I travel often with my 2 teens. Here are the 7 tricks that make it enjoyable.

The author shares her seven tips for traveling with teens.Courtesy of the authorI've learned what works — and what doesn't — when traveling with teens.Flexibility matters more than perfect itineraries.

A few simple strategies help reduce conflict and increase fun.When they were really little, we used to call vacationing with the kids "babysitting with palm trees." Now that they're teens, maybe it's more like "traveling with jerks."

I mean, sometimes they're grateful and engaged. But just as often, it can feel like every decision is getting evaluated by the most ruthless, cool-kid jury of tired, bored, entitled judges.We travel a ton, and I have come to realize there are tricks for making your vacation teen-worthy, while still having the best time yourself.

Some are easy, some are annoying. But when the kids are happy, everyone's happy, right?We spend 30 minutes in museums, maxIf you do not have museum kids, still go, but limit your time.

(If you do have museum kids,your vacations are clearly very different than mine.) This is really the key.Even in the NYC area where we live full-time, we visit museums regularly, but we don't stay hours.

Yes, you paid all that money for your ticket, but you get to decide how long to spend there. For my kids, 30 to 45 minutes is often more than enough time to see the stars of the show and pick their favorite pieces to talk about over pizza later.No one gets cranky.

No one dreads the visit. As they get older, maybe you can stretch it.We still do things we can do at homeYes, we all saw the go-cart place we just passed on the highway.

But we are in Barcelona. And why on earth would we waste a precious afternoon in Catalonia doing what we can do 20 minutes from home?Because somehow, it will be an adventure, different than the place back home in interesting and unexpected ways, and you will all actually have fun.

Do it.We like to explore cities in different waysTake a city tour of Budapest, but do it riding a three-wheeled Segway. My kids l