Finding Those Family Travel Books

Here’s the mission, should you choose to accept it: Go to the travel section of the nearest bookstore and see if you can find the family travel books.

I can’t because they’re not grouped together. This is not to say that stores don’t carry family travel books. They do, and there are more titles out there than ever. Both Frommer and Fodor, for example, have a family travel series. John Muir Publications offers books for kids bound for Boston, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., among others.

There are family hiking and adventure guides, family Caribbean and cruise guides, one for visiting the Third World and even a book on trips to minor league ballparks. Most of these guides have been written by parents.

If you are having the same trouble as I am, you might want to try another route. California-based Carousel Press has just published a new catalog of more than 100 family travel books. (For the catalog, send $1 plus a business-size, self-addressed, stamped envelope to Carousel Press, P.O. Box 6038, Albany, CA 94706-0038.)

Check to see if there’s a Family Adventure Guide (Globe Pequot Press, $19.95 ) to the state you’re visiting. These books cover camping destinations as well as lesser known sites and family activities in individual states such as New York, Texas, Colorado and Wisconsin. How about visiting the circus museum in Baraboo, Wis.?

Outdoor lovers will want to pick up one of the “Best Hikes With Children” books (The Mountaineers, $12.95) before their next camping trip. The books are organized by state and offer a variety of suggestions for kid-friendly hikes and nature walks--even pointing out where to spy an elk or ancient pictures carved on the rocks.

City-goers will find the “Places to Go With Children in . . .” series (Chronicle Books, $10.95) extremely useful. For example, the Colorado volume provides information on everything from where to fly a model airplane in Denver (Cherry Creek State Park) to the National Earthquake Information Center to kid-friendly restaurants in Steamboat Springs.

Families on a budget (aren’t we all?) will get plenty of ideas from the new edition of “The Best Bargain Family Vacations in the U.S.A.” by Laura Sutherland and Valerie Wolf Deutsch (St. Martin’s Griffin, $14.95). The duo, moms and travel experts, have compiled more than 250 low-cost destinations, including family camps, learning vacations and beaches.

Those aching to commune with a cow or a horse will find kid-friendly suggestions for farm and ranch vacations in Pat Dickerman’s “Farm, Ranch & Country Vacations in America” (Adventure Guides, $19.95). Dickerman is careful to tell readers which spots are especially good for kids and which are better left to romancing couples.

Sun lovers will like Laura Sutherland’s “Great Caribbean Family Vacations” (St. Martin’s Griffin, $12.95), which offers families an island-by-island tour of where to stay and what to see and do.

For those fantasizing about a luxurious cruise, there’s Candyce Stapen’s “Cruise Vacations With Kids” (Prima Publishing, $14.95). Inside is advice on getting the most for your money and finding family-friendly ships. How about a barge cruise in Europe?

The baseball fans in my house got lots of ideas for future trips from “Fodor’s Ballpark Vacations” by Bruce Adams and Margaret Engel ($16.50). Adams and Engel (who researched the parks with the help of their two children) present 24 different baseball trips to minor-league and some old-fashioned major-league parks. They even tell you where to get the best burger nearby.

Would-be archeologists, kayakers and rock climbers will find more trips than they ever could take--more than 500--in Christine Loomis’ “Fodor’s Family Adventures” ($16). There are recommended outfitters and suggested ages to introduce the kids to diving, sailing, trekking and more. Among the suggestions: an RV adventure.

Inject a little education in the trip with Barron’s new “Geography Wizardry for Kids” ($14.95), which offers more than 150 projects, games, maps and experiments for pint-size explorers. The kids might try telling time all over the world or building a model tepee or igloo. At the very least, the book might forestall the whining on the road . . . for a while, anyway.

I also like Scholastic’s “Read Across America” ($14.95), designed for elementary school teachers but terrific for parents who want to enhance their travels across the country with children’s books set there. Written by Gloria Rothstein, it offers weird facts and activities as well as children’s books such as “Miss Rumphius” (Penguin, $5.99) for those visiting Maine or Tommie dePaola’s “Legend of the Indian Paintbrush” (Putnum, $5.95) for those traveling across the Great Plains.

Taking the Kids appears the first and third week of every month.