David and I have a shared passion for travel, which you may or may not have guessed.
Perhaps you’ve been reading for a while and remember me writing about our trip to Oktoberfest in Munich and Salzburg (many moons… and kids… ago). Or perhaps you started following along more recently when we had babies and toddlers and kept our trips mostly local, like to the beaches of North Carolina and South Carolina or the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains that are only a couple hours away.
Now those babies I mentioned above have reached a new stage of 7 and almost 5 years old. It’s a stage that we have looked forward to (though I commit to wishing no phase of life away so I have been happy to wait). It’s a stage we anticipated that even influenced our decision to call our family complete with two wonderful children. It’s a time in life we intend to live out in all it’s glory, creating albums full of family memories along the way.
And lately it’s been really invigorating because we’ve started to pick up the travel pace.
We took the girls on their first plane ride this past January to ski Deer Valley. And this month we’ll up the ante again as we take a plane and then a ferry to the island of Tortola where we will embark on a week vacation sailing in the British Virgin Islands.
We have to pinch ourselves sometimes when we realize that all these things we’ve been working towards, saving for, and planning for are upon us. Our list of places we want to go is a mile long and growing. Though we’ve been to some truly terrific places (I’m looking at you, Telluride), our adventurous spirit pushes us to continue to explore and try new places rather than return to places we’ve been, no matter how much we have enjoyed them.
So the question sent to me for this “how we do it” series was: How do we choose where to go for our family trips?
To start, it helps that David and I are already on the same page. We both like to see new places, which is advantageous over one of us preferring to repeat an annual spot. We both prefer places without crowds. Yes, we’ve done a Disney Cruise and Disney World, but both of those were more about having that experience with the kids while they are young and into the magic, rather than places we’d otherwise choose to go.
However, we differ slightly on our tolerance for adventure. This might stem from the fact that David has traveled more extensively than I have. He spent a summer in Ethiopia on a mission trip, has been on an African safari, and traveled internationally for work (though he’ll tell you those trips don’t count because it’s basically just working all day in a different time zone).
However, I might have him beat on destinations closer to home. I’ve been to Mexico multiple time, all over the Rockies, and skiing in Canada. All my trips, though, have been, shall we say… comfortable? While his (ie: summer in Ethiopia) have run the gamut. So the first question we ask ourselves when planning our trips is this:
Is the trip in question a trip of comfort or adventure?
True, the two can overlap, but in general, it’s nice to have a sense of what we are wanting out of the experience. Quick getaway to the beach? In that situation, comfort reigns, so we’ll look for a multiple bedroom unit so we can put the girls to bed and stay up ourselves. Outdoor magic- hiking, seeing stars? Adventure wins. Maybe we’ll choose to all be snuggled in the same tent.
We don’t always look for the lowest cost, but try to find the most value. We don’t rough it as much as we did before kids because we know how important sleep is to all of us enjoying the experience.
What activities are we excited to do?
In general, we aren’t loungers. I can hang for a single afternoon at a pool, but usually we’d rather be learning to do yoga on a paddle board or exploring new territory in a door-less jeep. Some vacations center around the activity, like snow skiing. Others, we know we’ll have to look for a place with things to do.
When choosing a destination, we also try to visualize our days. What time will we get up? Are activities walkable or will we need to travel to them? What is one activity each child would like to do? We always plan a vacation by picturing what activities we will be doing (and planning at least one each family member will love) and how much time they will take up.
Snow skiing? We’ll be skiing most of the day so we don’t need many other activities.
Sailing? We want to plan have things to do- kayaking, snorkeling, etc.
How much time do we have?
With David’s job, our vacation time is limited. He technically doesn’t get vacation time, he just has to make it work when he can finagle it around doctors’ schedules. This is not a complaint- just a reality of our planning situation. Right now we do more long weekend getaways, but we are committed to getting in 1-2 week-long trips a year.
You probably figured, but for quick weekends away, we tend to stick to drive-able destinations within a 3-5 hour radius. I don’t want to waste much of our time traveling to and from the destination. If we have a week? We hope to hop on a plane!
What is the budget?
We prefer to spend our money on experiences over things, and we allocate a solid chunk of our discretionary income to travel (…and food). When we do our State of the Family date night at the beginning of each year, we outline our tentative travels month by month and do light research to estimate budgets for each trip. This way we have an idea of what we will be spending ahead of time and can also look for ways to save money by either booking in advance, looking for deals, pitching partnerships, etc.
Travel is also a large reason we choose to homeschool. The flexibility of schedule and the ability to visit destinations in the off season are really nice!
What do others say?
While we are planning I often search for reviews of the area, the accommodations, and the activities we are considering. I look at Trip Advisor, but I usually search for blog reviews. I’ll type the destination into the google search bar along with “blog review” or “opinions are my own.” I like seeing personal pictures and experiences to picture how it will fit for my family.
