If you haven’t gotten the memo, winter’s here blasting freezing temperatures, snow and gray days throughout the United States. Let’s turn this frown upside down, Mother Nature is saying it’s a fine time to begin planning a winter vacation to a warm weather destination.

The folks at TripAdvisor released the “Top 10 Places to Escape the Cold” in its November 30, 2009, Trip Watch enewsletter sparking ideas on where to travel. So which destination is tops on the list?

Cancun, Mexico, where vacationers can escape the cold while dipping toes in sugar-white sand beaches and spectacular, aqua-blue waters. Yes, it’s a popular spring break destination but also has many activities for families including horseback riding, snorkeling, canoeing, and swimming with dolphins. Of course, Cancun has an active night scene to dine and dance. With the favorable exchange rate for Americans, a Cancun vacation is an affordable option.

The other nine vacation destinations making the TripAdivsor list are:

2. St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands
3. Playa del Carmen, Mexico
4. Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
5. Miami Beach, Fla.
6. San Juan, Puerto Rico
7. Honolulu, Hawaii
8. Orlando, Fla.
9. Isla de Vieques, Puerto Rico
10. Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt

Photo: TripAdvisor.com

For those who enjoy spending family vacations in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, or other Spanish-speaking countries then consider getting the little ones a bilingual educational toy from Ingenio this holiday season. This is the first entirely bilingual brand of toys and games in the United States and perfect for preschoolers to 8 years old to learn Spanish. The educational toys teach early learning skills in English and Spanish including reading, writing, geography, math, and vocabulary.

These bilingual educational toys range from tried and true low-tech to electronic learning. Low-tech, but high-learning games include the Spellable(TM) Educational Game and Math-o-matic(TM) Educational Game and the Animals Edition Learning Puzzle. The Smart Projector teaches children how to write in English and Spanish and the Ingenio My First Notebook has eight English/Spanish activities to teach the alphabet, words, numbers, colors and shapes.

Relatively new, Ingenio has already received accolades from the toy industry. Specifically, Creative Child Magazine’s 2009 Top Toy of the Year and the 2009 Dr. Toy’s Best Vacation Product.

Not only are the Ingenio toys educational and fun but affordable. Eight products cost less than $12.99 which means more to spend during a family vacation in Costa Rica. Ingenio is available from Amazon.com and soon at Toys “R” Us.com.

There are nearly 900 World Heritage sites across the globe and most need protection. Last week the TripAdvisor World Heritage Campaign was launched and pledged to support the UNESCO World Heritage Centre by making a call to action for the 25 million TripAdvisor visitors to help protect these sites.

UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre needs traveler insight into hundreds of World Heritage sites and called up TripAdvisor, the world’s largest travel community, and the million members to do this. TripAdvisor members are encouraged to post reviews and opinions to provide much needed information about the condition of these sites so they can be better protected.

Part of this two-year campaign TripAdvisor has pledged to donate up to $1.5 million U.S. of support, including a cash donation to be allocated to UNESCO World Heritage initiatives. Members can visit www.tripadvisor.com/worldheritage to learn more about the program.

So how does UNESCO help protect World Heritage sites? Through sustainable tourism, disaster risk mitigation, climate change research, conservation, and education.

If you’ve visited a UNESCO World Heritage site be sure to share your experience on TripAdvisor. Some of these World Heritage sites include Sian Ka’an, which is easily accessible during a vacation to Cozumel, or Everglades National Park on a Naples, Fla. vacation, or Grand Canyon National Park during Las Vegas vacation.