Norie Quintos
10 Guides Who Could Transform Your Trip
Posted by Norie Quintos on April 29, 2011 
Duncan in Scotland, Mauricio in Patagonia, Heath in Tasmania, Jay in Wyoming, Ibrahim in Iran, George in Kenya. As we were planning this year’s “Tours of a Lifetime” feature, knowledgeable and yes, good-looking guides from my own past trips kept coming to mind. I realized that the people whose job it is to show us…
Mainland Ecuador with Teens
Posted by Norie Quintos on November 17, 2010 Senior editor Norie Quintos, who edits the annual Tours of a Lifetime package in the magazine, recently returned from a trip to the Galapagos and mainland Ecuador with her teen sons. This is the last of a four-part series. Click to read the first, second, and third posts. A confession: Travel editors don’t always plan…
Galápagos with Teens: Weird Science
Posted by Norie Quintos on November 8, 2010 Senior editor Norie Quintos, who edits the annual Tours of a Lifetime package in the magazine, recently returned from a trip to the Galápagos Islands and mainland Ecuador with her teen sons. This is the third of a four-part series. Click here to read the first and second posts. As a mom who likes to sneak Good Things into her kids (a…
Looking for a Few Good Guides
Posted by Norie Quintos on September 27, 2010 We’re hard at work on our annual Tours of a Lifetime issue, which lists the 50 best guided tours of the year. (See last year’s package here.) You can’t have a good tour without a good guide, so we’re putting a call out to our readers to tell us about the best guide they’ve ever…
Galapagos with Teens: Surf or Turf?
Posted by Norie Quintos on August 24, 2010 Senior editor Norie Quintos, who edits the annual Tours of a Lifetime package in the magazine, just returned from a trip to the Galapagos and mainland Ecuador with her teen sons. This is the second of a four-part series. To see the first post, click here. The biggest logistical decision travelers to the Galapagos face…
Galapagos with Teens: Lessons from a Dead Man
Posted by Norie Quintos on August 10, 2010 Senior editor Norie Quintos, who edits the annual Tours of a Lifetime package in the magazine, just returned from a trip to the Galapagos and mainland Ecuador with her teen sons. This is the first posting of a four-part series. As a single mother, I take every opportunity to introduce my boys to good male…
‘Tis the Season for Campus Tours
Posted by Norie Quintos on April 8, 2010 Senior editor Norie Quintos and her son visited Boston recently to check out the college scene. I’ve entered a new life and travel phase: campus tourism. While I sometimes feel as if my college years were not that long ago, my growing grocery bill and my children’s growing shoe sizes remind me that it’s…
Bottoms Up on Cape Horn, Chile
Posted by Norie Quintos on January 19, 2010 Senior editor Norie Quintos, who edits the magazine’s annual Tours of a Lifetime issue, is just back from a trip down South (way down) to Cape Horn, the Straits of Magellan, and Tierra del Fuego. It’s the dawn of a new decade. And I’m at the end of the world. Specifically, it’s 01/01/10 and I’m at…
Kenya Retrospective
Posted by Norie Quintos on September 17, 2009 You’ve helped plan my Kenya trip and been with me through the paperwork, vaccines, and packing. You were even with me as I blogged my way through the trip itself, sharing my thoughts on designing a trip with teens in mind, the conundrum of the Masai Mara, and the questions raised when visiting the slums.…
Friends with Benefits
Posted by Norie Quintos on September 14, 2009 Senior editor Norie Quintos, just back from a weekend in Virginia’s Northern Neck, filed this report. Originally, I was supposed to go camping on the beach in Delaware with my friend Scott, but work piled up and we seriously needed Wi-Fi. Serendipitously, friends offered us their vacation home in Irvington, Virginia. Even better, we could…
Fall for a Girlfriends Getaway
Posted by Norie Quintos on September 3, 2009 I love vacationing with my family, but there’s something so carefree about traveling with girlfriends. A time to pamper, shop, dine, and dish, these typically long-weekend getaways rejuvenate and strengthen gal bonds like no other. Last year, my friend Carol and I drove to Virginia’s sleepy Northern Neck for a weekend visiting wineries and enjoying…
London with Teens
Posted by Norie Quintos on September 1, 2009 Traveling with teens to London? Senior editor Norie Quintos shares some hard-earned lessons from a recent visit with her 13- and 15-year-olds. Check past blogs on traveling with teens to New York City and Kenya. Give them a preview: Provide some context before your trip, not necessarily with history books but with novels (Sherlock Holmes,…
Back to School
Posted by Norie Quintos on August 31, 2009 Senior editor Norie Quintos has been blogging about her recent trip to Kenya with her teen sons. Click here to see her previous posting. Back in my college days, when I was young and idealistic, I spent two months with an NGO helping to build a school in Kilifi, on the Kenyan coast. We mixed…
