Let me guess. Spring break or summer break is right around the corner. Or maybe it is Thanksgiving or the holidays. You realize you have time off that you can use from work and your kids are off of school.
It is a great time to take your family on an adventure!
You start looking at options for destinations, flights, and lodging. Availability is low. Prices are astronomical.
The result? No trip. Maybe next time.
Or perhaps you decide to do it because you have not gone in so long! But because you spent so much money, now you will need to avoid traveling for a few months to save again.
Once again, you wait until the last minute to plan your next trip, and the cycle starts again.
You need to break out of this cycle. To do this, planning well ahead of time is KEY.
In this article, I share the process of planning an entire year of family adventures.
The unpredictability of the future
It is difficult to think about how you will plan a year of family adventures. I mean, there are so many unknowns!
Indeed, nobody can predict what will happen. I am updating this article in March of 2020. We are in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. As you can imagine, we had to cancel the trips and adventures we had planned during this time.
Before this, we have canceled trips due to multiple other reasons, including illness, hurricanes, and my own father’s death.
But that’s just life. We cannot live our lives based on the unknown. Do not let the unpredictability of the future stop you from making plans.
We plan our adventures based on the best information that we have available. And when the situations change, whether we like it or not, we adapt.
How to Plan a Whole Year of Family Adventures
Step 1 – Make a Family Adventure Wishlist
Before you can plan a year of family adventures, you need to be clear about what you want to accomplish. Finances and time availability will help define your goals in a realistic manner.
Examples of goals could be:
- Go on a Disney cruise
- Take the kids to Europe
- Take the kids to the Redwoods
- Visit every state
- Go on a road trip across the Southwest
- Visit family more often
- Visit all state parks in your State
- Go on a camping trip
- Try an RV trip
- Go to the Caribbean
- Take a solo trip with spouse
Those are just some examples that I thought of. Your goals could also be as simple as “go to a different country” or “go on an adventure each month”. You will need to decide what the goals will be for your family.
Ideally, include goals across a range of budgets, distance traveled, and time needed. A road trip across the Southwest or a trip to Europe would need more time then visiting state parks. A Disney cruise is orders of magnitude more expensive than a camping trip.
Write them down, and then move on to the next step.
Step 2 – Check your Vacation Time
If you are a full-time working family, then your vacation days are numbered. Count your days so that you can have a visual of your availability.
Now, take a look at the goals you wrote during Step 1.
If your goals are to go on a cruise and a trip to Europe, then you would want to spread your available time between 3-4 vacations, depending on the desired length for each. If your goal is to visit every state park in your state, then you can probably squeeze in 7-10 short trips in a year.
To give you an idea of how long it takes to do different trips, it is helpful to review itineraries available online. For example, I have been checking out this Florida and Bahamas itinerary that breaks down activities to do depending on the number of days you have available. This will give you an idea of how to best allocate your time to different trips!
In our case, our goal is to go on trips often. For that reason, the average length of our trips is 2-3 nights. This works for us for the most part because we stay somewhat local, no more than a 5-hour drive from home.
Step 3 – Check your children’s school calendar
If you do not homeschool, then you are subject to school vacations. We do not homeschool either, so this is what you need to do.
Request your school’s calendar for the year and identify the school’s official holidays and days off. This will also tell you when summer starts/ends. With this in mind, you can continue with the next steps.
The issue of using school holidays is that it is more difficult to find good deals and availability. That is the reality, though, and all the more reason to plan ahead. Waiting until the last minute it will be even more difficult, if not impossible, to find good options.
Avoiding holidays, however, means your kids will miss school. I personally would not mind too much at this point because my kids are still very young, but we want to keep those days down. Schools nowadays are becoming stricter on this, after all.
Step 4 – Check average weather of places you would want to go
Now that you have an idea of what times of the year you could travel (based on your time availability and your children’s school calendar), you can check which of your desired locations/vacations would be best suited to your available times.
For example, if you want to go to a Bahamas cruise, it might be best to do that during Spring break or right at the beginning of the summer. This way you can reduce the chances of heavy rainfall. Caribbean cruises during the winter months can get quite chilly, so you would miss the opportunity to enjoy “Caribbean weather”.
Head to the Appalachians in the fall to see the beautiful fall colors.
A vacation to Orlando Disney might better in the winter months. The weather is a bit chilly but far more enjoyable than the hot lava Summer weather.
In the Summer, a trip to Europe or heading up to the mountains would be the way to go. Another option is to take your family to our awesome Florida Springs.
You can find tons of climate information here.
Step 5 – Check for Flight Deals
Because the holidays are popular times to travel, it is a bit tricky to find deals. Again, all the more reason to look for flights early.
Most flights start accepting reservations 6 months in advance. If you know how far in advance airlines publish their itineraries, then mark it in your calendar and set a reminder on your phone. Be on that page on that day booking your flight.
For flights, use Skyscanner or Kayak to compare the best prices. Take advantage of promotional miles that some credit cards offer. Do not shy away from Groupon. We had the best honeymoon thanks to an amazing Groupon deal.
Of course, you can consider driving when time and distance allow. It is far cheaper, and even more environmentally-friendly. You also do not need to worry about luggage restrictions!
Step 6 – Be flexible with Lodging
Consider avoiding hotels and opt for Airbnb or other home rental options. They can be cheaper and more comfortable, and provide a more authentic experience than staying in a hotel.
For outdoor adventures, I would encourage you to consider cabins within state parks and national parks. They can be much cheaper than other home rental options, and you would be in close distance to hiking and other family outdoor activities.
If you are visiting Florida, check out my guide to Florida State Park cabins here.
Step 8 – Be ready to Adapt
Do not wait until you can do ONLY what you WANT to do. Think about what you can do with the time and resources you have available NOW.
What do I mean by this? Here’s a scenario.
One year, you may have stable jobs with good salaries. Time is limited because of job schedules, so you just go on two big trips that year. Disney cruise. Europe vacation. You name it.
The next year, you may find yourself on a stricter budget with only one salary, but more time available. Disney may be out of the question, but you can shift gears to camping and road trips.
For example, we had the goal of collecting all US states, so we used to target a separate state for each trip. However, our short term goals have shifted in the past couple of years.
Firstly, we did not enjoy flying with the kids even though we did it many times. The biggest pain in the neck, in our opinion, was the car seats. Secondly, I started staying at home. While I work part-time from home, finances are still a consideration.
For those reasons, and because we simply enjoy it, we started camping a lot more. So our goals now involve camping once each month, usually in our camper or sometimes we also use our tent. Another goal is to go on a trip just my husband and I once a year. For this coming year, we have the goal of adding an international trip and flying to a big city with the kids.
A few last words
Trip planning can be fairly stressful, especially when trying to book things so far in advance. Sometimes it is difficult, at least for me, to think about where we are going in 10 months when I have SO MANY other things that I need to be doing RIGHT NOW. Most of us are simply trying to make it to the end of the week!
Believe me, I have been known to roll my eyes when my husband reminds me that we need to choose a flight quickly before prices go up. It is difficult to prioritize trip planning when we already lead hectic lives.
But we keep reminding ourselves of our goals.
It is exciting when we look at our calendar and see where we will be in three weeks. It gives us something to look forward to!
Whatever your goals are, I hope you find these steps useful as you plan a year of family adventures!
