好英语网全家轻松出游的七个建议
WITH summer just around the bend, many families are planning getaways. But figuring out all the details — from which hotels are child-friendly to how many diapers to pack for that five-hour flight (more is better) — can be critical for a smooth trip. Here are some lessons I have learned over the years, both from other travelers and through my own experience.
炎炎夏日蓄势待发，许多家庭都开始规划出行。不过照顾好所有细节——从哪些酒店更适合儿童居住，到该为五小时的飞行准备多少纸尿裤（越多越好）——对一次顺利的旅行可谓至关重要。这些年来，从我本人和其他游客的经历中，我汲取了一些经验，以下是我的建议。
能在旅游目的的买到的东西，就不要收进行囊里。把多余的配方奶粉、防晒霜和燕麦圈留在家里吧。你可能会为此多花些钱，可这能跟省下来的托运行李费和带来的便捷两相抵销。况且你难免会落下点东西，总归要去当地的杂货店或便利店跑一趟。假如需要花钱购物，你可以把购物清单交给酒店礼宾，支付一定的费用或慷慨的小费，请对方事前帮你购买各类物资。
THINK COMPACT. The more you can leave behind the better, but there are times when taking along a travel bed or a foldable highchair is worth it. For example, when renting a house with friends last spring, my husband and I packed a borrowed BabyBjörn Travel Crib for our daughter, then a year old. Listed at about $220 in a recent Amazon.com search, the bed (which collapses into a compact carry-on that weighs just 11 pounds) isn’t cheap, but it is convenient.
考虑折叠式用具。要尽可能把东西留在家里，不过有时候，随身携带一个旅游婴儿床或折叠儿童餐椅是值得的。去年春天，我们和朋友们租了幢度假屋，我和丈夫给当时一岁大的女儿带了张借来的 BabyBjörn旅行床。最近在亚马逊网站上搜索这张床（它可以完全折叠起来随身携带，重量仅有11磅），价格是220美元左右，不算便宜，但十分方便。
Our friends, who have a 3-year-old, packed the KidCo PeaPod Plus travel bed — a pop-up tent with a blow-up mattress that weighs 6.9 pounds and folds into a convenient carry-on case. We also took our daughter’s Phil & Ted’s Lobster highchair (about $70), which clamps onto most tables and folds flat for easy packing. Sure, we could have managed without it, but it worked perfectly at the breakfast bar and made mealtimes more enjoyable for everyone involved. (Keep in mind that most major hotels will provide a crib. Some, including the Soho and Tribeca Grand hotels in New York, even keep a few strollers on hand to lend to guests.)
我们的朋友有个三岁大的孩子，他们带的是KidCo Peapod Plus旅行床——这是个弹起式的帐篷，配充气床垫，重6.9磅，可方便地折叠，随身携带。我们还带了女儿的Phil&Ted的Lobster型号折叠餐椅（价格为70美元左右），它能固定在大多数餐桌上，并且能平铺折叠，收纳起来很容易。当然了，没有它我们照样能行，但它与早餐吧台可以完美地连接起来，使得一起用餐的一行人都感觉更加愉快。（请记住，大多数大饭店都提供摇篮。其中一些饭店，比如纽约的Soho大饭店和Tribeca大饭店，甚至还备有几辆婴儿手推车，可以随时供客人借用。）
TRAVELING BY PLANE? DON’T STUFF EVERYTHING INTO ONE CHECKED BAG. Airlines are generally losing fewer checked bags these days. But that’s little consolation if you’re one of the unlucky ones whose bag goes missing, especially if all the children’s clothes, gear and toys are in it. As a precaution, pack half of those items in one checked bag and half in another or in your carry-on. At a minimum, especially if you’re traveling with small children, take a change of clothes onboard for the child and yourself. That way, when she spills cranberry juice all over you, or her diaper leaks, you have options.
乘飞机出行？不要将所有东西都装进托运行李里。总体来说，航空公司现在遗失的托运行李变少了。但如果你偏偏运气不济，行李弄丢了，而且里面偏偏装的全是孩子的衣服、用品和玩具，那这一点对你来说无济于事。为了万无一失，可以将半数用品装在一件托运行李里，半数装进另一件，或者放到随身行李中。在最低程度上，尤其是在带着小宝宝出行时，千万要随身带件宝宝和你自己的换洗衣服。这样一来，如果她把蔓越莓汁全都洒到你身上，或者是她的尿布漏了，你起码还有备用的。
DON’T SCRIMP ON AIRLINE TICKETS. When you are trying to stick to a budget it’s tempting to book the cheaper connecting flight or convince yourself that you don’t need to spend $25 extra each way to check that portable travel bed. The nonstop flight and checked bag fees will add to your expenses, but it’s often not worth the risk of missing a connection or the effort involved in schlepping all those carry-on bags. At least one airline, Frontier, rewards passengers with no carry-on luggage or bags that fit under the seat by boarding them early. For more tips on navigating the major sticking points of flying with children, including the challenge of sitting together, see my Nov. 4 article, “Are We There Yet? When Families Fly.”
