Family vacations are perfect opportunities for bonding and spending some well-deserved quality time together, but they can also offer a unique range of challenges when your children are quite young or unaccustomed to travel. You shouldn’t have to avoid travelling when you have a growing family, and these tips can make the process a great deal more stress-free.
- Leave Plenty of Extra Time
If you’re planning a flight with your family, then you’ll need to leave a significantly longer amount of time than you usually would travelling alone or with an adult for relevant airport checks. Everything will take longer with a family, including the check-in process, security checks and the need to constantly find refreshments and snacks. To avoid stress, leave enough time to arrive without the need to rush.
- Consider Renting a Motorhome
Choosing to rent an RV instead of a standard car comes with a huge host of benefits when you’re traveling with a family and those little ones. Not only does it provide more room to transport your family with ample opportunity for everyone to stretch their legs during long journeys, but it enables access to all facilities at all times – particularly useful if your kids have a habit of needing the toilet frequently. It also means you can cook up family meals together whilst parked up in some great spots.
- Be Honest and Open with Your Kids
Simply telling your young ones that you’re going on vacation won’t be enough. To make what might be an uncomfortable travel experience to reach your destination more trouble-free, ensure you explain all the steps to your family, including how long they will be expected to wait, how much walking they will be expected to do and how long the flight might be. That way your children will be better prepared and won’t begin to get antsy over a long flight they didn’t know was coming.
- Always Pack Medication and First Aid
Ailments, bumps and scrapes are always more likely to happen when traveling with children. This could be a headache on the plane, travel sickness, a tummy bug or a fall. Make sure that you have packed all the basics in an easy-accessible location, such as your plane carry-on or in your handbag when you are sight-seeing, so that you can provide pain killers or other relevant medication whenever needed.
- Bring Travel Entertainment
Your children will get restless and bored a lot more often than you will, so make sure you’ve packed something to keep them entertained whether during a long flight, a car journey or once you’ve reached your destination. This could be electronic devices such as an iPad or a music player, or activities to do such as a coloring book or stories to read. You could ask your children before they go which items and activities they would like best to take with them as this will help them to feel included within the plans.
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