Grant Museum of Zoology

Be warned: the museum of zoology isn’t for the faint of heart. Elephant skulls, cries of animals, shark bones and halves of heads are among the thrilling exhibits on display. For added thrill, head to one of their evening events, like their regular ‘Dead Life Drawing’ sessions (8), where you can improve your drawing skills by drawing the exhibits.

Brunel Museum

Nearly 200 years ago, Isambard Kingdom Brunel started work on the Thames Tunnel. It opened in 1843, gathered a crowd of 50,000 Londoners on its first day, and has been a popular attraction ever since. At the Brunel Museum, you can learn the story behind this great work of Victorian engineering. Guided tours will take you into the huge entrance chamber.

Pollock’s Toy Museum

Pollock’s is named after Benjamin Pollock, the last of the Victorian toy theatre printers. In a pair of unrestored Fitzrovia townhouses, you’ll find this collection dedicated to the world of play. And no, it’s not all Barbies and Kens: you’ll find some displays of board games, marbles, puppets, wax dolls, dolls’ houses. Oh, and the world’s oldest teddy bear, and an Ancient Egyptian toy mouse, made out of Nile clay.

Old Operating Theatre Museum

Restored with original fixtures and surgical instruments, the UK’s oldest purpose-built operating theatre sits in an attic at the top of a Southwark church. Climb an unsteady wooden staircase, and you’ll find yourself transported back to the world of nineteenth-century medicine, when surgery tended to involve things like saws.

The European Towns and Cities That Are Magical at Christmas

The town of Hallstatt and its beautiful landscape enjoy UNESCO protection. The old townhouses, tiny lanes and snow make this the ultimate destination forgetting into the festive mood. Hallstatt’s Christmas market is the stuff of legend. Picture a brightly lit tree and stalls selling decorations and handicrafts and you’re halfway to imagining just how special this spot is.

Valkenburg has much of the usual European Christmas charms to attract visitors. However, what makes it special is the fact that they can all be found underground. The town’s Christmas Caves have become internationally renowned, with a wide range of stalls selling festive gifts and decorations. The larger Municipality Cave is home to one of the largest indoor Christmas markets in Europe.

Wroclaw is regarded as one of Poland’s most beautiful cities, but it takes things to another level at Christmas. The city’s Christmas market is home to over 250 stalls and a superb fair. The architecture here captures the Christmas feeling too, with Gothic structures meaning everyone can tap into the special feeling that only comes round at this time of year.

Gothenburg is full of festive surprises for those willing to risk traveling north and brave the Scandinavian chill. And chief among them is the Liseberg Christmas Market. Set in an amusement park celebrating its100th anniversary in 2023, visitors can enjoy rides here and taste delicacies (佳肴) from across the country, including pickled herring, reindeer and spiced wine.

William Lindesay, well-known Great Wall expert and conservationist, and his wife Wu Qi have traveled across the globe by the back paths, providing their sons Jimmy and Tommy a unique environment for personal growth.

Sunhats, backpacks, sneakers and trekking poles—these are the day-to-day must-haves of the family. This East-meets-West couple started traveling while their younger son was still a baby in 2003. Most of their trips are far from the hot spots recommended by travel guidebooks—heritage study in the Mongolian deserts, a 53-kilometer hiking tour of New Zealand, a one-day climb of three English summits and a six-day train ride from Beijing to Moscow.

“Real travel may be hard, uncertain, uncomfortable, but there’s a feel-good factor when you pass a test of some kind,” Lindesay wrote in the family’s newly published travel memoir Pages of Discovery.

Lindesay attaches great importance to learning out of the classroom, saying that children might score well on school tests, but that experience of the world outside, in distant lands, with different languages, scripts, political structures, and religious beliefs, is the real testing ground.

Children in this international family did not have the same pressure to perform on school tests, but they had “homework” on the road. Wu asked her sons to write travel diaries, collect tickets, draw maps and summarize travel tips. She says such habits, though they might not directly improve test scores, will pay dividends in later life.

These experiences certainly shaped their sons’ characters and influenced their chosen study at university. One read world history, the other international relations. The two brothers also share an interest in historical monuments, and the Great Wall in particular. They are now planning to follow in their father’s footsteps with a new 4,500-km hike on the Great Wall.

“My parents view the world as a big classroom, and my brother and I are the biggest beneficiaries,” Jimmy says.