Where I want to bring my kids next: Oaxaca

I have always wanted to visit Oaxaca, the southern Mexico state stretching between the mountains of Chiapas and the Pacific Ocean. The rich moles sauces, the colonial capitol, the ancient ruins, the lazy beach towns--all of these things have called out to me.

After a friend brought her two children to Oaxaca the city and told me about taking a cooking class, I started to think about bringing my kids. And then I read a story highlighting Oaxaca's many kid-friendly attractions in the San Francisco Chronicle and now I'm convinced I must go. When? Not sure. But it has officially been put on my "places to go list" and moved above Iceland, India, and Morocco.

"It turns out that this place of endless diversions for adults also provides endless distractions for children, especially those with a love of pyramids, dolphins, chocolate, clay and monsters,"
David Frey writes in the Chronicle article. "Bonus points: They just might learn something about the culture without ever seeing a classroom."

Frey brought his 8-year-old twin boys to the state and writes about watching an explosion of fireworks over the city of Oaxaca, visiting a village where the children playing with clay at a pottery shop and learning to weave at a weaver's workshop, running up the stairs to the top of an ancient pyramid, and spotting turtles and dolphins at the beach.