What Kind of Family Vacation is Right For You?
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It’s finally spring, and summer vacation is fast approaching, so it’s a great time to discuss traveling with kids — specifically, how do you figure out what kind of family vacation is right for you? Before and after becoming parents, have you and your partner agreed on what sorts of vacations to take? Has your idea of the ideal vacation changed since you’ve had kids? Do you prefer hotels or Airbnb when traveling as a family? Do you return to certain destinations often, or do you like to mix it up? How are you tailoring your trips to your kids’ needs and interests?
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Personally, I’ve never had a specific image in mind for the “ideal” vacation (although I do avoid camping and cruises), but one thing has changed since I became a mom: All-inclusive family resorts now appeal to me, when I scoffed at them in the past (and never stayed at one as a child). I’m not talking about Disney-level destinations — we haven’t done those yet — but more along the lines of Great Wolf Lodge, which my son and husband and I all enjoy. (Note that the quality apparently varies among locations, as I learned from comparing notes with Kat. I like the Niagara Falls one, which is on the Canadian side.)
I’ve found all-inclusive resorts to be very family-friendly because they’re so low-effort in terms of logistics: (1) You don’t have to make daily decisions about where to eat, because the answer is … the resort! No Yelp searches or long family discussions/arguments! (2) You don’t have to research area activities, because all your choices are … right there. (3) You don’t have to drive your kids anywhere — really, you don’t even have to go outside. (I like indoor waterparks vs. outdoor — no chance of sunburn!) (4) It’s easy to entertain your kids, because that’s what the resort is made for. We’ve also taken our son to places like London and Washington, D.C., for that sort of family vacation — museums, sightseeing, visiting friends/family, etc. — but for me, the easiest and most low-stress option (for now) is a family resort. (If you offered me the choice of GWL or London as a free family vacation, rest assured that I would be on my way to England soon.)
How about you, readers? How do you figure out what kind of family vacation is right for you? Has it been a matter of trial and error, or did you pretty much choose well from the beginning? Do you travel with just your spouse and kid(s), or your extended family/in-laws, or even other families? Have you taken any trips that you’ve immediately crossed off your family-vacation list? How about trips that didn’t seem like they would be ideal family vacations but ended up fitting the bill?
Stock photo via Stencil.
I posted above about our many Disney trips, but we don’t just do Disney, we really mix up vacations a lot and have done I think every type listed above. I guess I like to get away a lot? And I like planning. We budget and save a certain amount each paycheck so we’re able to do things. Both my husband and I were big travelers before kids and travel for work (which helps with points. We scaled back on distance and changed the way we travel we’ve still done a lot when I look back.
Lots of trips to places where family lives that would be considered vacationy when they were younger. We’ve done cruises if they go to a place we otherwise would find it hard to get to. We did Great Wolf Lodge once because it was near family. We also have a trailer and camp frequently – one long national park trip and a few weekends each year. Now that our kids are older (7 and 9) we’re venturing into international travel and went to Paris for Spring Break. We asked their opinion on where to go, they helped plan it, practiced on a language app and they did great on every aspect of travel. My super picky son even became an amazing eater and decided he wants to live abroad.
I think the key to all vacations is planning and prepping the family. I’m a big planner and I’d rather know all the options and have a rough plan, then be ready to adjust in real time without too much stress. The whole planning process has kind of become an enjoyable hobby for me that I can do 6 or 12 months ahead, record all the info, then revisit when we get close.
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My husband and I loved to travel pre-kids, and when our daughter was born we didn’t want to give it up. We booked plane tickets to Iceland when she was 7 months old and figured it out from there. Both of our families are a plane-ride away and we do one international trip a year, so we end up flying 4-6 times a year with her. She’s 4 years old now and is a pro at airport security, boarding, layovers, hotels, etc.
Our trips are much the same as they were before kids. My husband loathes resorts and we both prefer more adventurous travel. I love vacation planning and do it all myself. Because we have a kid, I only pre-book activities when absolutely necessary, and we go at our own pace at our destination. The only changes we’ve made have been choosing age-appropriate activities. Most days we’ll do something “adult” like an art museum in the morning, then let her have fun at a folk park or animal farm in the afternoon, but we have to skip things like glacier hiking completely.
I think the fact that we only have one kid makes this possible, it would be so much more difficult with two kids. Also, she is a very easy going child. Transitions have never bothered her, and she’s loved people watching since she was an infant.
