Build a Better Family Vacation
Share a Rental With Another Family
Sharing a house or a condominium can keep costs down. It gives you more room to spread out than a hotel room does, plus a kitchen to cut down on restaurant meals. And the extra vacation-mates provide kids with built-in entertainment (other kids! Uncle Jimmy!) and supervision.
Figure in Child Care
If you’re not traveling with another family and you and your spouse hope to spend some time alone, plan ahead to make sure you’ll have someone to watch the kids. Hotels may maintain a list of qualified babysitters, and some even include the service with the cost of the room. If the hotel refers you to an agency, call to ask for references from other travelers, and request to speak to the sitter it assigns you before you arrive. If you’re staying in a condo, try calling a nearby reputable hotel for recommendations. Some resorts have full children’s programs that offer supervised entertainment, like pizza and games, so you and your spouse can have dinner alone. If you feel uncomfortable leaving your kids with a stranger, consider bringing along another family member to help. Your children might prefer their grandmother (especially one who lives far away) or a teenage cousin (who may be happy to trade a few hours of child care a day for the trip) to an unknown babysitter. Another option: Hire a mother’s helper to accompany you so she can play with the older kids while you give your undivided attention to your toddler.
Research Activities Before You Go
To get your children excited about the trip in advance―and to be ready with surefire boredom chasers when they’re needed―check the area’s tourist office or chamber-of-commerce website for the week’s scheduled activities, such as farmers’ markets and parades. Call the local library and bookstore to find out about story hours. To save scrambling for a local paper when rain dictates an afternoon at the movies, go online before you leave home to find a local theater’s show-times or at least a number to call. And if you’re counting on using the hotel’s children’s program or heated pool, ask before booking to be sure those services are available during your stay; don’t find out when you get there that the pool has been drained for repairs.
Put the Kids to Work
Involving the children in trip planning will relieve some of your burden. It will also send the message that this is everyone’s vacation―so everyone needs to help make it fun and easy―and set a good tone for the whole trip. “If your child is mature enough, possibly as young as five or six, tell him where you’re going and how you’ll get there, then let him help make plans,” says David Fassler, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Vermont. In addition to engaging them and getting them enthused about going, helping to plan can lessen any anxiety kids may have about the trip, “like where they will be sleeping or new foods they may encounter,” says Fassler. Online, older kids can research activities and places they’d like to visit; younger children can find the destination in an atlas and look in a travel book for pictures of what they’re about to see.
Share Your Dirty Laundry
Find out whether the place where you’ll be staying has guest laundry facilities or a nearby laundry. If so, pack lightly and do a few loads while you’re away. To avoid arriving back home with suitcases full of dirty clothes, drop laundry off the day before you’re scheduled to depart, pick it up on the way to the airport, and pop the folded piles into your suitcases.
via realsimple.com
