To drive through the southern part of Germany in December and see the long lines of cars with skiing equipment attached to their roof racks on their way to some or other ski resort is bound to make anyone excited! A ski holiday is something that many people can only dream of, yet these guys do it every year.

The excitement of skiing doesn’t only lie in the physical act of speeding down a mountain slope – that is of course a pure adrenalin rush – it’s also about being in the great outdoors. About the feeling of being part of these majestic mountains surrounding you. About knowing that for these precious moments there will be no urgent phone calls to answer or emails to attend to.

Something that every serious skier should invest in is decent quality alpine skiing equipment. Not only is this a prerequisite if you want to become a good skier, but it could also save your life one day. Bad equipment is simply not a good investment. If you don’t want to spend so much money, then rent good equipment instead of buying bad quality equipment.

Of course a ski holiday is not only about skiing. It’s also about making new friends and spending time with them. If you should go to ski resorts like St Moritz, Garmisch-Partenkirchen or Zermatt you absolutely have no choice but to spend your evenings in many of the numerous little restaurants and pubs in these places chatting to your new friends about the day’s adventures.

Sometimes it will be impossible to ski due to bad weather. Make sure to pack something that can help keep you busy on days like that. Ebook readers are getting very popular nowadays, while old-time favorites like board games and musical instruments remain as popular as ever for providing some quality family time during quiet days.

A musical instrument is an option for those of use who love music. In our household we have whiled away many an hour with the help of our epiphone electric guitar. Especially if you are staying in a cute but quiet little log cabin somewhere in the mountains this is an excellent option. If you stay in a hotel you might have to turn the volume down a bit!

Whatever you do during your skiing holiday, make sure to treasure every moment. There might never come a time again exactly like this, with the same friends, the same beautiful weather, the same snowy mountains in the background.

When the winters in the Northern Hemisphere become too much, many people now head to one of the world’s prime tourist destinations: Cape Town, South Africa. This city has turned into one of the top ten tourist destinations in the world during the past decade.

A large percentage of tourists of course visit the city because of its pristine beaches. When their family and friends in the other half of the globe are turning on the central heating, they are tanning on one of the numerous sandy beaches.

Cape Town is a great travel destination for a family. Even with a baby in your family there’s still no reason for not having a holiday filled with sun, sand and sea. When flying in, you can rent a car at the airport. For the baby’s sake try and get one that is equipped with a graco car seat. Then find a guest house that’s baby-friendly and start having fun!

One of the guest houses we recently visited even had a spa baby where we could bathe our baby in the more natural upright position. Not all guest houses will have this of course, but it just shows the level of sophistication of many South African guest houses.

Another favorite tourist attraction of the Mother City, and one that you can hardly miss, is Table Mountain. This colossal massif juts out from the ocean to loom over Cape Town like a mother hen guarding her children. An open secret that all Capetonians know is that if the wind blows on one side of Table Mountain, you are sure to find a peaceful beach free from wind on the opposite side. The view from the top of Table Mountain is incredibly beautiful. You can either hike to the top or take the cable car.

And then there is the V&A Waterfront. Here you can dine at one of the numerous world class restaurants while watching boats come and go in a living harbor. A little further afield you will find the Cape Winelands region – where some of South Africa’s top quality export wines are produced. Another must-see is the Cape Point nature reserve. Here you can take a cog-wheel train to an observation post point where you can watch two of the world’s great oceans meet: the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. There’s also a fine restaurant with views of False Bay and the granite mountain ranges of the Cape Peninsula.

It’s unlikely that you will get a lot of time to read in Cape Town, unless you do so when everyone else is sleeping. If you love reading, make sure to pack your digital book reader. Once the other members of your family are sound asleep, you can proceed to read your best-loved detective story while savoring the fresh sea breeze coming in through the open window…

Winters are brutal. Especially for new moms and their babies. A good idea of something that you can get is a new snowsuit. Sometimes though you can only find the big and bulky ones that are hard to fit in the car seats and don’t protect their face. But there are others out there that do not do that.

Maybe they don’t have a car seat and that is what you are going to get them. The Graco Snugride car seat takes care of the snowsuit problem because it has a blanket slip that goes over the car seat and the baby and goes right over their head to keep away the blowing cold snow and wind. As well it comes with alot of padding and a amazing base that sits snuggled in any car so the baby is always safe.

There are many other things that you can buy the little one too. You can never have enough baby bath towels with the little pockets on the top to stick their heads in. You can also buy a new stroller, diapers, formula and wipes. You sure do go through a lot of wipes and bath lotions and wash.

You can also by baby bath toys. Or they make plenty of different kinds of toy play centers too. There are many different things that you can buy for the new baby of the family. Perhaps get a few things together for the shower and send it to them in a laundry basket. From my experience you can never have enough laundry baskets anyways.

The price of baby items isn’t to bad it just depends on where you go. I enjoy buying baby cloths so I might get something a few sizes bigger so they can use it longer. It is all in what you think they need or what the new parents say they want or need really badly.

You can even look online for some great deals. There are many sites out there that offer everything that you can buy in the store without the high cost and usually if you spend enough there is no shipping. Most of the time you can also have it so the online store sends what you bought to the address of the person you are buying them for. Again it is all in what you feel you can afford as well.

Look for sales because there nothing worse then getting something at one store and finding out you could of gotten it cheaper somewhere else. You can also see if you can go in with a few family members and get one or two big gifts that the baby can grow with. Highchairs are a great gift idea because a mom can use it anywhere and till the child is old enough to eat at the dining room table.