Do you love to travel but have a busy family? Want to take a family vacation but feel like there is never enough time? Do you just need some practical tips to plan a family trip when it seems like there isn’t much time available on the calendar? With a little planning and some expert guidance, you’ll be well on your way to a much needed break and enjoying some quality family time on a trip the whole family will love!
In this post, you’ll learn our top vacation planning tips for busy families!
We’re a family of five with kids involved in extra-curricular, a busy medical job, a brand new travel blog (oh hi!) and an overall full family schedule. If we can do it, you can do it!
How to schedule trips when you are a busy family
Use a shared calendar
Use a digital shared calendar to easily add in important dates and obligations. When you’re browsing idea for a family vacation, you’ll know which dates are already off-limits. “But I’m a paper planner mama, I just can’t do digital!” Oh, I hear you loud and clear. I’m a paper planner girl at heart but for this purpose a digital calendar format is just far superior. It’s always with you and makes changes to everyone’s devices in real time.
We have a calendar within our iCal linked to Google labeled “Holahan Family Events”. Name it, color-code it and start adding in any and all events, appointments, dates, etc. that the majority of your family members need to know about. Is your spouse working late for a meeting? Put it on that calendar. Does your 10 year old have soccer practice every Wednesday night from 7-8pm? Put it on that calendar. Etc. If it’s something during school or business hours that does not pertain to or effect your other people, then leave it on your own calendar (Mine is yellow in my iCal and our family one is green).
You can also add in potential commitments or travel ideas. For example, we are considering renting a lake house for a week this summer but nothing is booked yet. I’m marking the dates we’re interested in as “Possible Lake House Week?” in our shared calendar so no one else makes a commitment during that time.
This method has been hugely successful for our family. That said, there an endless supply of shareable digital calendars out there so find what works best for you.
Look at the year as a whole
Life comes at us fast and things can change in an instant but look at your year as a whole first. Are there any times of year that you know you absolutely cannot fit in travel? Block those out. Are there any work trips, business conferences or kids sports tournaments that you can schedule a trip around? Highlight those times.
Use work trips as a base for family vacation
Anchor a family trip to your job. There’s literally no such thing as work life balance so why not maximize your travel time by bringing the family on your next work trip. Schedule a few days before the work stuff or after the work stuff to spend together and then have the other parent hang with the kids and explore while you do your thang, or vice versa.
This is great option if you have younger children since they are either not yet in school or their workload is conducive to pulling them out. (I have many thoughts on this topic and will definitely write an entire post on pulling kids out of school to travel.)
Maximize your time
If you have a long weekend free to take a family trip, you don’t want to spend half of your time just getting there and back. Take travel time into consideration when deciding your destination. Also, take time of year into account. It’s no fun to spend your trip fighting crowds or waiting hours for dinner reservations because you are visiting a place during it’s peak season.
As a good rule of thumb, driving no more than four hours or no more than a three hour direct flight is what I use when planning long weekend trips.
Consider your own family’s needs
No one wants to deal with cranky kids because you’re touring art museums when they really just want to be on the beach or playing in the pool. Make sure to consider where your family is at when it comes to what they consider fun.
Vacation planning trip Ideas for busy families
Weekend getaways
You don’t need to vacation for a whole week or more to make it count. If your family is busy but you love to travel, become weekend warriors. Plan a few weekend trips this year to places nearby that you can drive to in four(ish) hours or less. You’ll be surprised at how many awesome places are within a few hours radius from your home.
Consider a cruise
If you have a week free for a vacation, consider booking a cruise to maximize the scope of your exploration. Cruises offer families the best of all worlds…visiting multiple locations on one trip, relaxation, family together time, and alone time for parents.
A cruise is also a good idea if you live near a cruise port. There are typically great deals on last minute cruises. Our problem with those is getting to a cruise port at the very last minute. (Western NY probs, lol) So if you live in New York City, the Orlando, Florida area, Maryland, Alabama, Galveston, Texas, San Diego or LA you should totally take advantage of unsold rooms on cruise ships.
Cruises also have great kids club. Read: parents get their own vacation within the family vacation. Enjoy a date night (or two) together. Spend some one on one time with each kid during the trip. Take a midday nap. Read a book for an hour in the sun with zero interruptions. It’s kind of amazing.
Most cruise lines offer kids club activities for children ages 3 and up as part of the cruise amenities (Carnival starts at age 2). There is usually a paid option for little ones between 6 months and 3 years. This can range from $6-12/hour. Check out the cruise line you’re interested in for info about ages, offerings, pricing, and registration requirements.
Visit a National Park and Get outside together
There are over 60 National Parks and over 400 National Park Sites in the U.S. and its territories. Get out into nature and explore together!
Always check the difficulty level of a hike before you embark. For our family trip purposes, we like to stick with the more ‘flat path’ type likes.
With so many options, there is bound to be a few choices nearby.
Bonus Tip: If you have a Fourth Grader, your family gains free admission to all National Parks under the Every Kid Outdoors program.
Check out nearby Theme Parks
The U.S. is full of some really cool theme parks. Look for one that you can get to easily and plan a hotel stay nearby. Kids love theme parks and parents love watching kids love things.
Honestly, kids are easily pleased. A random hotel stay, riding rollercoaster with mom and dad and some ice cream are the makings of a core memory trip for sure.
Make it a staycation and plan multiple day trips
Sometimes it just makes more sense to stay local. You can either keep your home as a your home base or look into nearby vacation rentals. Either way works as long as you can reduce distractions from work or home life for a few days. Plan some fun day trips to all of those nearby places you’ve been meaning to check out but haven’t have the time.
Saving/Budgeting for a family trip
Travel hacking with credit cards
We have just dipped our toe in the travel hacking pool recently. Utilizing your everyday spending to leverage free flights or hotel stays is a genius way to reduce travel expenses stack the travel game in your favor. I’m not yet an expert here but will sharing what I learn as I go. Follow along and learn with me!
Search “travel hacking blogs” or “travel hacking podcasts” and you’ll be on track to rack up those points.
I have an ultimate life goal to book some really sweet lay flat seats for our family of five using our points.
Disclaimer on this one: If you are someone who cannot be responsible with credit cards or has a history of excessive credit card debt, think hard before employing this tip. It’s not worth some travel miles if there is a good chance you’re gonna overuse it and over extend yourself and your family financially. There are multiple ways to save up for vacation.
Reverse Engineer your Trip Cost
If budget is a concern, reverse engineer your trip. Start with the total you have available for the trip. Crunch the numbers for several trip ideas and see which one fits into your set amount.
Make saving for vacation a whole family event
Print out a cute ‘Vacation Fund’ chart from Pinterest and hold a family meeting. A whole family meeting works for elementary aged and older kids. Talk about where you want to travel as a family and what it will take to get there. Brainstorm some budgeting ideas and get the kids involved. It’s a great life skill for them.