My 2-year old son has flown seven times – six domestic and one international. We’re based on the West Coast and have flow back to Atlanta, New York, and Houston to visit family. Here are some observations:
1) Red-eye flights are convenient, not necessarily for the parent since you’re holding your child in your arms the whole time, but for the child. My son was able to doze off the sleep throughout the flight as opposed to a cross-country flight during the day.
2) Take your time. My husband and I are normally go-go-go when we travel, but with our son, it’s forced us to slow down and take things easy. It’s a good thing! Our son still needs a solid nap during the day, so we’ll do one or two big activities during the day as opposed to one. Also, we keep our schedule loose and flexible.
3) Travel nearby. When our son was one years old, we took him to Vancouver since it was only a two hour flight. Same thing with Vegas (one hour). Taking one to two hour flights are much more manageable compared to five to six hour flights.
With that being said, we’re headed off to London this month. I’d greatly appreciate travel tips for long international flights with a 2-year old. Thanks!
I am on team “good for them, not for us” re: vacationing with kids. We are fortunate that my parents live across the street from the beach in Florida, so we go there for a week a couple of times a year and the kids get some beach/pool time in and my husband and I can do a few things just the two of us. Since my parents live there full-time and it’s not their vacation, we don’t feel guilty asking them to watch the kiddos while we go to dinner etc. Other than that, I just don’t choose to spend our money living our normal life in a more expensive location crammed into a hotel room. The idea of flying 2 kids to Europe to eat lunch at a nice cafe and go to playgrounds just doesn’t appeal to me unless we had the ability to bring a nanny of some sort, which we don’t. I can have a nice lunch and go to playgrounds here. However, we live right outside of a major US city/tourist destination, so maybe I’d feel otherwise if we lived elsewhere.
We did pretty adventurous travel pre-kids and spent a good chunk of our disposable income doing it (ie trips to Indonesia, Tanzania, Galápagos Islands). Unsurprisingly our travel has changed considerably since kid(s) have arrived. We have done one international trip each year since becoming parents, although our criteria is now (1) direct flight with minimal time change (so far we have only done 1 hour change. We contemplated Hawaii this year but chickened out) and (2) A separate sleeping space- ie not just a hotel room. This means we have either done apartment/air bnb or resorts with family “suites”.
So far internationally we have been to Curaçao (9 months), Cuba (18 months), Grand Cayman (2.5 year old) and Honduras (8 month and 3.5 year old). We have also rented a “cottage” in “cottage country” a couple of hours north of where we live in Ontario (ie a rustic house on a lake) for a week before through air bnb and will be doing that again.
Like others, I consider our international trips just that- trips, and not particularly vacations. But travel was so important to us pre kids that we have worked hard to keep it a priority for us. We are hoping to be a bit more adventurous with kid travel once no one is napping.
I differentiate between trips and vacations. We’ve flown with the kids on trips to visit family, but vacations are strictly driving for now because it’s just less hassle. We opt for house/condo rentals over hotel rooms so we have separate bedrooms, a kitchen (we aim for only 1 meal a day in a restaurant for both logistics and cost reasons), and outdoor space. Other than that, though, our travel style hasn’t changed much. We like to plan a max of one activity per day, and leave plenty of downtime. Our family scattered all over the US, and we try to do at least one thing with local flavor when we visit, but mostly just hang out at local parks.
“Real” vacations:
Hershey Park (long weekend, kids were 6m, 2 and 4): Stayed in an air bnb that was an old mill house, and had a huge yard with sheep and chickens. 1 day at the park, 1 day at a train museum, 1 day hiking
Rohoboth Beach (x3, starting with two kids, 1.5 and 3): Rent a house about a block from the beach and a short walk down the boardwalk from Funland. Every day for a week, we go to the beach in the morning, come back for nap, then go to Funland in the evening. Last year we rented bikes and rode through the state park one day, and also did one day at a small water park in town. Will probably do the exact same thing this year. It’s not exciting, but it’s easy and relaxing.
Snowshoe mountain resort (kids 2, 4, and 5.5): DH and I used to snowboard a lot pre-kids, and this year we finally tried to make a family trip out of it. We rented a condo walkable to the village/lifts, signed all the kids up for 3 days of full day ski school / childcare, and it was a blast. The kids had a great time learning to ride and playing in the snow, and DH and I had a great time on the mountain by ourselves for 5 hours/day. Apres ski was in the family fun center rather than at the bar, but they still served drinks there, so good enough. We kept one day with no lift tickets and went sledding and to the pool.
