Wow, you’ve decided to embark on your first family vacation—congrats! You’ll certainly have a lot of fun and come back with countless memories and adventures. However, don’t expect everything to go smoothly! When different ages, personalities and lifestyles spend too much time together, you can expect your stress levels to rise. But, with these family vacation trip tricks in your sleeve, you’ll certainly have an amazing family adventure!
Give yourself time
Once upon a time, you might have been able to plan a vacation in 3 weeks, but everything is different with kids! Give yourself plenty of time and start planning and booking at least 9 months before your departure. This will give you the best choice of transport, accommodation and activities. You might also want to take it easy on the day of departure and the day upon the return. Making your first and last day free, you’ll get plenty of sleep to start and finish your vacation invigorated and happy!
Make it fun for everyone
This might be obvious to you, but not everyone will take into account what other family members want out of the vacation and what they want to see, do and experience. However, don’t be that person and make sure to create a list of various activities that the whole family can enjoy. Better yet, let every family member decide on a few things they want to do at the destination whether it’s building a sand castle, learning to surf or petting the koalas at the zoo. Once you know what your family wants, you can create a fun, inclusive and exciting vacation itinerary!
Take a break
No matter if you’re a very active traveler who doesn’t want to waste time on naps or a very chill one who loves to relax and get plenty of sleep, just remember that people need breaks. In case you don’t give chill travelers enough time to just unwind, your trip will turn into a stress-fuelled disaster very fast! Schedule an hour or two each day to just do nothing and relax. Those who nap will get their beauty sleep and those who don’t will still get to catch up with news online or play with toys.
Always think about safety
Travelling is an amazing experience for the whole family, but it’s not always all fun and games. You can often come across dangerous situations and you must know how to handle them. You might get seriously sick and in need of a hospital (stomach problems are especially frequent while travelling) or you might even get in a car accident. There are many things that can befall you while you’re away from home, so always make sure you have a proper insurance—with your and your family’s health coming first. However, unless you want to risk any high repair fees, buy good car insurance and get familiar with all the saving tricks. For instance, did you know that a certain car color can mean cheaper insurance? Well, light colored cars statistically get into fewer accidents and cost less to repaint. These little tricks might save you some money while also keeping you safe on your travels!
Relax and enjoy the ride
Sure, you would never allow your kids to choose ice cream for dinner while you’re at home, but while you’re on vacation, you must play by different rules! Your itinerary isn’t going according to plan? No worries—there are plenty of other activities you can try that will probably be just as fun, just don’t make a huge deal out of it. Who knows, that unscheduled restoration of a museum might have stopped you from checking out Van Gogh, but you can still enjoy plenty of street graffiti that will open up a whole new world of art! Or that full fancy restaurant might push you to try some local street food and go totally crazy for it! Try to be more relaxed, flexible and fun and everyone will have a much better time on your family trip.
There you have it, a fool-proof way to have a fun and stress-free family vacation you will certainly want to repeat! Take your time to plan—but don’t freak out when that plan fails, take it easy—but not too easy so you spend all your time in your hotel room and think about safety—but not too much that it stops you from having fun!
Author’s Bio: Lana Hawkins is an architecture student and the editor-in-chief of Smooth Decorator. She enjoys writing about interior decoration and landscaping. Lana is interested in sustainability and green building, and that’s where she gets most of her inspiration from.
The infographic below was provided by Nolan Law Group, a Chicago brain inury law firm:
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