It is a priority to us to travel consistently and gain new experiences on trips. This might not be for you. It’s all trade-offs. Our kids don’t always participate in organized sports because weekends would mess with traveling times. We would love to spend more time with extended family but we also want to travel internationally. We love our friends in Nashville. Because we travel so much, we make it a priority to see them when we’re in town. This means weekends for us are generally as a whole not relaxing in a do nothing sort of way. They are busy and fun and reenergizing in ways that may not be right for you.
A lot of families feel like traveling messes with routines. However, traveling is part of our routine. We always have a half unpacked suitcase lying around and sacrifice relaxing time. We get antsy if its been a few weeks since we’ve done a hotel stay. So how do we decide where/what to do? Below are some of the questions I ask myself (in consultation with the husband of course) when planning.
ABPV (Always Be Planning Vacations)
We are a spreadsheet house. For the last 5 years, we’ve used Google Sheets to track visually who has PTO days, school breaks, holidays, etc. 2019 was our busiest travel year yet. (Green is trips) Sometimes we get specific requests for our time for an event or group vacation and we’ll check our vacation calendar. Sometimes we’ll see a block and fill it with a TBD trip. We then brainstorm where we should go. Even before we had kids, we were tracking which states we had been to and where we would go to next. For an update on our kids quest to 50 states, see here
Anyone Getting Married? Are Friends Planning a Group Trip?
Do you have any weddings or big celebration events that you want to attend? For these types of trips, the destination and time frame are already set. These are the first events that make it onto our yearly calendar and we always try to say yes!
Miss Seeing your College Bestie? Or Cousin Mary?
No big events? Are there any friends or family that are overdue for a visit? We have friends and family all across the country and love using our time off to see them. We make yearly trips to Hawaii and Pensacola, FL for grandparent snuggles. We also try to make a point to take trips to see other family at least once every 3 years. These are great for sneaking in some relaxing time with relatives keeping an eye on the kids. Even if its not necessarily to escape for a date, having family members who want to spend time with our kids always makes a trip fun and memorable.
Many of our college friends live in cool cities and a few have kiddos of similar age. They provide great tips on what to do in their own cities… Or sometimes we don’t even need to go adventuring in the city and just enjoy hanging out, and catching up.
How much time do we have?
Do you feel like going somewhere on your own or just with your significant other and/or kids? Generally the thing that dictates our destinations the most is time. How much time do you have? Is there a way to turn a work trip into an extended family stay? No PTO? Maybe a weekend road trip from Nashville within about 4 hours? Nonstop flight within 2? Have longer or more days? We’ll take 4 day weekends and travel to the west coast or the Caribbean. Do you have even more time due to school breaks or saving PTO diligently? (Not a thing I’m great at) What about Asia? Europe? Africa?Australia?
What season is it? Are there cool events or scenes to see (or crowds to avoid)? I want to take a Disney trip but know that summer is not the time for that. We also want to make a Christmas trip to Europe to see the markets.
Where's that Cool Place I Saw?
Have you seen any cool pics from travel blogs or friends? (Like this blog! Ha!) Page, Arizona was a place we had never heard of until a friend went there and took cool pictures. Seen any awesome hotels? Must-eats? The most gorgeous waterfall? We once saw a jeopardy clue that had a picture of a waterfall and planned a whole trip to Ecuador (Covid cancelled boo! :() Carter learned about Cenotes in Spanish class and we looked into planning a trip there. We have a running wish list of places that we will get to at some point.
Are there things for kids?
Fake News. Not a deciding factor. There are always things for kids. Kids live everywhere and there will always be something fun. Disney world is always high on my list of travel destinations but not the only place where kids can have a blast. Of course, some cities will have more than others and safety and walkability is an important thing to consider. Will this trip be kid-focused or Adult-focused? We love traveling with and without our kids. Even on trips with our kids, we’ll work to find a balance of must-dos for every member of the family. Working out an itinerary is my favorite part of travel planning. Google every combo of kid activities [city]. Three days in [city] must-dos [city] There might be a reddit board or the city may have a tourism site with ideas. Those who know me know I am very susceptible to advertisements. I will often see a hotel or city and look into it. We don’t limit ourselves to cities that are deemed kid-friendly.
Any Deals to Random Cities?
Something that we’ve done more recently is say we need a vacation and ask ourselves, “where would be a cheap place to go to?” This might be an airline deal or a cool looking hotel nearby. Lately I’ve been playing around on the Hyatt map for places to use free nights as inspiration for upcoming vacations.
There are whole websites that specialize in letting hotel/flight deals decide where you should go. They will keep an eye out for cheap destinations. Some even work out deals where its a surprise. If you have the flexibility to jump on these, great deals can be found.