By next summer, everyone will be potty trained and can reasonably be expected to skip a nap without a full-on meltdown, so I’m looking forward to branching out a bit.
Umm…we don’t? I have a 16-month old and she hasn’t stayed in a hotel yet. We’ve taken her to visit family overnight a 2-3 hour drive away, but other than that, we stick close to home. We live in a popular vacation destination, so day-to-day life includes weekend walks on the beach and amazing weather , but I just don’t feel ready to travel with her on a long plane flight yet. DH and I were big international travelers before she was born, and we’d like to take big trips once our kids are older, but the baby/toddler phase of life doesn’t seem like an enjoyable time to travel for us, to be honest. We take weekend trips without her to get our travel fix for the time being.
We’ve done a ton of travelling with our daughter, who is 4 now. A lot of this sounds super-exotic, but since we are based on the other side of the Atlantic, it’s a bit like Kansas for you guys.
South of France (6 months): rented a little villa with the grandparents. Did a whole lot of nothing over than go to village markets, have long leisurely lunches, and hang out by the pool playing cards. Perfect for my soul at that stage.
Greece (13 months): best long weekend trip ever. We rented an apartment in Athens, and kept our expectations low. We visited tons of playgrounds, ate delicious food at family-run restaurants where the cook would take the baby out of our hands half the time, and one night we hired a guy from the Internet who came to our Airbnb to cook a traditional Greek meal while the baby slept. We didn’t see a single Greek historical site and it was still awesome.
Jordan (15 months): all-inclusive, it was great except she was too little for the kids club. Had to hide from the sun a lot with a kid that little.
Cuba (2 years): rented a little apartment in Havana. Hated it. Four floors walk up with a toddler, and wayyyyy too much effort involved in tracking down meals. On the hand, kid loved it because everyone loved her and there was always music and dancing. Adults wouldn’t do that again.
Dominican Republic (3 years): all-inclusive chosen specifically because they had a kids club for kids that young. Never doing that again! Kid hated it, wept constantly, and suddenly developed separation anxiety she had never had before. And I hated the food. Hard pass.
Rome (3.5 years): hotel room tacked onto a business trip. Food heaven for the kid set (and us adults too). Lots of random kids to play with in the squares, even in the middle of Rome! Garbage issues in the parks though, which was a bummer for all of us.
Prague (3.5 years): such a great long weekend with little kids. I swear every playgro7nd is the most picturesque postcard along the Danube you’ve ever seen, kids love the food from street carts, they have a LEGO museum and a train museum, and even a restaurant where your food is delivered by toy train.
London (3.5 years): if you manage to find a way to be bored in London, you might be an alien! Kid loved it all, from riding the Tube to Hampstead sheath to the Transport Museum to the boats on the Thames to the kids at the Princess Diana playground “SPEAKNG ENGLISH, MUMMY!”
South Africa (4 years): road-tripped along the Garden Route. Perfect for little people (especially since I made sure every stop had a swimming pool). Beaches are great, restaurants were kid friendly, my only regret was that as the only driver, I couldn’t really have a drink anywhere.
I’ve travelled extensively with mine (now 7 and 14) since they were babies and I’ve never had any bad experiences.
When they were smaller I sometimes felt like I was doing the same things I did at home with FEWER RESOURCES and LESS HELP. I then decided there are Trips and there are Vacations. So when they were small I tried for more vacations, which included stuff I wouldn’t have otherwise done (7ish cruises) that allowed me the opportunity to relax and fewer trips.
Starting when the youngest was around 4-years old everything got much easier, but truthfully it wasn’t really that bad before. We’ve done:
– Florida (from west coast when my oldest was 6 weeks old)
– Extended visit with family in Asia (international flights with my oldest at 7 mos and 1-year old by myself)
– a bunch of domestic trips I am forgetting and a cruise somewhere in there plus a few Asia trips that all blur together before youngest was born, mostly just me and the kiddo
– England, Wales, Italy and southern European cruise (oldest was 4-years old and I mostly traveled by myself with him except when we met up with family)
– Extended visit with family in Asia (kids were 6 weeks old and 7-years, flew internationally by myself with kids)
– Disney cruise in Bahamas (9 months an 7-years, flew cross country with kids and DH; Disney cruise offers babysitting to babies, which is how family reunion ended up on Disney cruise; Disney also offers 1.5 bath rooms in its rooms, baby slept on the floor in a bassinet in the smaller bathroom)
– London (2-years and 9-years old)
– Bali (3-years and 10-years)
Plus a bunch of domestic trips and smaller cruises, which were all fine. And some road trips of 6-8 hours, which I personally hate but which were also fine.
