Flashback: Parks, Parks, Parks

It seems the gaping hole in travel literature, is a guidebook to parks. Not National Parks for hiking and camping, but local playgrounds. Even in the Bay Area where I have lived most of my life, I haven't found a definitive guide to local parks and playgrounds, online or in the bookstore. Most of the parks that I've found locally have been by word of mouth ...

And city and town Parks and Recreation departments websites are lacking. They have an egalitarian approach that treats the neighborhood park with one playscape the same as the large city park with a duck pond, water feature, and preschool and school age playscapes.

So, one of the most difficult tasks before traveling with children is to research the local parks. Even with a good sense for local parks, once at your destination more research is required.

Parks are essential for everyone's peace of mind. Your child gets the opportunity to interact with local children, be noisy, let off steam and have fun in an informal setting. I found to prevent melt downs that I needed to include at least one hour playing in a park everyday.

One of the things we appreciated most about Austria was the abundance of fabulous parks. It is worth the extra research...