Planning your annual family vacation can be a real rollercoaster ride–even if you’re not going to an amusement park! There’s the exhilaration of choosing your destination, followed by the stress of figuring out how you’re going to get there. You delight in picking out what you’ll all see, then despair in figuring out how to pack for each person and occasion. The highs and lows are endless, but with the right family travel tips, you are rewarded in the end with fantastic experiences and precious memories.
While there’s no way to ensure a perfect, stress-free planning and execution experience when it comes to family trips, there are things you can do that might help make it go more smoothly, more of a gentle lazy river ride than a death-defying loop-de-loop. We’ve got helpful tips galore for your next planning session, so grab your pen and paper and get ready to write down your favorite family travel ideas.
Research and Destinations
First things first: this is a family vacation, so now is not the time to be a hero and try to get everything done yourself. From the start, get your family members involved and keep them involved. “But that sounds like a recipe for stress and disorder,” I hear you wail. “I thought we were avoiding that.”
Do it right, though, and involving your family will be the best thing you do for yourself; it’s truly one of the great travel tips for families! And why? Well, because nobody enjoys a vacation they had no input on, being dragged from sight to sight they have no interest in. Our suggestion is that you make a game of the decision process!
Collect three to five choices from each of your family members old enough to have opinions (and yes! that includes you!). Compare the options and narrow choices down based on what they have in common–is there a theme of sightseeing, foodie fun, historical interest, or something else? Pull the most common thread and the top five destinations for it, then present these to your family for a vote.
Once you’ve got the destination, it’s time to choose your must-do items. And for this, you’ll want to continue to keep everyone involved, even the kids. “Allowing children to let their interests guide activities and excursions improves their engagement and energy level while increasing the educational component,” explains Tom Marchant, founder of Black Tomato.
Working with the kids to choose activities instead of dictating their itinerary can help prevent meltdowns, encourage learning, and in general may promote a more peaceful family travel experience. You don’t have to let them call all of the shots–and you should absolutely plan some grownups-only segments for your own fun!–but letting them feel part of the process is important for harmony’s sake.
Instead of asking the kids for options, this time you and your partner should compile short lists of possibilities and present these to the children to choose their favorites. Do the same thing with hotel features and dining options. This way there are boundaries to what the youngsters can pick, but they can still make decisions with you.
How To Get Where You’re Going
Transportation might be the most overwhelming part of travel planning, with extra headaches involved when it’s for a family. But there are ways to ease the pain points of planning, even here!
My first recommendation, as soon as you pick a destination, is to head over to Google Flights and set up a price tracker. This application is a powerful, flexible tool that allows you to filter your search for everything from basics like price to more niche requirements like carbon emissions. In addition to signing up for my preferred airlines mailing lists, I use Google Flights for every one of my trips to help find great deals.
Secondly, and possibly most importantly: book directly with your airline of choice. Not only will this often benefit you more if you’re part of an airline’s frequent flyer program, it can make a critical difference in how much trouble you’ll have if you have to reschedule your flights. Airlines often have difficulty changing third-party reservations, if they choose to change them at all, and it could end up costing you more in time, aggravation, and money than your entire trip is worth.
Third, in terms of family travel tips on a budget, think about traveling off-peak or during a ‘shoulder’ season if you can. Fares are often less expensive during these lighter-traffic times, but even better are the thinner crowds at popular destinations. You can hit up more historical sights and main attractions if you don’t have to stand in long lines, which is only a further bonus.
A Roof Over Your Heads: Selecting A Hotel
We know everyone wants something different when it comes to accommodations. Location, amenities, accessibility–the number of things you have to consider can climb pretty high!
As with the destination search, our suggestion is that you make a cozy family game of the process. Jim Dalrymple II of The Nuclear Meltdown says, “In a world that mostly pushes individuality to the extreme, travel gives families a rare chance to genuinely work together and forge a much-needed group identity. It turns families into teams.” Starting that process during trip planning, then, is only a net bonus!
Ask your family members what things matter the very most to them and select three to five attributes to concentrate on. You can use the powerful search engine of a third-party website like Hotels.com to help you find the right hotel for your stay, one that includes as many of your most important wishlist items as possible.
