Family Travel - How To Choose a Vacation?

Travel Tuesday 

Today when e-chatting with Katherine Lewis, our illustrious Current Mom leader ("About Katherine" is on the left, under Authors), she brought to my attention a great little article, "Five Ways to Make Family Travel More Affordable This Fall" by Barbara Messing, vice president of Travel-Ticker.com. Barbara raises some excellent points, which I have taken the liberty to summarise and include:

 

"Being a mom who works in the travel industry, I'm always getting questions from other parents about how they can plan a getaway with the kids that won't break the bank," Barbara Messing writes.

 

Here are five ideas from Barbara on making family travel affordable this fall:

1. Picking the right destination. Deals are abundant, so just choose where to go.
2. Finding the flights. Find the great fare and book it immediately.
3. Consider all-inclusive resorts, a family's best friend.
4. Timing is everything, so go when the demand is low.
5. Booking holiday travel now.

If this sounds like how you would usually decide on what to do for vacation, then look no further. If however you're like me, considerations like these do not enter my mind.

What I do is to work out where I want to go, when I can fit it in, and then make it happen. It's as straight forward, and as difficult, as that. Taking an entrepreneurial view on many facets of my life, travel is no different. "Start with the end in mind, and work backwards" is one such discipline. As a result, my travel plans are generally constructed following the same principle.

 

I don't know about you but I have my own version of a "bucket list." Mine is all travel oriented. Taking inspiration from the movie "The Bucket List," it's about not putting your dreams off for some day. It's about asking yourself: If I had one year left to live, what would I be sure to do? There are humans living their lives doing amazing things now in order to have a fairly empty bucket list by the time their light goes out! Good on them I say.

My list features many an amazing place. For example, Antarctica and South America (Peru and Bolivia are on the to do list for our next adventure in Dec 10-Jan 11) -- having ticked off Spain, Morocco and Portugal earlier this year. The list goes on.

Why these places, and why that order? Timing and good fortune really. It helps that many places are listed. As there's no particular order in which to visit them, when opportunity presents itself, it doesn't take much for me to say yes. Let's take when Daughter and I went to Africa in Dec 07-Jan 08.

As I had previously been to Africa, I knew it was a place that I wanted to introduce Daughter too, in person. I also knew that it probably wasn't a place that I would do with just her and me. As much as I love it, I would've been putting myself under a great deal of pressure, traveling as a single white female with a nine year old. But when my travel buddy, and travel agent, invited us to join his family on a family-chartered Safari truck for 4 weeks traveling through 6 countries of Africa, there was no way I was saying no. Surely that was why God invented credit cards, for such opportunities as this! So from saying yes in April 07 to boarding the plane in Dec 07, we spent a total of 5 weeks with 3 other families, living in and out of a tent, with a local driver, cook and guide, wallowing in the amazing contradictions that are Africa. We would not trade that experience for anything.

So feel the fear and do it anyway I say! Start with what you want. I encourage you even try booking the tickets first, before you've worked out how to do it. It's certainly one way of getting you incredibly focused.

 

Happy Travels,
The entrepreneurial mother™

Comments

[Jinny VanDeusen]

You're absolutely right -- the best travel is all about the experience. And with a little smart planning (some of those details, like finding the best fare, how to fly with kids) the experience can be even better.