Terri Ramsey Beavers Spring break and summer vacation are the times of the year when families across the country take advantage of everyone being available to go on a family vacation. Whether it is a week in March or several weeks in July, these trips are a great way to enjoy being a family while getting to see and do new and exciting things. Planning ahead is one of the keys to making sure you and your family have an enjoyable time, and can help ensure that everyone comes home with lots of great memories to hold onto.
A little something for everyone
Whether you are traveling with kids or adult children, keeping everyone happy on a family vacation can be a challenge. Everyone has their own idea of what makes a great trip, and more often than not those ideas are not aligned. If you want to minimize arguments over where to go and what to see, you will probably seek to get input from everyone as you plan the vacation. But what do you do when you have limited time or budget and no one can agree on an itinerary?
Short of a whirlwind vacation where you are constantly on the go in order to make sure everyone gets to see and do what they want, it will be difficult to please each family member completely. Working to find appropriate trade-offs that provide everyone on the trip with some aspect that they find great is the best approach to planning a stress-free family vacation. If one family member wants to see a particular site, but has no preference for what they eat, the dining options can be picked by a different person. Providing the opportunity for everyone to give input on a different aspect of the vacation can allow each person to have something exciting to look forward to on the trip.
Traveling with diabetes
Diabetes is one of those health conditions that affects more and more people. If you or someone in your family has developed Type 2 diabetes, managing your blood sugar while traveling can seem like a daunting task. But there are ways you can keep your levels in check and still have a great vacation. As you and your family are planning your vacation, keep in mind how diabetes can impact things like dining choices and how long your group can travel between meals.
When planning dining choices, it is always a good idea to have a plan in advance, even if diabetes is not a factor. Making sure you have a place in mind for your meals, whether that be the hotel lobby or a restaurant, can help alleviate the stress of finding food and make the overall trip more enjoyable. But when diabetes needs to be considered, you can plan ahead for the type of food that will be available, and also be able to establish a timetable for eating meals while you are traveling. That way, you can make sure no one’s blood sugar level crashes, leading to someone ending up “hangry” and diabetes does not get in the way of the family fun.
Make sure the weather does not rain on the fun
You likely have to plan your family vacation around those times of the year when everyone is available, either coordinating time off from work or based on when school is out for a break. That could mean that you will have constraints on where you go and what you can see because of the weather. After all, there are parts of the country that are better to visit at different times of the year, and when you can go on vacation may not align with those times of the year.
If you do not have the time, money, or desire to travel to a location with great weather at a certain time of year, there are steps you can take to help prepare for the possibility of inclement weather. If you know you are going somewhere that has a high chance of inclement forecasts, the easiest thing to do is make sure you have backup plans ready to go if you cannot be out and about. You may be looking forward to spending time outside or seeing certain sites, but if you and your family have made plans to go to a museum or spend time in some other indoor facility, you will have less reason to worry that the climate will impact the fun.
When trouble strikes on the road
Regardless of how much time and effort you put into planning the perfect getaway, there is always a chance that things will not always go according to plan. Having some sort of plan for what you will do should the worst happen will give you and your family peace of mind, even if nothing bad happens. As more families are choosing to see the sites from the road instead of flying to their destination, the chances that an automobile accident will impact your vacation are increased.
While no one wants to imagine how an auto accident will ruin their family vacation, having a plan for the potential financial loss from such a scenario will allow you to better enjoy all that traveling by car has to offer. After all, there are certain great things to see that can only be accessed by road. Hopefully, you and your family will be able to see everything on your list of places without a car accident interrupting things. But, in the event it happens, knowing to whom you can turn to recoup the finances will give you one less thing to worry about.
The importance of downtime
You and your family are going to want to make the most of your time together on vacation. While it may be tempting to pack your trip full of things to do and see, it is important to make sure you have planned for some time to just relax and unwind. This time may be making sure you are back at the hotel by a certain time or planning a whole afternoon or day where everyone has the opportunity to sit by the pool with a book. Having this downtime will help keep everyone charged and make the time spent seeing and doing things that much better.
Megan Isola
Megan Isola holds a Bachelor of Science in Hospitality and a minor in Business Marketing from Cal State University Chico. She enjoys going to concerts, trying new restaurants, and hanging out with friends.