Then you have a choice: use the third-party site or book with the hotel directly. You might get a really great price with the booking site, but there could be extra perks if you book right with the hotel, things such as inclusive breakfast or room upgrades. It’s always worth taking the time to check your options.
And of course, if you want to feel really at home in the city you’re visiting and have amenities such as a kitchen at your disposal to cut down on dining-out costs, you can always try AirBNB–their search engine is as flexible as those of a hotel booking site, so your family’s needs can still be taken into account.
Maximize Your Packing Efficiency
My favorite part of traveling is the packing process–I am a lover of lists, an adorer of accessories, and an overlord of organization. There’s nothing I like better than sharing the tips and tricks I’ve picked up over my years of solo traveling, and I promise they can be useful for family travel as well!
For example, I love packing cubes and find them to be a huge, huge help in terms of how to pack a suitcase. And often, families will use one or two large suitcases for the bulk of their family clothing items, in order to keep the cost of checking bags down. My suggestion for the most pain-free family packing experience? Color coded cubes! Assign each family member a color and the appropriate cubes for their items. Get everything loaded into your suitcase and you can see at a glance whose cube is whose, making unpacking at your accommodation a snap.
When it comes to carry-ons, the backpackers of the world have the best option figured out. Whether you use a simple yet durable Fjällräven Kanken or go for the sleek elegance of a Nordace Siena Pro, backpacks are the most posture-friendly and hands-free option for a carry-on.
As for what to pack in them? For adults, you can’t go far wrong with bringing your favorite tablet and headphones–not all planes have entertainment these days, after all–a small bag with a few travel-size toiletries and Band-Aids in case of emergency, a folding reusable shopping bag, some mints, and a water bottle. A tip for first time flyers would be to include some pressure-reducing earplugs, too.
Learn More: Travel Tips for Beginners
Children can also use a great backpack to carry around a few favorite toys, or, for unsteady toddlers, it could be fun to try out a ride-on suitcase, which lets them have fun and gives you a break from carrying them.
My last packing hack is more of a fun tip for traveling with kids: make mini snackle boxes for everyone! The snackle box–a portmanteau of snack and tackle–allows you to bring a variety of snacks for everyone without having to drag a pile of sandwich bags full of crushable crackers and cookies around. An option like these four-slot boxes is perfect for making a little Lunchable-style snack for your kids to have on the plane… or you, there’s no law against an adult snackle box! Bonus? You’re not spending your fun funds on overpriced airport snacks.
The Absolute Essentials
Before you go, there’s just a few more things you’ll want to make sure you get done with time to spare. Leaving out any of these steps could entirely derail your whole vacation–so let’s not risk it!
When you book your transport and accommodations, make sure you buy travel insurance. Many airline and lodging sites offer some as part of the booking process, making it easy to get your trip covered. Your bank or credit card company might also offer an insurance option, or you can branch out and research to find a package you like on your own. The main thing is, don’t skip this; you never know what can happen on or even before your trip.
As you’re packing, don’t forget to pop an Apple AirTag or Tile tracker into your suitcases for peace of mind–it’s comforting to check the apps on your phone at landing and see your bags safely beneath you in cargo. Or if they’re not, you can find where they’ve gone fairly quickly.
At least once a week for at least a month before you go, verify that you know where everyone’s IDs, health paperwork, and any other vital travel documents are located and that they’re up to date. Keep them in a safe place and transfer them to your carry-on the night before you leave.
Traveling internationally? Double and triple check whether or not you need any additional visas or authorizations well ahead of time. Forgetting these can result in you spending a lot of extra money to resolve this issue, assuming you’re given the opportunity to do so.
And Finally–Have Fun!
The next time you sit down with your lists and websites and great hopeful plans for your big family trip, try incorporating some of our favorite tips and tricks into your process. And then just get out there and have so much fun as a family! Because in the end, as author Og Mandino once said, “The greatest legacy we can leave our children is happy memories.” Go make some, and enjoy every minute of it.
For more guide: Top Tips for Traveling Europe