London Calling
Welcome to Lessons from London, the Haines family travel blog. One of my greatest joys in life is traveling. My passport is among my most cherished possessions; and no matter how many times I board a plane destined for a foreign location, I get a little tingle of excitement inside.
Thanks to a chance meeting in a bar on my very first trip to Europe, we're a trans-Atlantic family. My husband grew up in Bungay, England, while I hail from North Carolina. Although our home has been Atlanta, GA for more than two decades, we want our three kids - now ages 12, 14, and 17 - to feel that England belongs to them (and they to it) as well. That's added up to a lot of trips over the years and a couple of short stints living there.
With the UK as our jumping off point, the majority of our travel has been in Europe – for practical purposes but also because I love it. Over the years, however, I've come to realize that what I don't love about travel is the planning, especially when you have three kids. I always start my research filled with energy and enthusiasm, then almost inevitably end up overwhelmed by choices and information. It's no small task to find things that will appeal to five different personalities, especially when kids are part of the mix (I'm looking at you teenagers). It can easily start to feel like a burden, rather than the incredible privilege that it is.
Hence the purpose of this site. The very best resources I have when planning trips are friends and family. Recommendations and advice from these trusted people are like gold. They reduce the stress of planning, cut my research time dramatically – and more importantly, make our trips a lot more fun.
So my goal is simply to share what we've done and what we know. I'd love the site to eventually serve as a repository for travel advice from a larger community, but I'm getting ahead of myself. They say that when writing most anything, the place to start is with something you know. In that case, let’s start with London.