the travelling mom

Traditional family travel can often bring up images of Disneyland, an overcrowded minivan, or all-inclusive resorts with child-minders and large playgrounds. But what's it like to travel as a family 'off-grid', in a non-traditional way?

Friends recently travelled to Thailand on a just such a family holiday. Tim F. and his family aimed to get into the spirit and flavour of how a traditional Thai family lives their lives. That meant leaving the lights and chaos of Bangkok behind for part of their vacation and heading into the jungles of northern Thailand for a farmstay with a local family.

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I've often wondered how Italians became 'the' global coffee cognoscenti. After all, there are no coffee beans grown in Italy; beans are imported from the tropics and roasted, ground, and consumed in Italy in vast quantities. 

It's the ritual of coffee in Italy that has risen above all others, and been embraced world-wide as the favourite coffee rite of many in the western world. Espresso, cappuccino, americano and caffe latte. These are 'foreign' words, lovingly repeated a million times across North America every day.

For a coffee loving traveller, Italy is indeed nirvana; the promised land. While you can go into any local Bar and have a very good espresso nearly anywhere in the country, here are our two favorites for those visiting the heart of the eternal city - Rome.