-lining: You get to walk tightropes, crawl up net ladders, swing on ropes from platform to platform, etc. I feel like my sons came away having learned the basics of mountaineering.

That's my 6-year-old on a cable suspension bridge.

Personally, though, my favorite part was lunch: