How to Make a Wine Country Getaway Family Friendly Leave a comment

My kids hate mushrooms. But on a recent visit to California wine country, they couldn’t get enough of them. As we hiked through the woods on a Sonoma County wine estate, Jack and Lia trod through mud and poked through leaf litter in search of camouflaged caps. “Kids are great foragers,” Donna del Rey had replied when I’d asked the owner of Relish Culinary Adventures in Healdsburg, Calif., if her wild mushroom foray—a morning excursion with two mycology experts, followed by a four-course lunch—would be suitable for a 6- and 9-year-old. It was true, and they didn’t just gather: They hoarded, stuffing our bag with samples. Big, small, trampled, slimy; it didn’t matter. And if I was disappointed that none of what we found was edible, to them it was all the better.

Granted, most travelers come to Sonoma County for wine, not mushrooms. Then again, most also arrive without young children. But this fall, I was faced with a travel dilemma. My husband had a milestone birthday approaching; we’d put off planning because of the pandemic, and I wanted to do something more exciting than serve him a homemade cake in San Diego.