The Liberty Bell. Our nation’s capital. The Golden Gate Bridge.  These are the type of landmarks families build their vacations around.  This summer Twizzlers (yes, the red twisty candy we all know and love) is encouraging families to take their own landmark vacations during their Twizzler Landmark Summer promotion.

Build your own landmark itinerary

Trekaroo always encourages families to travel, so teaming with Twizzlers in an effort to get more families to take the Great American Roadtrip was a no brainer. Twizzlers has tools on their site to help families to plan their own trip as well as helpful travel tips.

Giveaways, giveaways, giveaways

Twizzlers knows that you love a good giveaway so they have made sure families have multiple opportunities to win all summer long.  You can enter daily to win prizes such as a GPS, digital camera, national parks guidebooks, and the grand prize- a vacation to your favorite American Landmark!

Of course, Trekaroo had to get in on the giveaway action as well, so stay tuned as we give away fabulous Twizzler prize packs to 10 lucky Trekaroo families throughout the summer (psst- our first giveaway will be here on the blog on May 30th).

Cruisin’ in the Twizzlermobile

This summer, keep your eyes peeled for a super cool minivan decked out with a Twizzlers wrap cruising down the interstate.  Ten lucky bloggers ( including Superoos MamaCheaps and Minnemom)  have been chosen to travel to landmarks around the country, starting in  Rhode Island and ending in Seattle. Each family will take a 5 day road trip to a famous landmark and chronicle the journey on their blogs as well as the Twizzler website. I am thrilled to announce that my family is one of the lucky families!!!

My family will start in Orange County, CA and head up the California Coast (one of our country’s finest natural landmarks) to the Golden Gate Bridge. We are very excited for our road trip, especially since we haven’t been to San Francisco since we moved from Northern California almost 3 years ago. Of course, we are also excited about the massive supply of Twizzlers which will be accompanying us along the way.  I am still trying to convince my husband to walk around the streets San Francisco in a suit made of Twizzlers.  If you see us on the road, flag us down and I will throw some Twizzlers your way!

Follow that Twizzlermobile!

We encourage you to follow all of the bloggers as they take the mighty Twizzlermobile across the country.  As each blogger completes their leg of the journey, Trekaroo will be sharing a road trip itinerary which takes families to the featured destination each bloggers is visiting. We hope these will encourage you to make your own family road trip plans.

The journey kicks off in a few days as we follow Audrey Mc Clelland of MomGenerations.com and her family as they leave Rhode Island for Washington DC.

Let the Landmark Summer begin!

Disclosure: I have been chosen as one of the Twizzlers Traveling Families.  My trip (gas, hotel, food, and incidentals) is being paid for by Twizzlers. I have received no other compensation and opinions stated are entirely my own.

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Sharlene Earnshaw (aka doubleadventure) is Blogger-in-chief for Trekaroo and the blogger behind Double the Adventure.

Travel with kids to: CA | CO | DC | FL | HI | IL | MA | NC | NY | OR | PA | TN | TX | VA | WA

My absolute least favorite part of traveling with kids is dealing with mealtime.  Anybody who has eaten dinner in public with two preschoolers can understand my pain.  Kids can be loud, squirrely, and often have the table manners of a caveman.  It is easy to find a family friendly spot close to home because I am familiar with the area and I know what sort of food and atmosphere the restaurant provides, but when we are traveling to a new destination, I feel like we are at the mercy of whatever chain restaurant is off the interstate.

In an effort to help families travel better and enjoy their public mealtimes more, Trekaroo is excited to announce the recent launch of our Restaurant Review section.  With help from our fabulous Trekaroo members, we have no doubt that this new section will be as helpful to parents as the activity and hotel review sections have been.  We hope that you will share your favorite local dining spots as well as restaurants that your family loved (or didn’t love) while on vacation.

Sign in to Trekaroo and Start writing reviews of kid-friendly restaurants.

Details important to families

In addition to sharing a review of their restaurant experience, Trekaroo families will be able to specify which price category the restaurant fits under and what type of food it serves.  Additionally, they can mark which amenities the establishment offers such as:

Trekaroo is growing.  And I can’t keep up.  So we’re handing the keys over to you.  Emerging from our Superoos in 2010 were a few exceptional families who seemed to have the inside scoop about everything in their area.  We’ve invited them to take on the important new role of Destination Guroo.

This year, we’re committed to making Trekaroo relevant to your everyday.  Many Trekaroo families have already been sharing about their favorite local spots for families. From unique playgrounds, to the best kid-friendly restaurants, to the best events your town has to offer.  Our new Destination Guroos will be helping to organize and spotlight what’s most seasonally relevant and exciting.  They’ll be working closely with the 2011 Superoos to uncover new attractions, exciting events, and family-friendly gems in their destination.

I am very excited to introduce you to our first five pioneering Destination Guroos…

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Sharlene Earnshaw and Michelle McCoy

Destination Guroos for Southern and Central California

Sharlene (DoubleAdventure) requires little introduction.  She has been the editor-in-chief of this blog for over 6 months and has done a phenomenal job featuring the interesting tips you’ve been sharing on Trekaroo.  We’re blessed to have her on our team.  Partnering with Sharlene is Michelle McCoy (McFam).  Michelle joined Trekaroo running 90 miles per hour.  In the short time she’s been part of Trekaroo, she quickly became one of our top reviewers.  Her prolific writing overflows with insight.  She seems to know California like the back of her hand.

