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Did you remember to pack everyone’s rain gear?

With such unpredictable weather patterns these days, you never know when it’s going to rain on your vacation. If you are in the mountains, you can probably count on afternoon thunderstorms, but you can get drenched at the beach, theme parks (we memorably were stuck in a tropical storm at Walt Disney World once), Hawaii or when you want to explore a new city.

Travel insurance is a good idea as it can cover flight delays and cancellations due to the weather, said Meghan Walch, InsureMyTrip’s director of Product. It might cover you for extra hotel nights, meals or rebooking. “If you're looking to cancel before a trip because it's going to be rainy the entire time, your best bet is Cancel for Any Reason coverage. This must be purchased soon after you put a deposit down, but it allows you the flexibility to cancel a trip at least 48 hours before departure – for any reason and receive 50 percent to 75 percent reimbursement of your prepaid, nonrefundable trip costs, Walch said.

There is now also WeatherPromise, which has just partnered with Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy, making them the first global hotel company to help guests rainproof their vacation. Like airlines ask if you want to add travel insurance when you book, you can add WeatherPromise when you book a trip on Homes and Villas by Marriott. This pays you if there is excessive rain. Each WeatherPromise offer balances price, triggers and overall experience for your trip, automatically monitoring the weather using data from satellite, weather radar and weather stations. The price depends on the specific location and season. Unlike travel insurance, you will be compensated if it rains enough to trigger a payout.

Of course, there are plenty of ways to have fun the old-fashioned way, despite bad weather. A rainy day is ideal to sleep in, maybe have a room service breakfast if you are at a hotel, watch a movie together or play board games.

You’ve just got to be able to pivot. For example, say you are in Vermont and your hike or kayak trip gets rained out, there’s always the fun Ben & Jerry’s ice cream factory tour in Waterbury. Factory Tours USA lists 540 different tours.

If you are in a big city, see if you can get tickets to a matinee performance of a touring production. We just saw the very funny“ Forbidden Broadway: Merrily We Stole a Song,” a satirical roast of more than 30 Broadway hits with crazy costumes and silly spoofs at the Denver Performing Arts Center. (The production is now touring around the country, including Houston, Detroit, Dallas and Costa Mesa, California. Typically, tickets will be less than on Broadway.

Then there are museums. If you are in Washington, DC, The Smithsonian operates 17 museums, plus the National Zoo, which are all free, though free entry passes are required at some, including the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Air and Space Museum and the National Zoo.

In Denver, the Denver Art Museum (we love the Creative Hub with its hands-on art-making projects) and the interactive History Colorado Center are free for kids and teens.

In other cities, you may find your annual passes to science, art or children’s museums near your home will get you free admission.

Free or not, there is a wonderful array of new museum exhibits around the country this summer.

In San Francisco, the de Young Museum has just extended Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64 through Oct. 5 with its behind-the-scenes view of Beatlemania captured in more than 250 photos alongside video clips and archival materials.

In La Jolla, California, Shark Summer takes center stage at the Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, including shark exploration stations, shark feedings and shark sunsets every Thursday.

In Boston, The Art of Being Green Gallery has opened at the Boston Children’s Museum. This exhibition, presented by Artists For Humanity (AFH), provides a platform for young artists to share their evolving voices and ideas, and each piece is accompanied by a statement from the artist, giving viewers a glimpse into their creative process and unique perspective. Museum visitors are invited to take inspiration from the green-themed artwork in the gallery and make their own temporary artwork on a magnet wall with shapes in various shades of green.

In New York, there is a new Hayden Planetarium Space Show, Encounters in the Milky Way, the first to focus on the story of this cosmic motion and how it impacts our solar system.

Reaching billions of years into the past and peering millions of years into the future, the show’s time-traveling journey is made possible by data from one of the most transformative astronomical projects of the past century.

Explore the life of Dr. Jane Goodall at the “Becoming Jane” exhibit at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. The exhibition explores Dr. Goodall’s life from her early years as an intrepid young woman with a dream to learn about animals in Africa, to her years establishing herself as a renowned scientist in Gombe, Tanzania, to her present role as an activist.

Seattle’s Museum of History & Industry is presenting Mandela: The Official Exhibition– an immersive experience that takes visitors on a journey through the life of Nelson Mandela and the global struggle for justice and human rights. The traveling exhibit features previously seen and unseen films, photographs and artifacts on loan from the Mandela family and other museums.

Don’t discount smaller museums either like the terrific Nantucket Whaling Museum on Nantucket Island in Massachusetts where you will learn what it was like to be part of the dangerous trade of 18th-century whaling. Also, the Maui Ocean Center at the Aquarium of Hawaii with its immersive exhibits, complete with an underwater tunnel that allows you to see Hawaiian broad stingrays and shark and fish species. And the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana, boasts the largest collection of dinosaur fossils in the US.

You’ll want to see some of these, even if it’s sunny out.

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(For more Taking the Kids, visit www.takingthekids.com and also follow TakingTheKids on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram where Eileen Ogintz welcomes your questions and comments. The fourth edition of The Kid’s Guide to New York City and the third edition of The Kid’s Guide to Washington D.C. are the latest in a series of 14 books for kid travelers published by Eileen.)

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