How To Make Sure The Holiday You Pick Is Right For Your Family
When you’re browsing brochures and travel guides, it can be quite the endless and time consuming task finding a holiday destination that suits your entire family. When you travel on your own or as a couple, it’s quite easy to find somewhere that suits your needs and requirements, but with an entire family, it’s no easy feat. Perhaps you and your partner love lounging on the beach but you have a teenage child that gets bored easy and a younger child who won’t sit still for long.
Maybe you have a taste for history but your partner can’t stand it and your kids are far too young to understand the historical value of your destination of choice. Choosing can be a bit of a nightmare and at the end of the day, you want to invest your hard earned money on a holiday that gives the whole family incredible memories.
Here are some tips to help you make sure the holiday you pick is right for your family:
What Exactly Do You Want From Your Trip?
Apart from having an incredible time, what exactly do you want from your holiday? Depending on your budget, your options of where to travel are pretty limitless. You can go whale watching in Hawaii or surfing in Portugal, scuba diving in Iceland or cycling in The Alps. And your first consideration probably will be your location, but it’s actually better to think about what you want to do on your holiday before you consider your destination.
Do you think a relaxing holiday would be best for you all? Do you fancy a spot of yoga on the beach, meditation by the pool or spa treatments in the wilderness? Or maybe you’re feeling the need for adventure more, and you want to investigate a new city, or get involved in a completely different culture. Perhaps you feel like your family would benefit from a completely adrenaline based holiday, where you all push your boundaries and come closer together as a unit.
Or maybe you feel like you want to make a difference to the place you visit, perhaps by doing some volunteer work or teaching locals something useful. Holidays that combine exploration, relaxation and giving something back can be extremely beneficial to children and to the family as a whole. If you have small children you may have some restrictions on how adventurous your holiday is, but, there are usually ways around this if you do your research.
Usually taking the time to think about what you want to do on your holiday will lead you to finding your ideal holiday destination.
What Do Your Family Want From Your Trip?
It is so important to avoid getting carried away with your wants and needs and to consider the whole family when you think about the trip you are planning. What are their needs (priority) and wants? Try to get an understanding of what is best for the family and what they would love to do. It is good to encourage your children to be adventurous and come out of their comfort zone, but you don’t want to push them so far that they become stressed and end up hating or maybe even resenting the holiday once they return to home shores.
Which Family Holiday Do You Remember Being The Best?
There is usually one family holiday that stands out as being the most memorable one. Think about that holiday and what makes it stand out to you. Was it about the place where you were, the people you met, the culture you were in? Did your children make lots of friends or did certain activities bring you closer together as a family? Ask your family which was the best holiday for them and why and you should start to see a range of activities or elements presenting that give you a good idea of the type of holiday everyone would enjoy. Of course people can change tastes and attitudes day to day so a camping holiday when the kids were under 10 might not suit them now they are teenagers. But if they enjoyed the adventure and the outdoors, that could be a good path to follow when choosing your next holiday.
Remember, the best attitude to have when choosing a holiday is that no matter what happens, you laugh about it as a family and make the best of it. Sometimes the best holidays are those that don’t go to plan and bring you closer together as a family.
