The thought of international family travel with 3 kids (yes, even though they aren’t little) brings a combination of excitement, and a serious questioning of my sanity.
I’m not going to paint an entirely rosy picture here. The kids can be at each other’s throats constantly, have trouble entertaining themselves, and sometimes need help prying the phone out of their hands so they look up.
For those reasons, planning a trip with a family can be tricky, especially when you are talking about 10+ day trips. It needs to be a location that makes everyone happy (including your spouse), has enough activities to fill the time, and overall leaves everyone grateful when the trip is over.
The formula below has been honed by me over the last 5 years, and it has proven to be a good formula
Determine your budget and how you will paying for the trip
This is important because it will set the stage for how the rest of the trip looks. I always set a budget, and figure out which points and miles will be used to pay for the trip.
At this point, everywhere is an option based on the point redemptions available. Starting early (sometimes a year in advance) will open up the options available and give you plenty of time for research.
Research locations
When going through research options, I go through the following steps / questions:
What places are even on the table that everyone could be happy with? For example, I absolutely love India (been lucky enough to have gone a few times for work), but I only have 2 others in the family who want to go there.
If using miles, what locations / airport routes have available point redemption options? This will narrow down your list and save time with your research.
If paying for flights, are they within your budget? Again, this will narrow your options a little.
What types of activities are available? Are you looking for a beach / water related trip, nature, animals, cold / skiing, city / nightlife, etc…? Are there enough family friendly / age appropriate activities to make everyone happy?
Narrow options and get buy-in
Once you have done your research and narrowed down the options, present the options to the rest of your family. You want everyone to be excited about the trip (nothing like the anticipation), so figure out which options are the best based on a variety of factors, including:
Travel time – We’re lucky that our kids can do well with any length of travel (such as Australia and Thailand from the US).
Types of activities – Is there something for everyone?
Lodging available – Are there options based on your style (hotel, Airbnb, etc…)?
Is there excitement?
After you get everyone’s buy-in, lock in your flights and hotels.
Plan your activities
Some activities require advanced reservations and planning, while others can be set up after you arrive. How you schedule your days will depend on your travel style. We always leave a day or two open in each location to be flexible based on recommendations we get from locals. That said, we do the following planning:
List out all of the activities that may be interesting to your family. Present your list to your family and check off the ones that everyone wants to do. These are going to be your trip anchors, and you’ll plan the rest of your schedule around these events.
For example, when presented with the option of spending the day at an elephant sanctuary in Chiang Mai Thailand, it only took about 3 seconds for everyone to emphatically say “YES”.
We had 3 full days in Chiang Mai, and we used this activity as the anchor, scheduling other activities around this one.
Make sure everyone is heard. It’s important that everyone has a chance to chime in with an activity or two that they really want to do. Sometimes this will be the group activity, and sometimes it will be one (like white water rafting for us) that 1 or 2 of the kids really want to do and the others will be luke-warm on.
When researching the tour operators, don’t forget about companies like With Locals. We used With Locals in Bangkok for a floating market tour, and another for a nighttime street market tour in Chiang Mai. It allowed us to have a personalized
Balance doing the things you want to do with scheduling down time. You are on vacation, so take time to relax. When we were in Phuket Thailand, we always had at least a few hours every day to relax on the beach.
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