Where is next on our list?
The world? Truly, it would probably be a shorter list for me to name places I don’t want to visit. But a few trips we are planning at the moment include:
- The British Virgin Islands (May 2019)
- Disney World (October 2019)
- Skiing- resort TBD (winter 2019/2020)
For the future:
- Yellowstone National Park
- New Zealand
- Italy
- The Greek Isles
- China
What about you? Do you enjoy travel?
How do you choose where, when, and how to travel?
See all my travel posts by clicking here
John J. Stathas says
In my work I try to help people have a vision, a game plan, for their lives – short and long term. You guys by your experience, and this blog, show that with a willing and adventurous spirit, and good planning, you can have one helluva life. I think this blog will encourage others to emulate your marriage and family example. Keep living large and sharing it!
Laura W says
Love this post on two levels. First – I’m a travel agent so I love to hear how people travel. Second and most importantly – My girls are about the same ages (5 and soon to be 8) and we are in the same position where we are finally looking to up our adventurous travel. We do beach and Disney (October 2019 too!) annually but we are trying to add in at least one new place per year. It’s harder for us as both of our families like to revisit, but we are committed to make it work!
Brittany Dixon says
How awesome to have all the skills of a travel agent while planning! I spend hours trying to figure out what to do, where to go, and how to get there. I could use some help sometimes, haha!
Maybe we’ll see you in Disney!! 🙂
Callie says
This is only kind of related to the topic of this post, but your mention of reading blogs made me think of it. I wonder if you could do a post describing some blogs you regularly read? I’m always interested in finding good blogs…
Brittany Dixon says
The list has gotten shorter and shorter over the years, but I will check my Bloglovin list and round up some of my favorites!
Laura says
Fun post to read, and one of my favorite topics! My husband and I are the same- wanting to try new places with a few repeats. Before kids we traveled to Europe every year, always to new countries and locations. As new engineers we only had 2 weeks of vacation, and it wasn’t unusual for us to work the entire day in our office, hop on a plane, and be having our morning coffee in say, Iceland. Our last adventure was when I was 5 months pregnant with our first, and we traveled around Russia over spring break (glorious and relentless snow, birch forests, and gold onion domes). In my 20s I did a backpacking trip through Europe once for three weeks. Going back further, I had my first trip to Europe (Germany, Switzerland, Austria) at age 12 with my parents and then once again at age 15 in high school with the Latin club (Italy and Greece- that was a wild ride!). I guess I could say I had a 25 + year love affair with Europe. Since having kids we have flown some, mostly California and once Hawaii, but other than that, a lot of national park road trips. We also don’t like crowds, and likely will not ever add Disney to our list (and at least at this age, 3 and 5, the boys don’t seem to care much about it). Even some national parks feel too circus like for us since we are limited to the school breaks where I work (try Zion over spring break). Luckily from our location we are within a reasonable drive to all sorts of neat areas, from Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon and Tucson… which doesn’t even include all there is to see in Colorado and New Mexico (my second favorite state!). We definitely are not the sit around types- we are much more travelers than vacationers! I have gotten us in to some interesting situations, but my husband has always been a good sport about it! I am definitely starting to think about some short backpacking (wilderness) trips and international travel with the boys coming up in the next few years. I hope all of these experiences and memories will help instill a sense of adventure in my boys as well! I truly believe, along with eating, it is one of life’s greatest pleasures!
Tanya says
We are headed out west for our first national parks trip next week. Have you been to Arches and any tips for taking small children? We are hoping to do tons of hiking and just forcing the kids along. They are mostly experienced hikers but never out west! Wish us luck!
Laura says
I spied Yellowstone on your list —
My husband and I visited Yellowstone before our son was born. It was pretty amazing, but after a while it was “more of the same” to us. I highly recommend spending half your week at Grand Teton National Park — incredible hiking and scenery! We spent the first half of our week with Jackson Hole as home base while we explored the Grand Tetons, and the second half of the week in Yellowstone. There’s a highway that connects the two parks and there are lots of cool places to stop off along the way (and you can even drive up one of the mountains to stop for a picnic which will save you a little time (vs hiking)). Yellowstone will be easy on little legs as it’s a lot of walking, but mostly flat boardwalks. Grand Tetons is mostly hiking up mountains (with higher elevation) so it may be a bit slower going with the girls…. BUT totally worth it.
We visited in late September and it was perfect. No crowds and the leaves already started changing. The colors were so vivid it almost didn’t look real in some areas. I highly recommend booking accommodations 8+ months out. There are limited options of places to stay and they book up really fast (we ended up having to change rooms a couple times because by the time we booked probably 5-ish months out there were no continuous stretches of time in one room left).