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Nikki Stoddart

Destination Guroo for Northern California

Nikki Stoddart (Family VonWang) caught our attention right away when she starting sharing her reviews on Trekaroo.  Her reviews are always filled with helpful tips and a touch of wit.  Nikki is definitely one of those brave moms who hasn’t let having kids stop her from wandering near home and further afield.  It’s no wonder that she was our first pick for being the Northern California Guroo.

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Heather Reed

Destination Guroo for Texas

Heather Reed (slofamilylife) and her family just returned to Texas where her husband grew up. Heather is constantly exploring with her family.  She writes about what parents really want to know about each hotel or attraction.  Her fun loving family also brings the unique perspective of a family traveling with a child with special needs.

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Jennifer Close

Destination Guroo for Northern Florida and Gulf Coast

Jennifer Close (JenC17) has been one of Trekaroo’s most enthusiastic cheerleaders from the start.  She’s written prolifically on Trekaroo, but also on her two successful blogs Two Kids and A Map and Pensacola With Kids. With her extensive knowledge of the Gulf Coast and the Northern FL area, we are pleased to have her onboard.  We have always valued the thoughtful tips she offers about exploring with kids.

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Lisa Marie Leihy

Destination Guroo for Southern Florida

Lisa Marie (Cavalletta) represented Trekaroo on one of our very first Superoo assignments and her professionalism and wonderful writing impressed us from the start.  I am confident that her enthusiasm for helping other families discover is going to allow families to unearth hidden gems in the sunshine state.

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Throughout this year, Trekaroo will be on the lookout for other very special families to be the Guroos of other destinations.  If you think a Trekaroo family has the enthusiasm and chops for this role, I’d love to hear from you.

LiLing Pang (Travelpangs)

CEO & Co-founder, Trekaroo

Drum roll……

Trekaroo’s Superoo Council is proud to present

The Fabulous 2011 Superoos

Meet the 2011 Superoos

The Superoos were handpicked from thousands of  Trekaroo profiles and reviews.  Selected for their remarkable savvy and commitment to helping other families find fun things to do together.  Building a site like Trekaroo takes a village – actually a very large village.  It’s only through the effort of many families sharing about their experiences and answering questions, that Trekaroo is what it is today.

We appreciate the effort of every family on Trekaroo, but these Superoos deserve special recognition.  These members have shown that they never stop exploring both near home and far away.  Most importantly, they don’t sit on their experiences, they share the good, the bad, and the ugly with the community.  They’ve invested hours helping other families on Trekaroo find the best places to spend time together and encourage others to join as well.

In 2010, we sent Superoos on fun assignments across the U.S. to bring you the inside scoop on some superb family-friendly attractions and hotels.  Here is a small sampling of what they reviewed:

• Review of Descanso Beach Club – Avalon CA
• Review of Telluride Ski School – Telluride, CO
• Review of Legoland – Carlsbad, CA
• Review of Boca Beach Club – Boca Raton, FL
• Review of Woodloch Pines Resort – Hawley, PA
• Review of the Titanic Museum – Pigeon Forge, TN
• Review of the Joovy Cocoon

This year, we’re expanding our Superoo program with the help of our new Destination Guroos.  They’ve already started to identify places in their region that are great for families. The Guroos are making arrangements for our 2011 Superoos to make special visits to bring you the inside scoop about each of these locations.  Get to know the Destination Guroos.  We’re excited to hear about all the fun places that our 2011 Superoos will be visiting this year.

To find out more about our Superoo program for elite reviews and how to get selected, read more about Superoos here.

Please join me in congratulating our 2011 Superoos!

LiLing Pang (Travelpangs)

CEO & Co-founder

If you don’t already know what the Cribsie Award is, then you’ve got to get in the know.  Brought to us by A-List Mom, StrollerTraffic and sponsored by Diapers.com, the Cribsie Awards are dedicated to recognizing the best brands, products, services, and websites for babies and tots.  You can be sure that the brands nominated, have been given the thumbs up by a panel of baby and tot experts, and those who win in each category have been declared the best by popular vote.

This year, Trekaroo is honored to be nominated by our fans for this wonderful award.  We were selected as a finalist in the “Smartest Family Travel Tips” category.
You can find Trekaroo listed under WEB > Smartest Family Travel Tips.

Now, it’s time to cast your votes!

If you’ve found the advice of the thousands of parents on Trekaroo (that would be YOU) to be helpful in helping your family plan travel and explore the world together.

Please vote for Trekaroo today.

You can find Trekaroo listed under WEB > Smartest Family Travel TIps.  (Last day to vote is March 18, 2011)

We think the world of Trekaroo families!  Together, we’ve created a wonderful resource for fun lovin’ families and you deserve every recognition.

Post it on Facebook and ask your mommy friends to cast their vote for Trekaroo and all the awesome brands that make the first years of parenthood so much more enjoyable.

Thanks for voting!

LiLing Pang
CEO, Trekaroo

Trekaroo is a reviews website dedicated to exploring and traveling with kids. We’re powered by a community of travel savvy parents.