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If you love to travel, then it’s likely you’ll want to share that passion with your family as much as possible. There are tons of benefits to traveling with your family, so it’s beneficial to fill up the ol’ memory bank with travel memories. Of course, there are also going to be snags and a lot of considerations that you’ll want to keep in mind.
Let’s talk about family travel and some of its ins and outs. We’ll look at how you can make it work for you, what kinds of approaches you might want to take, how to keep everyone safe, and more.
Trying To Please Everyone
One of the challenges that commonly crops up with family travel is trying to keep everyone happy. In essence, it’s not really possible, and there will be parts of a trip that one or two members of the family are not happy with. That is very much just part of how it happens, and something you’ll need to be ready for. Of course, that doesn’t mean that you can’t at least try to keep everyone as happy as possible…just be ready to pivot or even split up when necessary.
How? It’s all about working together on the travel itinerary. That way, you allow everyone to have their say and to pick one or two activities that you will all do. That is going to help ensure that everyone is as happy as possible.
Seek out activities for everyone in the family. Services like Viator can help you plan activities before you get there. Alternately, a resort concierge is often on hand to help find something if your original plans fall through. You can even book activities with points like Chase Ultimate Rewards using their travel portal.
Alongside that, it might be worth doing what you can to keep a good amount of activity going on, with the right amount of downside too. That is going to make a huge difference to how everyone feels about the trip – for the better.
Take Care With Very Young Kids
If you’re travelling with babies or toddlers, there are going to be all sorts of challenges that might not be present with older kids. It’s best to be as ready for this as possible with bottles on the ready, snacks (LOTS of them) and little distractions to keep them entertained and happy. We’ve had success with small coloring books and small, inexpensive toys (think dollar store). If you are traveling with a baby, make extra time for putting together a ready-bag with bottles, diapers, etc packed in a way that they’re easily accessible.
There are some things which can help here, such as traveling closer to home and taking the best portable cribs, but you might also just want to wait a while until they are slightly older. It’s up to you of course, but it’s something to consider.
Keep Flexible
In terms of what you plan to do and the itinerary that you have in place, it’s also a good idea to try and keep things as flexible as you possibly can. If you manage that, you should find that it can make a huge difference in regards to how much fun everyone has. Having backup plans or ideas can be useful if you need to change things up at the last minute. When researching your original itinerary, make note of second-choice activities that the family might enjoy. Keeping flexible is not always easy, but it is something which is pretty important to try and do as best as you can.
Of course, this will also require that your family are being flexible too (we know, not easy), which you don’t have control over. Nonetheless, it’s something that you’ll want to consider and something you should try to encourage in your family. Plans WILL change.
Don’t Overbook Your Itinerary
There is no doubt that travel can be stressful, and that is especially true of traveling with family. So it’s a really good idea to make sure that you are allowing plenty of time during your trip for relaxation. In other words, although it’s good to visit museums, climb rocks, swim and hit all the local attractions, make sure that you are not maxing out your time completely with those things. You might find that you and your family are getting far too stressed, and don’t actually enjoy yourself all that much.
A holiday like this should be fun above all, so it’s a good idea to try and remember that. As long as you are happy to try and spend some time relaxing together, in whatever way you and your family want to, that is going to help you out a great deal. It’s something that you should certainly try and make a reality on your next trip abroad together.
Remember: Safety First
Most importantly, keep yourself and your family as safe as you can at all times while traveling. This isn’t too difficult to do as long as you approach it in the right way, so it’s something that you should certainly think about at least. Make sure to pay attention to all local warnings in regard to crime, weather or anything else that could put your family at risk.
What are your basic go-to rules for family travel? Let us know in the comments or on our socials @modhop.
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