With the holiday season approaching and people making plans for the winter break, I decided to gather my “intel” about some of the destinations for which we have a Leap & Hop. Every week, I will focus on one destination and provide some tips gathered from my own family’s experience or trusted sources who travel the way we like to travel with our kids. Let’s start with Cambodia and, more specifically Siem Reap with kids. As […]
The summer is upon us and many will go to or through New York. This blog post will give you a taste of the stuff that’s in our Leap & Hop New York and a little more. With kids of different ages and interests it’s hard to find the right balance. When I say “balance”, I mean balance between museums and playgrounds, nice restaurant and street food, public transportation and taxis, etc. You are pressed for […]
During our visit to Sichuan, the first day was dedicated to cooking. Sichuan cuisine is so unique, that the only way for the kids to fully appreciate (and maybe tolerate) the various spices was to learn how to prepare a traditional Sichuan dish or two. Grandma was also very pleased to have new exotic recipes to bring home. On the menu: cold noodles, cooked greens, meatballs, ma po tofu, and kung pao chicken. The class began in […]
It’s cold, it’s raining, it’s Paris in February, no surprise there. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still the most beautiful city in world. Traveling with my 11-year old son in my hometown, I realised that if I was going to jump from the Louvre to the Eiffel Tower I needed to get some warming fuel on the way. To fight the cold and the intermittent rain, we spiced things up with pit-stops in search of that scrumptious hot chocolate. Our […]
It’s this time of the year again in Paris: time for the Harvest Festival in Montmartre. This edition will be the 82nd Harvest Festival and the theme is “Our Planet”. Starting in 1934, Parisians have celebrated every year the harvest from the small vineyard perched on top of Montmartre in the north of Paris. This is the only time of the year that the vineyard is open to the public. Reservations are necessary for the visit on October 9. […]
For some of us, the summer vacation is not quite over, there are a few days left. Kids are back and hopefully over the jet-lag. How can we make the most of these last moments if we are trying to hold on to this vacation feeling. Let’s pretend we’re just visiting Hong Kong. Here are a few ideas of things the tourist in us will enjoy with the children. 1. Treasure Hunt in Sheung Wan I-discoverasia and the Hong […]
One of the reasons I write the Leap & Hop series is the excuse I get to do research with my own children. In addition to the actual trip and testing of the drafts as a family, I need to find out what would peak a child’s interest. Sometimes, I’m totally off but there is no better feeling than getting it right. One of the subjects that I wanted to explore with my 8-year old while […]
You might think that Beijing is not an ideal choice for a three-day weekend with an eight-year old in the middle of July. I was dreading the pollution and had avoided Beijing for a few years because of the smog but when the opportunity came to go again, we dusted our old guidebooks and took off. At first glance, there seems to be very little online about things to do with kids in Beijing that do […]
Photo Credit: Boddi Chrin It’s July, you’re in Paris with your kids and it’s unbearably hot. I’ve been there, I grew up there, so I know … Paris is not always equipped to handle such crazy temperatures. After you’ve exhausted all the big museums and reached your limits with hoping from shop to ice cream parlour, you may want to try other “cool” places to take your little ones that generally don’t make it to the top 5 places to […]
Leap & Hop Paris is coming out this week in Hong Kong and around the world but since I’m in Paris, I wanted to have the opinion of a couple of French kids. Can Pierre-Oscar, a local 10-year old, and his brother, Felix, 7, enjoy a quiz walk around the artsy neighbourhood of Montmartre written for children coming from other countries to visit their hometown? Well, the answer was a resounding “oui”! We met in front of the […]
Leap & Hop 