With the calendar turning to spring and with summer just around the corner, it is time to start thinking about what you and your family is going to do to celebrate the biggest and best summer holiday.  While it is true that 4th of July vacations are not nearly as well adhered to as they used to be, there are still plenty of families that look at this particular day as a perfectly good reason to pack up the car and the kids and head out of town.

Of the many highly rated 4th of July vacation spots that a family can travel to, there are few sites like Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  By going to Philadelphia you are visiting a city where the events that the holiday celebrates first started in motion.  There are several different spots in downtown Philadelphia where any historically avid family members will find themselves lost in the past, walking the same cobble stone streets that such luminaries as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson once strolled.

Boston, Massachusetts is another city that a family who is looking to celebrate the past for a great 4th of July vacation should make sure and visit.  Boston is another harbor of the past with areas of the town that might have been restored to their former glory, but not actually updated with the times.  These old style buildings can make visitors feel as though they are indeed back in the era when the declaration of independence was signed and the country known as the United States of America truly sprang up.

But if you are truly to find the best of all the 4th of July vacation spots you should take a trip down to Williamsburg, Virginia.  Here not only can you envision what the past centuries were like when America was just a fledgling nation, but you there are even opportunities to reenact these happenings.  Whether taking a tour of buildings that have been left standing and rebuilt to exacting detail, or taking part one of the most famous witch trials of the colonial era, the family who takes a trip to Williamsburg over the 4th of July weekend is reliving the past the right way.  Eating in taverns that serve food that was popular during that era cooked by gourmet chefs who know just how to prepare the delicacies of the era and the region is just another of the hundreds of ways the vacationing family can entertain themselves.

The 4th of July is a unique summer holiday because it is the only one that has a truly patriotic holiday dating back to the beginning of the nation.  While hotdog cookouts and hanging out at the lake or a swimming pools is certainly not a wasted way to spend the holiday but if you want to truly celebrate the holiday while paying tribute to those who came before you, spending the day looking into the past is the best way to go about holding the celebration.  Visiting one of these historical cities is also a way to show the young ones that history can be both informative and fun.