Educational Adventures Disguised as
By Johanna Read
Family vacations should be both fun and educational. Consider these destinations to add lots of learning to your next trip without the kids even realizing it.
CENTENNIAL BRIDGE, PANAMA CANAL
COSTA RICA IGUANAS ©JOHANNA READ
COSTA RICA A Costa Rica trip is like a master class in biodiversity and conservation. Kids will love exploring treetops via hanging bridges and zip lining amongst the country’s 205 mammal and more than 800 bird species or kayaking between mangroves for a closer look at hundreds of amphibian and reptile species. Wildlife is abundant here. Visit to encourage healthy living too – one of the world’s five Blue Zones, where many people live into their 100s, is in Costa Rica.
32 Ultimate Family Vacations | SPRING 2019
PANAMA Transportation and engineering fans can’t get enough of the Panama Canal. Get kids to distinguish the difference between different ships and discuss why the new locks were developed. See if they can figure out why the machines that pull the ships are called “mules”. Turn a discussion of why the canal was built in Panama into a geography lesson, and amaze everyone by watching the sun rise over the Pacific and set over the Atlantic. Add a visit to the Summit Botanical Gardens and Zoo just outside Panama City. It’s an animal rescue centre where kids can get a close-up look at rescued monkeys, wild cats and sloths.
