The Dolomites South Tyrol, Italy

Jamey’s traveled a lot. The band took him all over the country, and he and Melissa have been all over the world. This might be our favorite place we’ve ever been. It’s like Italy said “hold my beer” to Colorado. You’re in Italy, but there’s no Italian anywhere: German signs, German food, schnitzel and strudel and beer. And the Odle spires rise straight out of green meadow until it stops looking real. We’re already making plans to go back.

The huts are the whole system. Every hour or so on the trail you hit a rifugio, the kids get hot chocolate or Skiwasser, we get a beer or a Hugo, everybody eats, and every single one has a playground. There’s no better way to hike with kids. Or, let’s be honest, to bribe them into it.

Our favorite meal of the trip was Alpin Marinzen, the little lift five minutes from Castelrotto. The top is basically a beer garden blasting German music, with a giant playground and a pen of goats. We sat next to an old German man singing along, ordered a schnitzel and a strudel, and the ladies at the next table talked us into some shot with whipped cream on it. Every mountain lunch after that was some version of that afternoon.

46.5667° N, 11.5594° E

The lift days are the ones to copy. Seceda is the ridge with the view everyone’s seen; take the first cable car of the morning, because the line builds fast and the summit packs out. Alpe di Siusi is Europe’s largest high-alpine meadow, and the Witches’ Trail across it is an easy loop the girls handled fine. Up there, aim your lunch at Gostner Schwaige, the tiny dairy hut famous for its hay-flower soup. We aimed, ran long, and missed it, and it’s first on the list for next time; the plateau is lined with huts, so wherever your timing lands, you eat well. Col Raiser is the quiet one: gondola up from Santa Cristina, a gentle walk down to Rifugio Firenze for lunch facing the peaks, same view as Seceda at a fraction of the crowd. And Lago di Carezza, the little rainbow lake, is a 20-minute stop that’s worth the detour. Lago di Braies was on our list and we never made it. We’re going back for that one.

And where we stayed mattered more than usual. Spa Resort Hotel Albion above Castelrotto is the most family-built hotel we’ve found in the mountains: pools, saunas, and an indoor playground with its own zipline the girls would have moved into. There’s even a babysitter on staff, and half-board means breakfast and dinner are handled. Our one honest note is the fancy four-course dinner every night got old by night three; we’d trade a couple of those for more nights at the huts. Book it anyway. The place was unreal.

Two things we learned the hard way. AllTrails times are fiction with kids: a trail listed at an hour and a half took us four and a half, because a ten- and a seven-year-old stop every thirty feet to pick flowers. Seceda said two hours and took most of the day. We missed a couple of lunch reservations and it didn’t matter; we just stopped at a different hut. And everyone warned us the huts were cash-only. Most of them took cards; bring a few euros anyway for the small stuff.

The one big dinner in town worth booking is Ristorante Tubladel in Ortisei; book ahead, it fills. Up here the signs are German first, so follow the German trail names and you won’t get lost. If you’re driving in from Milan, the Duomo is worth the pit stop. The city itself wasn’t our vibe, but standing in front of a church that took 600 years to build is not nothing.