The Masai Mara Conundrum
Posted by Norie Quintos on August 20, 2009 Senior editor Norie Quintos has been blogging about her recent family trip to Kenya. Her previous posts in this series include on traveling with teens, taking care of paperwork, staying healthy, and packing. From Laikipia, we flew by prop plane (via Nairobi) to the Masai Mara, the fecund savanna immortalized by many a nature documentary.…
Kenya Safari with Teens
Posted by Norie Quintos on August 12, 2009 Senior editor Norie Quintos, just back from an African safari with her teenage sons, filed this report. Previous blogs in this series include taking care of paperwork, staying healthy, and packing. Norie’s teenage sons swim in the Ewaso N’giro River Teenagers act as if they’ve seen it all, and in many ways they have–most have…
If You Build It…
Posted by Norie Quintos on July 31, 2009 Ever drag your kids through a famous architectural building to find them resistant, unappreciative, and underwhelmed? Help now comes from the folks at Lego, which recently unveiled the latest in its Lego Architecture series, the Guggenheim Museum and Fallingwater, both Frank Lloyd Wright designs. Let the kids build it (you may need to help younger…
Packing for a Big Trip
Posted by Norie Quintos on July 7, 2009 As National Geographic Traveler senior editor Norie Quintos readies for a family trip to Kenya (with a stopover in London), she shares her packing tips in this posting, the fourth in a series. Click to read posts one, two, and three. I hate packing so much that I’m procrastinating by writing this post on packing.…
Staying Healthy on a Kenyan Family Safari
Posted by Norie Quintos on July 1, 2009 It’s less than a week until senior editor Norie Quintos‘s trip to Kenya with her teen sons. In this posting, the third in a series of blogs on her trip, she covers vaccinations/medicines. Find the first and second posts here. The glossy catalogs filled with pages of majestic elephants, lions in mid-roar, or huggable baby…
Prepping for a Family Safari in Kenya
Posted by Norie Quintos on June 15, 2009 It’s less than a month to senior editor Norie Quintos‘s trip to Kenya (her third) with her teenage sons (their first). Here’s how she’s been prepping. This is the second in a series of blogs on the trip. Click here to see the first. Kenya currently remains under a U.S. State Department travel warning due…
How Guided Tours Can Save the World
Posted by Norie Quintos on May 11, 2009 Senior editor Norie Quintos, who edits the annual Tours of a Lifetime special issue currently out on newsstands, talks to Jim Sano, president of San Francisco-based Geographic Expeditions, one of the oldest and most trusted guided tour operators in the country (NOTE: not associated with National Geographic Expeditions), about where the industry is headed and…
Tours of a Lifetime: River Cruising Through Europe
Posted by Norie Quintos on April 28, 2009 Contributing editor Margaret Loftus will help you decide if a European river cruise is right for you. Check out our May/June 2009 50 Tours of a Lifetime issue for more great tours. By its nature, riverboat cruising is a far more intimate affair than the behemoths that cruise the open seas. Last year, I spent…
Low-Carb(on) NYC Weekend with Teens, Part 2
Posted by Norie Quintos on April 17, 2009 Senior editor Norie Quintos recently visited New York City with her teenage sons, trying to go as green as possible. Here’s Part 2 of her report. To see Part 1, click here. What to do We picked up bikes from Bike & Roll (from $10 per hour), which has several locations, including one at Pier…
Low-Carb(on) NYC Weekend with Teens, Part 1
Posted by Norie Quintos on April 16, 2009 Senior editor Norie Quintos recently visited New York City with her teenage sons, trying to go as green as possible. Here’s her report: Getting there: The train, the most eco (as well as the most comfortable) way to go, was too expensive, so we took one of the many inter-city buses that ply the busy…
Amazing Race for Regular People
Posted by Norie Quintos on December 23, 2008 It takes a pretty nervy guy to launch a new business in this economy. But Steve Belkin thinks he’s got an idea that will sell. The inveterate traveler and former television producer’s new venture is a tour company called Competitours, in which teams of two (couples, friends, parent-and-child) travel through Europe completing “challenges” and competing…
Obama Bump in Kenya: Plan My Trip
Posted by Norie Quintos on December 22, 2008 The tanking international economy has led to a tourism downturn throughout the world, with the notable exception of Kenya, where safari operators are reporting brisk bookings following the November election of Barack Obama, whose father hailed from the town of Kogelo in the western part of the country. “We’ve seen a 12 percent increase since…
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