For Paris Permenter and John Bigley, travel and writing go together like love and marriage. The husband-wife team of travel writers has authored over two dozen guidebooks from their home base in the Texas Hill Country.

Paris and John's latest book is the newly-released Open Road's Best National Parks with Kids . Filled with full color maps, color photos, and informative sidebars, this book replaces Paris and John's previous National Parks with Kids book and selects the 21 best national parks for the family market.

What tips do you have for families visiting national parks?

Planning a family trip to a national park – much like planning a vacation anywhere – should start with the whole family working together as much as possible. Assign everyone a task in the vacation planning, whether that means ordering brochures, watching a travel video, or making a list of must-see locations. Even the youngest members of the family can take part looking at photos of the destination and planning how everyone would like to spend the vacation days.

While planning is so important, it's also vital not to overplan or overbook the trip. Leave time for your family to explore the park at a leisurely pace.

How did you become travel writers?

We have been working as travel writers for almost 20 years. We began as general interest writers but quickly decided that our main interest was in the field of travel. Through the years, we've written 27 guidebooks and updated numerous other guidebooks. We've also published over 2000 travel articles.

How do you divide up the work between the two of you?

At any one time, we're working on several projects, whether a new guidebook, an article, or web material. For shorter pieces, one of us works individually on a project while the other works on a different assignment, then we trade work. With guidebooks, we work on different chapters of the guidebook at the same time, later trading material so each of us has worked on the entire manuscript before the book is completed.

When traveling, do you keep a journal and how do you decide what material to include in the book and what to leave out?

We keep notebooks, gathering information on the locations we visit and the people we interview. We also stop at the end of the day and write journal entries in these notebooks with impressions of the places we visited, the best and worst features of each, ways they surprised us, things we wished we had know in advance, etc. We also do a great deal of travel photography, which is wonderful for recalling all the little details of a destination.

How many times a year do you travel?

We generally travel once every month. Along with domestic trips, we specialize in the Caribbean and try to make it to the islands every six weeks or so to see what's new there.

What's next for Paris and John?

Our next book project will be an update and revision of our current Caribbean with Kids , selecting the best family-friendly destinations in the islands. We're also hard at work on our websites, Lovetripper.com (http://www.lovetripper.com), which covers destination weddings, honeymoons, and romantic travel around the globe, and TexasTripper.com (http://www.TexasTripper.com), which covers travels in the Lone Star State.