Top Cities to Visit With Teen Grandchildren

Although not known as a great city for children or teen visitors, New Orleans actually has a lot to offer. Visit the funky shops around Jackson Square and have beignets at Café du Monde. Raise your teen’s social awareness with a Gray Line Hurricane Katrina tour showing areas of the city that are still recovering. Take a ghost tour, cemetery or voodoo tour. You can peer at Anne Rice’s house or walk in the footsteps of Tennessee Williams or William Faulkner.

Walk through amazing Central Park. Catch a Broadway show—more than one if you can afford it. Make the pilgrimage to the World Trade Center Ground Zero. Ride the subway. Go to either MOMA (Museum of Modern Art), the Natural History Museum or the Guggenheim. Ride the Staten Island ferry and see the Statue of Liberty.

Hit Chicago's great museums and institutions, which include the Adler Planetarium, Shedd Aquarium, Field Museum, Art Institute and the Museum of Science and Industry. Then take a break and shop the Magnificent Mile. Walk through Millennium Park. Eat great ethnic food in the various neighborhoods, and finish up with a Chicago Architectural Foundation boat tour of the city.

See the Liberty Bell. Walk down Elfreth’s Alley, the oldest continuously inhabited street in the nation. Visit the Constitution Center to learn about our nation’s most important document. Clamber around on the Battleship New Jersey. Visit Valley Forge in nearby King of Prussia. Get back into the twenty-first century with a Segway tour alongside the Schuylkill River, where you may see rowing teams training. Eat a Philly cheesesteak or two or five.

Visit some famous LA shopping meccas. Besides the requisite visit to Rodeo Drive, put in some time on Robertson’s Blvd and Melrose Avenue. Be sure not to miss Fred Segal. Check out the bodies on Venice Beach. Stay at the kitschy Farmer’s Daughter right across from the CBS studios in Hollywood. If you want to score some tickets to the taping of your favorite show, start early, long before you arrive.

Take a cruise to Alcatraz Island or bike across the Golden Gate Bridge. Take the Go Car GPS guided tour. Go to a Giants game at A T & T Park and sit in the bleachers with some of the craziest fans you’ll ever see. Ride the cable cars; you're a sissy if you don't hang onto the side. Go to Crissy Field to people watch and dog watch. Visit the City Lights bookstore and channel one of the Beat poets. Catch a concert at the Fillmore or go just to see the psychedelic autographed posters.

All teenagers love music, right? In Memphis, visit Beale Street, the home of the blues. Sun Studios was the home of Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash; it is now a National Historic Landmark with tours given seven times a day. Expand your visit to include Nashville, where you can visit the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum, which honors lesser-known session musicians as well as stars. Finish up with that requisite visit to the Grand Ole Opry.

Austin bills itself as “The Live Music Capital of the World” and it offers music in many venues, not just clubs. Your and your teenaged grandchild can go to a coffeehouse or restaurant or patio to hear some tunes. While in Austin, catch Esther’s Follies on Sixth Street and shop the eclectic Drag (Guadalupe Street). Visit lovely Zilker Park and, if it’s summer, take a dip in the spring-fed pool at Barton Springs.