One of the things we dreaded about planning a vacation was our toddler’s 8 p.m. bedtime. We envisioned ourselves either hiding out in our hotel room’s bathroom watching movies on our iPad through headphones or being “those parents” who risked going downstairs to the tourist-only bar with a barely functioning baby monitor.
You can certainly find child care on the road — in fact, many resorts offer it up front to families. Nevertheless, the idea of handing over your kid to a complete stranger in a city you aren’t familiar with can be as nerve-racking as it is grossly overpriced. When you stay local, you can put your regular babysitter to good use so that you can have a completely relaxing adults-only night out. We enlisted friends and family who lived nearby to watch our daughter so that my husband and I could see a play one night and go to a cooking class another.
