We Had to Ask . . .

· Hotels without extras. Dud places to stay include any hotel with a "smell" and, Jack Giuricich said, places that "forget to put out good shampoo and soaps that you can take with you." Such extras seemed important to the panel, more so than, say, a comfy bed or clean room.

To Erin Landry, the worst flaw with hotels is that "some don't give you anything to eat for breakfast. I would like a bagel with cream cheese. But some don't even care." Sophie Deixel agreed about breakfast but said that when she and her family were in France last year, they were eating in a hotel "and a frog came out of the kitchen. It didn't make it a bad hotel, but you had to like animals. There was also a sheep near the pool."

· Seafood. For the kids I talked with, seafood crops up way too often on vacation. "Parents always want you to taste some local fish," complained Pablo Drexler Serrano. "It's disgusting. Plus they make you taste the sauce, too." Will Clansky said he keeps trying to remind grown-ups that "I've never really been into shrimp. It tastes like you're eating something raw. But since they like it, they always forget and think I do."

Going vs. Staying Home

One question sounded simplistic when I asked it aloud. Still, it seemed important: If you got to choose between going on a pretty interesting-sounding trip with your parents and staying home (to play with toys, hang out with friends, etc.), which would you choose?

A majority of my sample said they'd rather go on the trip: eight out of 12 kids. Not a resounding shout in favor of hitting the road. Nevertheless, on the bright side, kids who said they liked travel really liked it.

Emily Barkan thought it "would be weird to stay home. I have a scrapbook which I paste things in, so I like to go places so I can add to it. Plus, sometimes I really need a break from my house." Sophie Deixel also would rather go than stay. "I'll go almost anywhere," Will Clansky said. "I even went on a train ride to Florida with 14 Girl Scouts, seven moms and some of the other little brothers. The whole thing took 19 hours."

When I told him about Will's train trip, Pablo Drexler Serrano snorted. "No way," he said. "No chance I would get on that train. If I have a choice about almost any trip, I'd rather be home with Tabuca -- he's a German shepherd -- and Nico the cat. I have my books there, the TV; I have my room and all."

Sullivan Sweet prefers to be in the United States "because they have PetSmart, and PetSmart sells hamsters." And though Sullivan liked Paris monuments and the Metro, he said it's not even close to being his favorite destination. The best? "It's Madison, Wisconsin," he said. "Because I live there."

Peter Mandel is the author of several books for kids, including "Planes at the Airport" (Scholastic) and "Say Hey! A Song of Willie Mays" (Hyperion). He last wrote for Travel on British tourists in New York.