Creating Family Vacation Memories to Last a Lifetime

There is nothing more exciting than taking your kids on a family vacation. When we take the time and
investement in our family vacations, we want to make sure everyone has a unforgettable time. I wanted
to share a few tips on how my family has created lasting memories.

Making Every Moment Count

We started taking family vacations when our daughter was one year old, and our boys were three and five years old. When they were younger, we took them every other year on a family vacation. As they’ve gotten older, our vacations have been on average once per year.

Over the years, we’ve had a few rules and expectations. When five people are traveling together, each person has their own opinions and what seems “fun”.

Here are a few tips we’ve incorporated to enjoy the most of our family vacation time:

1. There’s no talking about “tomorrow” while we are on our trip. We enjoy each day as it arrives. It’s helped us all be more present and have fun with “today”. I found when we were always talking about tomorrow, it felt like we were wishing the trip away. This intentional dialogue has helped us all be in the moment or the experiences as they occur.

2. It’s everyones trip! Each person will have their definition of a favorite activity to do. This means being patient. While one may want to relax on the beach, others may wan to go for a hike. Taking turns and allowing each person to do their favorite opens up experiences for the whole family.

3. As a parent, it’s easy to say yes to everything your kids ask for on vacation. Especially when they’re begging for a special shirt or toy. One thing we encourage is our kids to save on their own for spending money on souvenirs. This way, there is less asking and whining. After doing this on a few trips my kids stopped brining money, and really looked at the trip as the gift.

4. Each evening, either at dinner or when clmbing into bed, have everyone share one thing they enjoyed doing for the day. This is really fun and opens up some great dialogue together. It’s often hard to just pick one thing – for kids and adults! Some days we find similarities and other days we may all have different things that we enjoyed for the day.

We have loved creating a culture around the way we vacation with our kids. My main goal with every trip is to cherish
the family memories and moments together.

Happy travels!

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