A few weekends ago Justin and I took Mason to North Lake Tahoe for the first time. We’ve been numerous times by ourselves, going on an annual trip with our friends, sans kids, so we decided it was time to see Lake Tahoe as a family. I knew this trip would be way different than our previous ones and I was looking forward to experiencing all the family fun that Northstar and North Lake Tahoe have to offer.
I love Lake Tahoe during the summer. Probably more than I love it in the winter. While it is a beautiful winter wonderland I’m much more of an outdoorsy person when the weather is warm. We did so many fun things during our long weekend away. We went to the lake two days out of the trip one day we played in the lake and hung out on the beach and the other we rented a paddle boat to take Mason out on the lake. He absolutely loved the paddle boat and it was so hard to get him to leave the lake each day.
We played games outdoors with Mason at Northstar and spent time at the pool at our hotel, Northstar Lodge. If you haven’t been able to tell yet, Mason loves the water. We also went on an easy hike around Northstar pushing Mason in his stroller. I loved getting workouts in while having family fun time. I would highly recommend taking the family to North Lake Tahoe. There’s a gorgeous gondola ride you can take from Northstar Lodge up to The Ritz-Carlton. The views are incredible and there is so much to do up at The Ritz. You don’t need to be staying there to take advantage of the outdoors spaces. They have a few different restaurants and a cafe. There are also games set up outside to entertain your little ones! Mason quickly made a friend when we went up for coffee our last morning in Tahoe, only to learn they were also from the Bay Area and were staying at the same resort as us.
Traveling as a family, we get to meet so many other families with kids around Mason’s age. I love that we get to meet and interact with so many more people when we’re traveling. Not to say that we aren’t social when it’s just the two of us, but having your child with you is such an easy way to strike up conversations with other travelers. And getting to see places we’ve been to before but through his eyes is a lot of fun too. Yes, it’s just like home in the sense that we experience meltdowns and times where he’s just not listening but overall I truly enjoy family travel!
If you have kids, do you prefer family travel or adult only vacations?!
As always, thank you so much for stopping by the blog today! Check out the short video below I made of us enjoying paddle boating on Donner Lake.
