Indiana
Where children are front and center.
Indianapolis · Fort Wayne · Indiana Dunes
The Journey
Indiana was one of those states we did not have too much prepared for. We simply took the days as they came.
Arriving in Indianapolis, we visited the State Capitol, right in the center of a city that feels very proudly Midwestern. And traveling with our children to all fifty states, how could we possibly skip the largest children’s museum in the world, The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis?
For that alone, Indiana would have been worth visiting.
We spent two days there and still barely scratched the surface. The museum is huge. You cannot miss the enormous dinosaurs bursting through the outside of the building, an Indianapolis icon in their own right. Inside, the girls moved between science, art, history, experiments, and activities that somehow worked perfectly for both of their ages.
We also visited the Indiana Dunes along Lake Michigan, a truly magical experience. Huge sand dunes rise beside the water, with beaches stretching along the lake and trails weaving through sand, forest, and wetlands. For a moment, it hardly felt like the midwest at all.
As we traveled beyond Indianapolis, another Indiana began to appear. Smaller towns, open farmland, college communities, and vast, vast stretches of landscape replaced the energy of the capital.
Indiana did not try very hard to impress us. It just felt comfortable. Almost like home.
Jewish Indiana
In Fort Wayne, we stopped outside Congregation Achduth Vesholom. Being there, it was remarkable to realize that this Jewish community has been part of Indiana since 1848, before the Civil War and only a few decades after Indiana itself became a state.
The congregation began with a small group of German Jewish immigrants who organized to care for the sick and bury the dead. More than 175 years later, it is still here.
Indianapolis today is the center of Jewish life in the state, with synagogues, schools, Chabad, kosher options, and an established community. But standing in Fort Wayne reminded me of something I found again and again across America. Sometimes Jewish life is almost invisible from the highway, yet you turn onto one street and find a community whose roots go back generations.
Jewish Indiana is not enormous, but its roots run deep.
What Stayed With Me
Visiting Indiana I really did not arrive with many expectations. But it turned out to be a beautiful state, especially for a family with young children like ours. We spent two days at an incredible children’s museum, climbed and explored the dunes, stopped at cute little playgrounds, and simply had time together.
Indiana felt warm and homey.
And maybe that is what stayed with me most. Traveling does not always have to be about finding something massive or bombastic. Sometimes there is no one great monument or life changing moment.
Sometimes it is simply about being somewhere new with your family, enjoying the days as they come, and creating memories together. Indiana gave us a lot of those.
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