Put Puerto Rico on your family's vacation radar

A Caribbean island with beautiful beaches and big resort pools is nice.

Even nicer, especially for families, is a place like Puerto Rico — where there is so much more to do than just play in the waves or hang out at the resort.

I'm not sure why Puerto Rico never crossed my mind as a family vacation spot until now. I suppose I imagined it to be mostly the bustling, urban area of San Juan, and never considered that is also has beautiful beaches, upscale resorts and a wide range of family-friendly activities — some of which were featured on a recent episode of “The Bachelor” as romantic dates.

There's nothing romantic about traveling with my 6- and 8-year-old kids and my 70-year-old mother, but we all had lots of outside-the-resort fun together doing things like:

• An educational hike through El Yunque rain forest and seeing its large waterfall.

• Wandering the narrow streets of quaint, historic Old San Juan, which are lined with restaurants and shops. The area also has two massive forts dating back to Christopher Columbus' time which you can tour, and a large grassy area along the ocean where families fly kites and buy piraguas (snow cones) from a cart.

• A new children's museum, which rivals any U.S. children's museum and features an adjacent go-cart track.

• A ziplining course in the rain forest designed for kids and first-timers.

• Nighttime kayaking (or boat ride) in the bioluminescent lagoons, where the water literally glows in the dark.

Some of these activities are indoors, which can come in handy on a rainy day, but they also provide an education in Puerto Rico's unique culture, interesting history and impressive ecology.

For us, the highlight of our trip was ziplining. Since this was our first ziplining experience, we went to Rain Forest Zip Line Corp., on the fringe of the El Yunque rain forest. This company designed a course specifically for children and “chickens,” but still offers fast, flying-over-the-trees excitement. No line is more than 45-feet high, and at the beginning and end of each line, a strong, first aid-certified staffer awaits you. It brought my comfort level way up.

After a few practice zips on a short, low line, we began a course that gradually got higher, longer and more fun. Early on, my 6-year-old started crying and saying he wanted to go home. The staff handled it perfectly — giving him lots of extra attention and quietly encouraging him that the next line was easy and he could do it. He did, and soon he was begging to go first. (And later, he declared ziplining to be “SO awesome!”)

The new, hands-on Museo del Niño (children's museum) is a five-minute drive from San Juan Airport — something to keep in mind if your family ever has a long layover.

I had no interest in touring the full-sized American Airlines jet parked on the museum's front lawn, but had a blast playing with the high-tech, interactive exhibits. Everything's in both Spanish and English, and bilingual staff members are stationed at each exhibit to explain how everything works and keep order (something I wish Chicago-area children's museums had). Afterward, we zoomed around like Super Mario Kart racers on the outdoor go-cart track.

While the museum was educational, my kids learned the most during our hike in El Yunque rain forest. Our guide, Jose Morales from Rico Sun Tours, teaches ecology at a local college and was a walking encyclopedia of knowledge. He showed us every plant, tree and animal, and explained how the rain forest's plants are used to make medicine (which explains why 12 huge pharmaceutical companies have factories in Puerto Rico).

Morales also took us through the bustling city of San Juan, teaching us about everything from the baseball heroics of Roberto Clemente (a native of Puerto Rico) to fountain-of-youth finder Ponce de Leon (Puerto Rico's first governor).

“Every corner has a little bit of history,” he told us, and he was right.

Anytime a Chicagoan is on a tropical island in January, it's necessary to spend time at the beach and pool. We did a lot of that, at the Rio Mar Beach Resort & Spa. The beach was clean, the sand was soft, and they didn't charge for beach chairs (I hate when resorts do that). While the waves were a little rough, we let them slam into us and laughed when they knocked us down.

The resort's huge pools were mostly around 3-4-feet deep, had a volleyball net and a water slide, and were close to stands selling snow cones, popcorn, woven bracelets and airbrushed tattoos. A total can't-fail for families.

At night, a beach-side gas-fueled fire pit was set up, and for $5, you could make s'mores.

I preferred to eat mofongo, a Puerto Rican dish made of mashed plantains and topped with seafood, along with a frosty cold Medalla Light (Puerto Rican beer I'd liken to Miller Lite). The mofongo at Don Pepe's, a friendly, low-key restaurant near Rio Mar, was particularly tasty. So were their Sorullos de Maiz (fried corn sticks with butter and cheese).

More pluses about family travel to Puerto Rico: you can fly direct from Chicago to San Juan, don't need passports and don't have to go through customs — all huge time savers. Everyone speaks English and uses U.S. dollars.

It's impossible to do everything Puerto Rico offers in a single trip, which is another thing to like about it: you'll want to go back.

• Information for this story was gathered on a trip sponsored by the Puerto Rico Tourism Board.

If you go

<b>Where to stay: </b>Rio Mar Beach Resort, in Rio Grande; www.wyndhamriomar.com; Rates begin at $148 a night plus taxes and service charges.

<b>Details: </b>This 600-room resort has many family-friendly features, including a clean, sandy, solicitor-free beach, a pool with a waterside, and a place that sells cookies and ice cream until 2 a.m. Organized kids activities go on throughout the day, such as iguana feedings and pool bingo. The resort is a 45-minute drive from San Juan, but only a few minutes away from Puerto Rico's best natural areas, including El Yunque rain forest, the bioluminescent kayaking and boat trips, and ziplining. Families are grouped on one side of the massive hotel, and the convention travelers are on the other.

<b>For more info:</b> Puerto Rico Tourism Company, www.seepuertorico.com