Fun with the Family Indiana

VERY USEFUL AND RECENTLY UPDATED - 5th EDITION [2004] IN A NUTSHELL: This a very useful travel guide for local families with children, families visiting for the day, weekend, summer or winter. It is useful for families looking for fun attractions, places to eat, places to stay, shop or just plain out see things. The key here is family travel and fun. HOW TO USE THIS BOOK: The book is organized by region [5] within Indiana making eight separately organized touring regions. Other books in this series have seperated the major cities, making them into touring regions of their own, but this book includes Indianapolis in the "Central Region". Each region has a chapter that begins with; "TOP PICKS". Ten interesting destinations and their phone numbers. A MAP OF the "Southern Indiana" region is on the 2nd page of this chapter and on each of the following chapters the same organization continues with a regional road MAP following the "TOP TEN PICKS". Following the map, the "TOP TEN PICKS" plus many more attractions are detailed covering an average of forty pages per region. At the end of each region's chapter there is a hard-to-miss page titled "ANNUAL EVENTS" which is formatted very much like the "Top Picks" that begins each chapter. "ANNUAL EVENTS" aids in the planning stage so that your excursion may be as well timed and fun-filled as possible. If there is one weakness here, it is the lack of discrimination between the interesting destinations and the world-class destinations. You will have to figure that out for yourself. It is difficult to know which park is best for you and your family and of course which accomodations and/or meals. However, this is generally a personal choice. You will find an extensive "ATTRACTIONS KEY" which aids the reader to quckly see all the ammenities any given attraction has to offer. The format outline above is repeated for the five distinct regions in equal detail. There is alot to go through and you can do it quickly and effectively with this guide. As concise and useful as one can expect for so convenient and portable a travel guide. This 5 th edition is brand new for 2004 and represents the second edition of this book written by Margaret Gisler.

Book is divided into five areas: central, western, eastern, northern, and southern. I found it easy to locate places to go based on region. Book also includes places to eat and stay.

I thought this book gave very good descriptions and fun things to do with the family in northern IN. However, I did find an error in a phone number which made it difficult to locate the Hannah Lindahl Children's Museum. The phone number is 219-254-4540. Also the city was misspelled. It should read Mishawaka. Otherwise, a good resource. The top ten picks were a good mix of things to do indoors and outdoors and all could be done in a day trip or less depending on your starting location.