Springfield, Illinois: A Family Guide to the Land of Lincoln

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.

A Family Guide to the Land of Lincoln, Springfield Illinois

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10 Reasons to Visit Bismarck With Your Family

Little Girl holding a Native American dollIf 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.

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Exploring Little Rock Arkansas with Kids

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.

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Exploring Oklahoma’s National Parks with Kids

Oklahoma's National Parks

There are three National Park Service sites in the state of Oklahoma. Each one of Oklahoma’s National Parks provide a unique and interesting experience. They also provide a glimpse into the history of this unpredictable land.

Washita Battlefield National Historic Site

The National Park Visitor center at Washita

The visitors center in Washita is fairly new and is a great place to begin exploring the area. Watch the video shown here because it really explains it’s importance historically. Explore the museum, it is small, but does a great job showing what happened at the site.

Once you have finished drive down the road a short distance. There is a wonderful self guided walking tour of the battlefield. Make sure to grab the book available at the entrance to the trail. It will help you to understand the event that occurred at this site. Take turns reading it aloud as you walk the trail, there are numbers in the book that correlate with numbers along the trail.

Although what happened here was very tragic, it is an important part of American history. Children, as well as adults, can learn from our nations past mistakes. It is a beautiful landscape and once you see it you might understand why the Native American Tribes fought so hard to keep it natural. The trail is easy, our six year old had no problem walking the entire length.

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13 Cheap or Free East Coast Places to Take Your Family

Family vacations can get expensive, especially on the east coast. The following is a list of family and budget friendly places you should visit.

1. National Naval Aviation Museum

This museum is located on an air force base in Pensacola Florida. Due to it being an active military site there is some security to go through before getting inside. It is well worth it though. The museum is huge. You will see airplanes from all over the world and spanning through time. Also make sure to get on the trolley tour of the back lot, where you will see some of the planes they can’t fit inside the museum. Kids will love getting inside some of the planes, the best part is that it’s free.

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Ships and Shores

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.

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You Win Some, You Lose Some

Trouble Right From The Start

I was so excited to see New Jersey the garden state and had high expectations for our visit. It probably didn’t help to have the governor shut down all the state parks right when we arrived at our camp in Jersey city, but like always we just tried to make the best of it. So some of our Jersey experiences were not so good and others were great. It is just like we always tell the kids, ‘life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react’. So we took the bad in stride and tried to make the best of our Jersey experiences.

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An American Tradition

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.

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