Illinois is proud of its ties to Abraham Lincoln, which explains why their state slogan is Land of Lincoln. This is obvious when you pay a visit to the capital city, Springfield. With so many Lincoln related activities, you won’t have a problem keeping busy.
Explore the many sites dedicated to the 16th President and use this family guide to the Land of Lincoln to help you make the best of your visit to Springfield, Illinois. We have included many free sites, as well as some that are well worth paying for. There are also several things to do that aren’t Lincoln related, but we’ll get to those later.
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If Bismarck North Dakota is not on your list of places to visit, you need to add it. This city has small town charm, but still offers many options to entertain the family. We found so much to do, if only we had more time to spend here. Read my ten reasons to visit Bismarck with your family.
Little Rock, Arkansas is the capital city and has tons to offer a traveling family. Some people may not consider this place when planning their next family vacation. With so much to do you will surely be planning to come back soon once you have been here.
After a wonderful time in Connecticut and Rhode Island, we were really looking forward to Massachusetts. Our first stop in the state was Cape Cod. Like all the National Seashores, Cape Cod was beautiful and we loved spending time at the beach. Traffic was kinda crazy because of a large rotary plus the primary road switches from two lanes in each direction down to a single lane in each direction. So every time we drove anywhere there was lots of traffic and it took longer than we expected. After visiting the cape, I quickly realized why so many people brave the traffic to find a parking spot near the beach. We loved building sandcastles, watching the seals swim by, and seeing the sailboats. The kids were also able to earn another Junior Ranger Badge and we all learned about the local wildlife at a ranger program about the areas birds.
A couple of years ago if anyone would have asked me if I thought I might go to New York City my answer would have been it is unlikely. If they wanted to know if I thought I would ever be in New York City for Independence Day my answer would have been yeah right. But things change and with our lifestyle being what it is these days I am happy to say that I have visited New York City and during Fourth of July no less! It is amazing how quickly things can change. It is also amazing how our perceptions can change as we add experiences to our lives. Watching the fireworks go off over the Empire State Building was definitely not something I thought I would ever 
experience, but it is an experience I have now shared with my children and something they will never think of as being out of their reach. There are so many things to see and do in New York City that deciding what to miss was tough. We are a budget minded family and we try to see as much as we can when visit each place, but there is always so much to do that we have to miss some stuff. It makes it easy for us that we try to stick with the free and inexpensive options. Aside from the fact that it was our most expensive site rent so far we did manage to see a lot, but not spend a lot while visiting New York City.