We went to NYC for a week, and I planned a packed itinerary. My 4- and 6-year-olds had other plans.

The author wanted to go to museums with her kids during a trip to NYC, but they had other plans. Courtesy of Katrina Donham

New York City was home to my husband and me for six years before we had kids and moved to Asheville , and it will forever be a place that holds so much for us. That's why when the timing, cost, and opportunity aligned for our family of four to vacation there for a week recently, I was chomping at the bit to return, enthusiastic at the prospect of sharing this colossal, important place with our 4- and 6-year-old daughters.

It was easy to have high expectations for a trip down memory lane, but the reality is that any trip with kids will be what it will be, and we can only hope that something along the way — a bump in the road, a detour, a singalong — cements into their memories and crystallizes into sentimental gemstones that they turn over and over in their minds with time.

I created a…