The 2012 PGA Tour is just getting started, and many avid golfers are watching on TV.  Seeing the stars on beautiful courses is also getting a lot of golf fans  inspired to organize a family vacation that includes a couple of rounds of golf  on courses that offer something different than their local club.  But, what about the rest of the family?

Every golfer with kids, teens or tweens knows that balancing golfing desires with competing family interests can be challenging.  If you are lucky, the teens might share your excitement for a family trip to play courses in Ireland or Scotland.  Others, however, might roll their eyes at the idea of hitting the links as the high point of a family vacation.  To keep them happy, you need to plan a vacation that can mix up the golf  with some teen and tween friendly activities.

Here are some destinations in different parts of the country that might fit the bill:

Northern Ohio offers a number of great public golf courses including:

• Avalon Lakes in Warren:  After undergoing a renovation, this Pete Dye winner turned from a boring pancake of a course into a thrilling fun ride.
• Little Mountain Country Club in Concord: a woodland wonder know for its amazing design frequently makes the list of the best public golf courses in Ohio.

Nearby fun activities  for teens include:

• Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky: Cedar Point is located west of downtown Cleveland.  It has 16 (!) roller coasters with reassuring names like Disaster Transport, Mean Streak and Wicked Twister. Turn the teens loose here while you hit the links!
• Jacobs Field in Cleveland : Known locally as the Jake, this is home field for the Cleveland Indians. This old style park is a favo

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QUALITO ISLAND, Fiji — We were dozing on the sand at the edge of the bluest lagoon I’d ever seen when suddenly I remembered. The snorkel trip. Grabbing our masks we rushed to the dive shack, catching the skiff as it was pulling out for the ride to the far side of the lagoon.

“You can’t go home until you’ve seen the Malolo Barrier Reef,” said Kima Tagitagivalu, dive guide at Castaway, a family-friendly resort on Fiji’s northwest coast. He checked off our names and handed us our swim fins. “A few years ago the district chief, Ratu Seva Vatunitu, made it tabu for fishing and collecting. The people — ev

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Seventeen restaurants and hotels in Orange County have earned a top hospitality award for their pampering service and luxurious surroundings.

The seven restaurants and 10 hotels are among 120 that earned the “AAA Four Diamond Award” for 2012 – an annual survey produced by the Automobile Club of Southern California. The four diamond designation is awarded to the top 3.8 percent of 59,000 hotels and restaurants inspected by the organization’s reviewers. Results were released Friday, Jan. 2

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Air travel typically slows in the dead of winter, and that lack of activity can lead to downright ridiculousness. This year, the media is loonier than ever with talk of a Delta-American merger and trumped up airline stocks. Joe Brancatelli shares secrets and proven tips for first- and business-class road warriors. Once upon a time, American Airlines was a true industry leader. Today, the financially struggling carrier may be in line for something it never considered—bankruptcy. The nation’s carriers detail all the ludicrous and infuriating charges they impose on travelers. Yet, in the funhouse-mirror world of airline profits and losses, those extra costs placed on us aren’t doing much real good for them. Find more…

Few holiday classical music concerts draw more devoted audiences than those that take place on New Year’s Eve at two of the Pariss  most splendid and historic churches, L’Eglise St. Germain des Prés and Ste. Chapelle.

Both offer high quality music in particularly atmospheric settings.  St. Germain des Prés, the oldest church in Paris, was built in the sixth century and boasts a Romanesque nave and a Gothic choir with gilded capitals, while Ste. Chapelle is a jewel of Gothic architecture, with radiant stained glass windows.

This year’s program at L’Eglise St. Germain des

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