别在机票上省钱。假如你想严格遵照预算来安排行程，你可能很难禁得住订便宜的转接班机的诱惑，也有可能会告诉自己，犯不着往返各多花25美元托运便携式旅行婴儿床。直达航班和托运婴儿床的费用肯定会增加你的开销，但你要为此冒误机的危险，或是一路辛苦地扛着大包小包，这往往并不划算。有至少一家航空公司，比如边疆航空(Frontier Airlines)，向那些不携带随身行李，或者随身包袋可以放在座椅下方的乘客，提供提前登机的优待。想要看更多关于如何带着儿童坐飞机的贴士，包括怎样才能把座位安排在一起，可以看我11月4日的这篇文章，《我们到那儿了没？当一家人一起飞时》。
GET CREATIVE WITH ENTERTAINMENT. You can quickly turn a luggage rack into an activity gym for an infant by hooking some dangling toys on it. Play-Doh is a godsend when traveling with toddlers who are too young to sit through an in-flight movie and too old to nap in your lap. When interest in that runs out, order ice and extra stirring straws. That kept our daughter entertained for hours after she quickly tired of all the books, stickers and other games we had packed for a two-flight trip to Ecuador when she was about a year old.
在娱乐方面更有创意。你可以在行李架上挂几个晃来晃去的小玩具，一下子就能将它变成宝宝的游乐场。培乐多(Play-Doh，一种彩胶玩具——译注)简直是与幼儿同行时的天赐之物，他们太小，没法坐着看完一场机上放映的电影，但对于在你怀里安然入睡，他们又太大了。等到对它的兴趣也过了，可以要一杯冰块和几根搅拌吸管。在我们女儿一岁左右时，我们连飞了两班机前往厄瓜多尔旅游，她很快就玩厌了我们给她带的所有图书、贴纸和其他游戏，这玩意儿让她高高兴兴地玩了几个小时。
And there are plenty of apps that can help keep older children entertained on long flights and road trips. For app options organized by age, see the Dec. 21 Practical Traveler column, “Apps to Keep Children Happy.”
对于年纪再大点的儿童，还有许多应用软件，可供他们在长途飞行和公路旅行中消遣。想要看按年龄分类的应用软件推荐，可以看12月21日的《实用旅行者》专栏，《让孩子们高兴的应用软件》。
HIPSTER HOTELS ARE GREAT FOR KIDS. Though boutique hotels generally lack child-friendly amenities like children’s clubs or waterslides, parents with older children have told me that such hotels often have other attractions. Many teenagers and tweens love the trendy furniture and amenities like the oversize chess set by the Delano hotel’s pool in Miami or the pet goldfish offered upon check-in at the Soho Grand in New York. And families with young children who wake at the break of dawn often have the pool to themselves while other guests are sleeping off hangovers, as my husband and I discovered a few years ago when we stayed at the Donovan House in Washington, with our daughter, then 3 months old.
时尚酒店非常适合孩子。虽然精品酒店往往没有适合孩子的设施，比如儿童俱乐部或水上乐园，但一些大孩子的家长告诉我，这类酒店常常会有其他吸引人的地方。很多青少年或十岁出头的儿童喜欢酒店时髦的家具和康乐设施，比如迈阿密Delano酒店泳池边的超大号象棋盘，或是纽约Soho大酒店在入住登记处赠送的小金鱼。有些孩子在天蒙蒙亮时就起床了，一家人可以趁着其他客人还在宿醉中沉沉大睡时，独占酒店的泳池。几年前我和丈夫带着当时3个月大的女儿入住华盛顿的Donovan House酒店，当时就发现了这一点。
One caveat: Like many boutique hotels our room had a sexy shower but lacked a bathtub. (We bathed our daughter in the sink.) But at least we could pretend that we hadn’t completely lost our cool.
一点提醒：和许多精品酒店一样，我们的房间也有个性感的淋浴间，但没有浴缸。（我们在水槽里给女儿洗澡。）不过至少我们能装作自己还没彻底丢掉原本的酷劲儿。
MAKE SURE THAT SUITE IS REALLY A SUITE. Many hotels will call a room with anything more than a bed and a desk in it a suite, whether it has a separate living room or not. That is a frustrating misnomer for parents looking to put a door between themselves and their offspring. For example, a “classic suite” at Starwood’s Le Méridien Philadelphia has a partial wall between the bedroom and living area, rather than a full wall and door. There are only three true suites at the hotel, which aren’t sold through the Web site.
确认那间套房真的是套房。很多酒店把设施不仅只有一张床和一张桌子的房间，统统叫成是套房，根本不管房间是否有独立的起居室。对于那些想要用一扇门将自己与子女隔开的父母来说，这种叫法实在让人气结。比方说，在喜达屋(Starwood)旗下的费城艾美(Le Méridien)酒店，“经典套房”的卧室和起居室中间，只有半堵隔墙，而没有砌一整面墙，安一整扇门。这家酒店只有三套真正的套房，而且不能通过网站预订。
Even chains with the word “suites” in their name are not foolproof. Only 10 percent of the rooms at Home2 Suites by Hilton, the chain’s new extended-stay brand, are truly suites with a bedroom and a living area separated by a door. The rest have a curtain that can be drawn halfway across the room to create a separate living area. That’s not to say that these hotels aren’t great for families looking to save money by sharing a room. Home2 Suites offers free continental breakfast and in-room kitchens with full-size refrigerators and dishwashers. But the only way to find out if that room is really a suite is to call the hotel and ask.
即便是冠以“套房”之名的连锁酒店，也未必名符其实。希尔顿(Hilton)欣庭套房酒店(Home2 Suites)是这家连锁酒店旗下的全新延时居住(extended-stay)品牌，但只有其中一成客房是真正的套房，卧室和起居间用一扇门隔开。其余客房可以在房间中拉起一道帘子，隔出一个独立的起居空间。对于那些为了省钱宁愿共居一室的家庭来说，这类酒店倒不可谓不好。欣庭套房酒店提供免费欧式早餐，房间里的厨房配有全尺寸冰箱和洗碗机。不过，如果想确认客房是不是真正的套房，你只能致电酒店前台，亲自问个明白。