Cruises are good because I don’t have to worry about what to feed kids and there is built in entertainment and childcare. We don’t really do them now that kids are older.
Another tip when they were younger was to call the concierge at a high-end resort in the city we were visiting and get a babysitting service recommendation; particularly in Europe I was put in touch with babysitting services that had been vetted by hotel security and provided terrific care so DH and I could have a nice meal or whatever. In Las Vegas the service was overpriced but brought art projects, which kids enjoyed. Then kids can do their usual routine and go to bed while sitter stays with them.
– Norway, Sweden and Denmark plus northern European cruise (4-years and 11-years)
– Iceland (5- and 12-years)
Has anyone taken a 3-year-old to Asia? We have the opportunity to go meet up with a family friend while she’s still posted over there and are seriously considering it, but haven’t quite decided if the 24 hours of travel and the 12 hour time change is going to make the the trip not worth it. (We’ve done the 8-hour flights/6-hour time change to Europe twice and I wouldn’t hestitate to do that again, but Asia is just so much further.)
We have toddler twins, which certainly makes traveling logistics trickier than prekids, but still end up on airplanes about 6 times a year. Most of our traveling is to visit family (Thanskgiving, Christmas, some graduations/weddings/milestone birthdays). I think that helped get us a lot more comfortable about the idea of traveling with kids, because we had “events” to go to that we didn’t want to miss, which seems easier to justify than vacations in terms of is the effort of traveling with kids worth it. We have done Europe twice with them and had a good time, but it’s at a much slower pace than without kids (staying in one sport, fewer tourist sites per day, etc).
We’ve never done any sort of all-inclusive, but with with the exception of when the twins were 3 months old, we’ve always made sure to have a rented house or apartment, so that we have a separate place to hang out after they go to sleep. For almost all of our trips we were either flying to grandparents or meeting grandparents at the destination, which has been really helpful for having a spare pair of hands, but the one long weekend trip we did as just a family of 4 was also quite fun (we just rented a house a 4-hour drive from home and did nearby hikes, wandering around, etc.).
New sorts of adventures this summer include:
-a long weekend with a bunch of our parent friends (between us we have five 2-year-olds so we have no expectations other than just hanging out together away from home)
-camping for the first time (here’s hoping the toddlers sleep in tents!)
My 3 year old has been on 4 vacation/trips (like present vs. gift, a vacation is where I actually have relax and have fun) and my 1 year old, 1. It seems harder to get away with 2 kids, especially a pre-schooler who doesn’t nap anymore and a baby who napped 2 times a day. Our best vacations (and only one with 2 kids) have been renting a beach house for a week. We stay right on the beach, bring a few new toys from home, and stick to our home schedule, but it feels so much more relaxed.I’m eyeing a Disney trip in the next few years and a trip with my sister’s family and our parents — anyone have any insight onto all inclusive in the Caribbean/Bahamas? Or recs for a destination for kids age 6, 4, and 2?
You guys are all amazing and it makes me feel bad about our total lack of vacations. My kids are 3 and 15 months and we have been on exactly two trips with them, ever (a long weekend in NYC and renting a lake house in Michigan with some friends). And honestly, neither trip was that enjoyable. When we only had one kid, traveling was tough but fun/doable. With two toddlers the difficulty is just…too much for us to handle, to be honest. We all ended up kind of cranky and exhausted from being out of our routine. Maybe i’m not go-with-the-flow enough, or maybe the kids aren’t, but we’ve decided that other than visiting family we will be keeping traveling to a minimum until the kids are more like 3 and 5.
We did the Greenbriar (3 months), Phoenix (7 months) – stayed with family, Kansas City (12 months) – hotel but to visit family, Charlottesville (12 months) – wedding, long-weekend at the beach (15 months) – stayed with friends, skiing with family (18 months). We have a longer beach trip planned with my family for later this year. Unless it’s family, having a hotel suite has been better for us because toddler sleeps so much better not in the same room as us (and when she was a baby family was much more tolerant of the crying all night long). We tend to travel with or to family because they love to see her and the extra sets of hands are a much needed break for us. We also now have much slower-paced vacations rather than trying to pack everything in from sunup to sundown.