A recent New York Times Fashion & Style article explores the trajectory of the sport given the cultural craze. From Staten Island to San Francisco, sales of kid-size recurve bows have more than quadrupled this year!

Whether you have a Robin Hood fan, a small Cossack (a kid into ancient weaponry) or you just love fun, free, urban family activities, you’ve got to check out the Golden Gate Park Archery Range in San Francisco when you’re visiting the city. It’s a beautiful and well-maintained piece of park real estate, near the beach. It’s easy to park and accessible by public transportation. It’s always open for folks with their own archery equipment. If you’re looking to try it out as an activity, you can swing by the nearby Archery Pro Shop, where you can sign up for lessons, rent or buy bows or investigate other equipment. You can also buy bows and arrows on-line.

Many folks first try out the sport at summer camp. My kids got a taste of it at Camp Mather, the San Francisco family camp, located near Yosemite, that is beloved by many city families. The setup at Mather was low-tech and we had a blast. We invested in bows and arrows and started learning about the sport.

The next summer on a visit to my in-laws’ home in a somewhat rural area on four acres on Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula, we built our own archery range. We bought a bale of hay for $8 at a local Feed Store and my kids made a target out of a giant poster board.

You do need space and oversight. Archers need to be at least 5-6 years old or have exceptional dexterity and listening skills. The range etiquette is vital, as safety is paramount.

On a recent, glorious, fall afternoon, with perfect pumpkin light, we made a family outing to the range in Golden Gate Park. There were quite a few free targets. Three other parties were there and the mood was genial. One guy handed out cards for another range down the coast near Pacifica, wanting to make sure we all knew about it (archery buffs are quite passionate about their sport).

There are often Community College and other classes held at ranges, so check out local options. We spent about an hour; all shot a few rounds, and the kids left with smiles across their faces and rosy cheeks.

Getting sucked into a series of books can be a marvelous experience. You become so invested, almost intimate with the characters. Much to my surprise, I am completely taken by Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy and have been burning the midnight oil as I gallop through the three books. I keep putting the reins on my reading because I don’t want it to end.

This summer, on a trip to the Pacific Northwest’s Olympic Peninsula, I insisted we take a 50-mile detour to visit Forks, Washington, home of the Twilight saga. Twilight is a series of four vampire, teen romance novels by Stephenie Meyer. It follows a teenage girl, named Bella, who moves to Forks, Washington and falls in love with a 104-year-old vampire named Edward Cullen.

I have not read any of them and have little interest in the recent wave of vampire chic, but I am interested in the cult fascination of the vampire trend, and thought it might make a fun side trip. If for nothing else, my 11-year-old son has friends who are obsessed with the characters and so I was intrigued.

After much moaning by the three boys in the car, we took the hour-plus trip from Port Townsend to Forks, a sleepy logging town that has become somewhat of a Mecca for Twilighters or Twihards, as they are called.

Let me tell you, this was a mistake. Unless you have a tween daughter or are particularly smitten with the saga, it’s a huge waste of time. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s positive that a little town on the edge has been resuscitated by a literature feeding frenzy, but I didn’t need to waste the gas money. Besides some life-size poster cutouts of Edward and Bella in the surplus store and this hilarious stall for wood bundles cashing in on the sensation, the town isn’t exactly scintillating. I’m sure if I had read the books I would feel differently, but I certainly used up my free pass to make a travel suggestion for the whole family.

If you are a Twihard, there are tours and chotchki shops on the main drag. You can spend the morning hiking in the Olympic National Forest and then make a detour to this two-stoplight town.

Now a trip to Stockholm, Sweden sounds more appealing. I might even be tempted to take a Millennium Trilogy Tour, seeking out all the spots in Stieg Larsson’s mega hit series. The books ooze with Swedish culture. Since reading the books I have baked Swedish bread and grilled my Swedish friends about everything from the incredible caffeine overload the country must experience to trying to keep the Nordic names straight. The tours take visitors around Stockholm to the real and fictional addresses in the books. The tours even make a stop at the 7-11 shop Lisbeth Salander frequents; she seems to live on frozen pizzas.

Interestingly, the global sensation of the trilogy has meant that visits by tourists have spiked whenever books are translated into a new language. The Larsson mystique was amplified by his premature death of a heart attack at age 50, and there is talk that he was mid-way through a fourth novel when he died unexpectedly. Swedish tourism officials have said the fans of the trilogy, along with the royal wedding this summer, have put Stockholm in the limelight and increased tourism traffic.

If you are interested, there are English language tours, tickets cost about 120 Swedish kronor or about $18-$20. Lisbeth and Blomqvist groupies can also purchase a map of the tour’s route for 40 kronor, about $6, at the Stockholm City Museum or the Stockholm Tourist Center.

Brewed Awakenings, Roundup a Latte, Grounds for Perfection, Espresso Yourself and Mocha Motion are just a few of the catchy/kitschy names for coffee shops on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula.  I love coffee, but more, I love the ritual of coffee and am a sucker for the drive-through. It’s still novel to me and is a treat every time.

We travel to Sequim, Washington on the Olympic Peninsula often to visit my in-laws, who retired there from Southern California. It’s in a banana belt, sunny, and the lavender capital of the U.S.  The town is set in a valley. You can see snow-topped mountains from the Olympic National Forest and Park on one side and the Bay on the other side.

Our days are filled with blackberry picking, jam making, biking, hiking and just enjoying the peace and quiet this somewhat remote, unplugged spot offers. I usually get up early and practice yoga on the deck and stay up late reading, an indulgence for me these days. So, when there, I often switch from my regular decaf to caf and look forward all year to frequenting the various, hilariously named, drive-through coffee spots in the area. Prices are no cheaper than SF, LA or NYC, but they do know how to make a good latte in these parts!