10 Great Family Vacations

Pack your bags, grab the kids, save money.

Weeklong rate reductions are biggest at specialty outdoor retreats, which are now competing with oh-so-cheap national parks like Yellowstone and Acadia, whose approximately $15 a day price tag can give you camping amnesia—what bugs? What moldy sleeping bags? What freezing lakes filled with leeches? As a result, luxury camp-style options are bringing out the big guns to remind you that there’s no place like R&R under the stars. In some cases, it’s an enormous discount off a multiple-night rate, like $3,500 off the weekly price for a family of four at the Bitter End Yacht Club in the Virgin Islands, or a combined discount and credit, like over a thousand dollars worth of free massages, river rides, and kids’ wilderness camp at the Resort at Paws Up in Montana.

Stay-at-home moms and dads looking for a little one-on-one bonding time can cut their budget in half: If you’re willing to travel midweek, luxury playgrounds like the Viceroy Palm Springs cut their rates by 50%, dropping the rate for a two-bedroom villa from $590 to $295, Monday through Thursday, until the end of August.

But the biggest trend is a complimentary (or greatly reduced-think 50-80%) second room for kids-perfect for long city weekends. Get historical in Washington, D.C., where the Park Hyatt Washington will put kids 16 and under in an adjoining room for only $75 a night, a nearly 80 percent discount off the nightly rack rate; or plan for the future while touring some Boston’s more than 50 colleges and universities with your teenagers. The Four Seasons Boston will give you a connecting room for kids 18 and under at a 50 percent discount with their “Family Values” package, available until Labor Day.