Angie says
We travel quite a bit too. Our boys are 3 and 6 and my husband travels a ton for work so we never pay for flights or hotels, so they’re spoiled. We bought a travel trailer last summer and since we live in Utah we’ve hit up all the national parks here and are planning our summer trips to Yellowstone, Rocky Mountains, Grand Tetons and probably some state parks here. My oldest is obsessed with earning his junior ranger badges and it’s a great opportunity for all of us to learn about our parks. I’d love to travel internationally with them but I’m not ready for that until they’re a bit older. I know it can be done but I like stick closer to here. I will say since my husband does technically work from home, as long as he has internet and cell phone access he can go anywhere and not use vacation days.
Maria says
So excited for you that your girls have reached this magical travel age! We aren’t wishing our time away by any means, but we do talk a lot about the places we can’t wait to take Nora when she’s older (Iceland, Banff, Switzerland, Japan).
Despite that, we have a packed travel year coming up: North Carolina/Virginia, Chicago, Portland, and Hawaii. Domestic air travel with a toddler is not easy by any means, but we find it doable and we always keep our expectations real low so she has no choice but to beat them 🙂 I just jinxed myself typing that. Haha.
As someone who has been to quite a few National Parks, I can’t recommend Denali or Glacier enough. We met a family of four with kids around your girls’ age in Denali and they were having the best time! Regarding Yellowstone, if you are able to tack on another week to that trip, driving up to Glacier (I would take two days to drive it and spend a night in Missoula) would be well worth it! It’s absolutely beautiful. I’ve only been to the outskirts of Yellowstone while staying in Big Sky, Montana, but it does look amazing too. And then of course, I know all about Yosemite if that ever makes your list!
Brittany Dixon says
It seems like Denali is a popular response when I mention national parks. Maybe I can talk David into tacking an an extra week (month?! ;)) onto our adventure!
Laura says
Replying to Tanya- have an awesome trip, I’m sure you’ll do great! I’d say just bring plenty of water, sunscreen/ hats/ sunglasses as the sun and dry heat in Arches is pretty relentless (although shouldn’t be severe this time of year). And gummies- lots of them 🙂 They always help motivate my boys on the trail and provide a quick burst of energy (sugar!). I also have talked them them (ages 5 and 3) about looking out for rattlesnakes and what to listen for and do in that situation.
Chantal says
We love to travel! We had the privilege of living in Korea for three years, and got to take our daughter to places like Guam, Japan,Thailand and Cambodia. We’ve also been to Australia. Now that we’re stateside and have THREE kids, we bought ourselves a camper and are exploring the US. We’re heading to Yellowstone this summer!
Brittany Dixon says
What an incredible list of destinations you’ve been, and as a family- amazing!! I hope to get to some of those places as a family one day as well. Have a wonderful trip to Yellowstone!
Erin says
We feel the same way about travel…in fact last year we sat down and made a dream list of all the trips we want to take before our daughter goes to college (she’s 4). First up is Disney World (also this October!), followed by San Diego next year, a Disney Cruise, and hoping to kick off her international travel with a trip to Scandinavia!
Brittany Dixon says
Scandinavia- wow what an awesome way to kick things off! Maybe I’ll see you in Disney, too 🙂
Michelle says
Our kids are almost 4 and 19 months. Right now most of our traveling is to visit grandparents in FL. I’m getting the bug to travel more and I know our kids will be easier to travel with soon enough. It’s hard when a lot of our travel budget is spent on visiting family (but on the flipside it means we do get a night out or 2 without the kids!)
Love your travels and excited for your upcoming trip to BVI. We were there pre-kids and stayed on Scrub Island!
Jennifer says
We love to travel, too, and while we definitely do repeat places (Disney for sure), we love exploring somewhere new! Our kids are older now (5-15) so we let them have a bit of say in where we’re going but we also try to coordinate our trips with what they’re learning in school. Boston/New England was the plan for fall break this year since our oldest is wrapping up AP US History right now, but marching band for kid #2 killed that plan. I do miss the days of having younger kids that I could pull out of school a bit easier and not dealing with high school schedules, etc!!
Are y’all planning to do the Halloween Party when you go to WDW in October??
Brittany Dixon says
We do have tickets to Mickey’s Halloween! Have you been? Any tips I need to know?
Jennifer says
Yes, we go every year and absolutely LOVE it! Make sure y’all dress up– the whole family!! And bring a big bag for Halloween candy– the ones that they hand out are too small 😉
Here’s my post with tips and tricks if you want to check it out: https://lovedwellshere.com/mickeys-not-so-scary-halloween-party-tips/
Brittany Dixon says
Clicking over to your post now! But shoot… I need to find a costume for myself?! And David- lol! Oh dear…
Beth says
Thank you for sharing your outlook on travel. I’ve always been a lounger, so when traveling with kids it was “hard” for me to enjoy our trips. Your view on experiences is helping me change my mindset on what I want our family vacations to look like. Thank you!