Family Getaways | ParentsSquare

Ready Reckoner for parents who want to travel with children

Children are wonderful travel companions. They are curious, enthusiastic and adventurous. They carry no intellectual baggage. Their eyes look at everything with that wonderful curiosity which makes a sky look blue, a leaf green and a kingfisher such a magnificent bird to watch. I have a 10-year-old daughter, Megha. I have been travelling with her… [ Continue Reading → ]

Places to See with Your Curious Preschooler

If your preschooler is at that wriggly wiggly, thousand-questions-a-minute stage, then you know its time to get out of the house and playground, and explore the world beyond. And this doesn’t just mean visits to those “compulsory” places like the zoo, natural history museum, planetarium, or even the railway museum. Your child, and you too,… [ Continue Reading → ]

Tips for traveling with kids

Beat boredom: Take along plenty of games and toys which your child can play with in a bus, train, car or plane. Magnetic boards that double up as blackboards are great. So are small 4 to 6-piece puzzles. Crayons and felt-pens are great for do-anywhere, anytime activities. Remember to take along plenty of used-on-one-side-only paper… [ Continue Reading → ]

The Making of a Porpoise

It’s that time of the year again. Hot, hot and hotter. And humid to boot. Two months of summer holidays stretch endlessly with nothing more exciting than sitting indoors with holiday homework, the same old puzzles that have been done to death a gazillion times and blocks that really ought to be put away forever…. [ Continue Reading → ]

Hill Tales by the Lakeside

Remember the movie ‘The Sound of Music’? One of my most vivid childhood memories of the film was about the picturesque lake where Maria (Julie Andrews) takes her young charges boating, with snow-covered mountains in the background. Years later, the memory assumed reality when I went to Nainital, in the Kumaon hills of Uttar Pradesh…. [ Continue Reading → ]

Flying with your Toddler

Traveling alone can be stressful enough, but add a two year old and the stress could be compounded, since you are so worried firstly about him staying well and secondly that he does not become too much of a handful and land himself in trouble. Start with packing two carry-on bags. A diaper bag with… [ Continue Reading → ]

Cave Art at its Best: Ajanta caves

I could feel it moving and as I heard the soft humming of its engine, I shut my eyes tight. “I don’t understand why anyone should be scared of flying,” said my brother, helping himself to a handful of chocolates served by an airhostess. I decided to ignore him for a while. We were on… [ Continue Reading → ]

Poetry in Stone in Sikar

It’s on a hill called Harshparvat beside a sleepy village, Harshgaon, near Sikar in Rajasthan. The uphill drive, or if you like climbing rocks, the trudge uphill, to see the remains of the beautiful Bhairavnath temple is certainly worth it. A half-hour’s drive from Sikar, the place makes you feel like time has not progressed… [ Continue Reading → ]

Have a Safe Journey

Traveling is great fun. Be it your little three year old or your elderly parents, the thought of going out of the city even for a brief while fills them with a sense of excitement and anticipation. To feel close to nature you would like to move with gay abandon but it would make sense… [ Continue Reading → ]

The Almora Magic

The name Almora brings a flood of memories. This is where I was born, this is where I spent my summer holidays, away from the blistering sun in the plains, and made many unshapely snowmen in the winters. Perched atop the five-kilometre long horse shoe shaped ridge of the Kashaya hill in the Kumaon reigon… [ Continue Reading → ]