The lovable host of the new PBS series Places to Love talks life on the road with her producer husband and 5-year-old twins.
It’s really easy traveling with kids — you just don’t bring them! All joking aside, we love traveling as a family. We especially enjoy Oregon [pictured above] and did a vacation there in an RV that we turned into an episode about the all-American road trip.
I wish we could take our kids everywhere, but at the end of the day I also have a job to do and it’s tough. We filmed in China last year which was hard because I was gone for 14 days and that’s a long time for a 4.5- year-old. We have so many books about when mommy and daddy travel and we have this one called The Invisible String. The idea is that it’s connected to us and so whenever they miss me they know that we’re still connected.
But another good recent experience was on a 10-day drive through California with my family. It was freezing in Los Angeles to the point where we couldn’t really leave the hotel room. And my 5-year-old twins weren’t happy with that. We decided to go into the elevator, and I let them push any button they wanted. Then we would run and have races on that floor. We had about 15 floors to do that on and we had a great time. On one hallway we found a luggage cart and raced with that.
Psychologists say that traveling strengthens family bonds and that memories traveling with one another are actually stronger than other important moments in a child’s life — even their own birthday. One of the reasons why is that it allows kids to see their parents act like a kid. And that has always stayed with me.
— As told to Michelle Gross