This is one of my summer posts this week since I have SUMMER FEVER and vacation on the brain!
My darling friend Kristin wrote a GREAT post a couple of years ago on planning for a family vacation. Make sure you read them all for her insight (she’s got four kids from preschool to high school!). Boy have I pondered those tips. Especially the one about staying flexible since that is not my strong suit in general.
Then I read an article from Little Passports, and they also offered some wise insight. You see, I have only taken ONE family vacation and it was to Disneyworld with not quite three year old triplets – I’m still recovering. Some of these tips I am well suited for, like making lists of all you need or have, but other advice served as a good reminder for me, like not trying to cram too much stuff in.
Particularly for us, with three five year olds, rushing around causes the adults blood pressure to rise and tempers to shorten, while the kids feel frazzled. Fortunately, we’re headed for Yosemite this year and those kinds of vacations are uniquely situated to building in flexibility and downtime.
We’ve rented a house on the edge of the park that will allow us to wake up and breakfast at leisure while sipping coffee on the back patio.
We have a guide book with a few things circled we really want to do and a few others we’ll try to get to if we have time. The area is brand new to us so everything will be fresh and exciting. If we don’t get to everything, we’ll just have to go back!
We’ll also be able to do laundry, which may not sound relaxing, but it will keep me from having to pack lots of extra clothes for the week away. This is my little trick I’m doing for the first time this year to try and make it easier to manage all the kids clothes in one big bag. Every gallon Ziploc bag has a top, bottom, underwear, and socks.
Each child can just reach in the bag in the morning and select what they want to wear that day. A few days in, I’ll do a round of laundry and restock the bags. This will also help us identify what is dirty and what is clean.
Just for me, I bought some John Muir books so I can understand some of the history of the park and hear about what he saw in the 1860s before the crowds came.
So what about you? What are your favorite vacation tips for a family? Where are you headed this summer?
Happy Summer Friends!
I always packed the kids’ clothes in gallon zip lock bags! We often took camping trips, so we just pulled out a bag for each child and didn’t need to bring big suitcases into the tent. When we were in bear territory we would put the dirty clothes into bags, too, to keep the food smells from attracting wildlife. Fun memories!
LOVE that zip lock bag idea!! I’m going to start using it for all our camping trips.