If you've got younger dudes in the family, you need to get over to Discovery Place in uptown Charlotte. It's a blast for families young and old. This is hands-on science, the kind of science that excites kids and propels them toward learning even more. I can't tell you the number of times my three little dudes and I have come home from Discovery Place and immediately hit the internet or library to learn more about a subject.

In addition to the permanent exhibits, Discovery Place also hosts a number of traveling exhibits for shorter periods of time. For instance, January-April of this year will see CSI: Crime Scene Insects making Discovery Place its home. Kids will get to learn about human decomposition and how the life cycle of certain insects can fit into that and help solve crimes.

In addition to a relatively nice cafe, Discovery Place also hosts an IMAX theater usually showing three to four nature documentaries. The underwater films are especially awe-inspiring on the huge IMAX screen.

Charlotte, like some other cities around the country, has a great history and present of having great parks. The times I've been with my little dudes here to Park Road Park have been great. The park has great play areas for the little dudes as well as attractions for my older teen dudes. This is only one of Charlotte's parks. No matter where you live, you're probably close to one, either a small, neighborhood park or a large, megapark, like this one and Freedom Park.

For more information and a list of activities, go to their website at http://www.parkandrec.org.

I'll be honest with you. I've never understood the concept of destination malls. That is, malls that position themselves as places to go for fun and, if you want, you can actually go shopping at the stores there.

Still, that's the Concord Mills business plan. They've got NASCAR SpeedPark arcade, a Lego store, a Dave & Buster's game restaurant, a movie theater and a few other fun-ish places to go.

Hey, when it comes right down to it, it's a mall. Bigger than most, but still a mall.

The Great Wolf Lodge is a chain of destination hotels in a number of locations, all of which have in common that there's nothing there to go to except the Great Wolf Lodge. Basically, they're trying for a theme park hotel and they come pretty close.

All Great Wolf Lodges have an indoor and outdoor waterpark, as well as a lobby decked out in mountain chic, along with a few creepy animatronic things for kids.

What they're most famous for, though, is the MagiQuest game running at all hotels. This (expensive) game sets players up with an instruction book, a magic wand and lots of time. The kids race through designated areas of the hotel trying to find the plot tokens of a fantasy novel.

This Great Wolf Lodge is significantly smaller than the version in Dallas, TX. Still, it made for an all right overnight with mine and the brother-in-law's family.

NASCAR's SpeedPark in the Concord Mills mall in Concord, NC, is, well, it's all right. Basically it's an average fun center, but with a NASCAR theme. They also have go-cart racing, but it's really nothing special, nothing you wouldn't find elsewhere. Plus, as an added bonus, it's even more expensive than in other places.

I wouldn't go out of my way for it.