How To Plan The Perfect Family Holiday Together

As the family grows, the thought of family holiday can become synonymous of nightmares for many parents and even a few kids too! We all have memories of arguments in the car; fights between the kids; terrible traffic jams; and horrible beach weather to name but a few. You can never prepare for every single possibility. This is beyond your power as a parent. But you can always make things a little easier and smooth out the likely difficulties by being prepared and organized. This is here our emergency guide for all parents to get packed and ready for the best family holiday together.

The Time To Be Spontaneous Is Long Gone

When you have young children to care for and look after, there is, unfortunately, no room for a spontaneous vacation like you use to be able to take when you were still a young childless couple. But, lack of spontaneity is naturally not another way of saying a holiday is boring. There is no time to be bored with kids!

You need to plan your holiday in advance to make sure that you have listed everything you and your children need for the journey and the duration of the break. Modern and dynamic parents prefer to use digital apps to get themselves organized, so you may find yourself setting up a shared map of your holiday online and wondering if your newly found skills in project management might be better used in your day-to-day job. Don’t smile: Having kids demands a lot of clever time management to make sure that everyone is ready and satisfied during holiday breaks.

Things to consider when planning are numerous and generally include the following elements: Packing a sufficient amount of nappies in your handbag if you are travelling with babies and toddlers; making sure that you have prepared a bag of games, films and books to keep your kids entertained during the journey; checking all allergies and packing an emergency pharmacy bag with all the necessary tablets and other drugs; gathering all the passports for the entire family (it would be really annoying to arrive at the airport and realise that you’ve forgotten these!), etc. As you get more and more used to traveling with children, you can start building a handy list of essentials for your holiday to help you go through your preparations.  

You Need To Care For Catering For The Whole Family

No more ‘I’ll eat what I’ll find’ excuse like you did when you were traveling on your own. With children, it is important that you plan for the food on the way to the holiday destination as well as consider what is available to them while you are on holiday. For young children and babies, this tends to be easy to prepare: Baby food can be found almost anywhere and often you will be able to get the same brand than what your baby eats at home. For toddlers and older babies, you can rely on homemade food (http://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com/stage1_homemade_baby_food_recipes.htm) based on common ingredients that are available everywhere, such as apples, carrots, rice, etc.

It becomes a little trickier to plan for the catering of older children, as food products and cooking are extremely diverse. If you are traveling abroad, you may not find any known brand of food and your child might not like the local cuisine. It is therefore recommended that you do your research before departure so that you can decide whether or not to pack your child’s favorite cereals or maybe a brand of chocolate powder that you know he or she will drink.

Additionally, if you are not traveling abroad, you may still need to plan for a little break along the road, such as with a picnic planning or marking on the map where the known restaurant chains are. Remember that children have more limited tasting abilities than we adults, and therefore will prefer to eat something that they know and trust.

You Need To Book Holidays That Can Make Everyone Happy

It is difficult with young children to decide on a holiday destination because, contrary to adults, they have an urge to play and to be active. Children have limited attention spans, and it is, therefore, difficult to take them on a day trip to a painting museum or to plan a weekend in Venice with them. You will need to think of ways of compromising the desires and interests of everyone in your holiday plan. For example, knowing that kids enjoy sports and games, it is obvious that you will need to wait a few years before planning your next cultural holiday in town. However, you can find a lot of holiday packages that are family-friendly and offer sportive activities for the kids, a lot of games and animations during the day, as well as quiet areas for parents. Places such as family holiday centers or even attraction parks jump to mind and are guaranteed to have something for everyone!

Holidays that don’t work at all for kids are:

Spa breaks; shopping weekend in town; museum holiday; and every sort of beach vacations that don’t include any fun games for kids (while they may love swimming and sunbathing, they’ll get bored very rapidly if there is no more to offer).

It is important as well that you discuss of your options with your kids to get a feeling of what they would like to do and what they are not interested in. Some kids are passionate about a topic, such as bird for example, and would welcome a beach holiday if this offers an exciting bird watching possibility.

Finally, before you go and plan the perfect holiday for your family, remember to always share your thoughts and ideas with your partner, as the holiday is not for your kids only! After all, it’s a time of relaxation and peace for all, and if it is planned with love and with the interest of every family member at heart, you will find that your vacations bring you all closer together.