Ever returned home from a family vacation and needed a vacation from your vacation?
You’re not alone.
Most parents try to plan the “perfect” trip. Three cities. Twelve attractions. A schedule crazier than the packed suitcase. And by day three, everyone’s cranky and arguing in a car park.
There is a much better way to do this.
It’s known as slow travel – one destination, less scheduling and more time spent together. Slow travel is becoming the new norm for families – and once you do it, you’ll never want to vacation any other way.
Here’s why it works…
For more on this topic, check out the full Travel Tips collection
Here’s what’s coming up:
- Why Packed Family Trips Fall Apart
- What Slow Travel With Kids Actually Looks Like
- Picking A Base That Does The Heavy Lifting
- Slow Travel Is Kinder On The Budget
- Five Rules To Slow Your Next Trip Down
Why Packed Family Trips Fall Apart
Children do not calculate distance with landmarks. They calculate it by meals eaten, pool visits, and reminders to hurry up.
Adults experience it as well. One survey of 2,000 parents showed that it takes them a whopping 2.4 days to recover from an average family vacation. Vacationing is supposed to help us relax, so these findings are quite odd. Another finding from that study showed that one in three families admit to running out of patience after just one hour of travel.
That isn’t a kid problem. That’s an itinerary problem.
Parents are operating on fumes before they even back out of the driveway. Working parents across the country scored 65% meet criteria for burnout on a national burnout survey. Setting up tired adults with a minute-by-minute itinerary and three phone calls to make was doomed from the start.
Here’s the thing: the pace is the problem, not the destination.
That’s why more and more families are booking one large property and staying put. One centrally located spot with breathing room — enough bedrooms, a real kitchen, a backyard, water close by — will make a vacation more special than any list of sights ever could. It’s the same principle as renting a luxury event venue: Why space everyone out in hotel rooms and restaurants when you can bring everyone together and let the space impress? When families rent retreats in East Texas lake country they get it all: space to throw a proper birthday dinner, a lawn to let kids burn off energy, and a lake instead of lines.
One booking. One address. Zero rushing.
What Slow Travel With Kids Actually Looks Like
Slow travel isn’t lazy travel. It’s just travel with the padding put back in.
Rather than six nights over three towns, you stay six nights in one. Rather than five activities per day, you do one activity well.
The odd thing about that? Trips seem longer when you slow down. Busy days all run together. Lazy days remain separate.
Pick One Base And Commit To It
The single biggest upgrade you can make is to stop moving.
Baggage, check out, drive, check in, unpack… Whoever thought that family travel should include all that rolling everybody over? Eliminate it and half your stress evaporates too.
Stay for a week if possible. By day three everyone knows where the cookies are kept, life has gotten into a rhythm, and no one is acting like a visitor.
Plan Two Things A Day. Maximum.
One thing in the morning. One thing later on. That’s the whole plan.
Keep your afternoon open-ended. It’s in that space that the magic lies – the two-hour swim, the card game that nobody wanted to break away from, the walk that became an exploration because you had nowhere to go by a certain time.
Let Them Get A Bit Bored
Boredom has a terrible reputation. It shouldn’t.
Kids who are bored invent games, discover stuff and amuse each other. It’s one thing they create that will inevitably hand you something parents almost never get to experience: an hour to sit down with a cup of coffee while it’s still hot.
Keep in mind that when children reminisce years later it’s almost never about the pricey things. More often it’s the pool, the dog they played with or the night everyone stayed up ridiculously late.
Picking A Base That Does The Heavy Lifting
When you’re only booking one place, that place has to earn its keep.
Here’s what actually matters when you’re choosing:
- Room to roam — individual spaces to avoid waking sleeping babies from early risers
- A real kitchen — breakfast at home saves money and meltdowns
- Something outside — a lawn, a deck, water, or ideally all three
- Room for the wider family — grandparents, cousins, whoever else is coming
That last point is far more important than most people realize. Family travel is huge, and hotels completely botch it. This one resort nails it, though.
It’s one of the main reasons demand continues to rise for luxury event venue rentals. Couples and families want a space that can accommodate their milestone birthday, anniversary or even small wedding — but double up as a family-friendly holiday home for the rest of the week. A place where the kids can wreak havoc, while the parents celebrate in style.
Slow Travel Is Kinder On The Budget
Money is the quiet reason slow travel took off in the first place.
Each additional stop has a price. Hotel room, more gas, parking fees, and another eat-out-because-you’re-already-there meal. Standing adds most of those lines right out of the budget.
Family spending habits are something many families will be keeping an eye on. Approximately 71% are budgeting for travel carefully right now, and nearly one-quarter of parents say they’ve turned down a destination due to expense alone.
Slow travel solves that dilemma without sacrificing the trip. Extended stays almost always get better nightly rates. Two restaurant meals per day are silently substituted with a kitchen. Splitting one large house between family or generations is also nearly always cheaper per person than individual rooms.
Cheaper, calmer and better. That combination is rare.
Five Rules To Slow Your Next Trip Down
You don’t need a new travel philosophy. You just need a few rules:
- Book one place — for the whole trip, not just most of it
- Stay longer — five nights minimum, seven if the calendar allows
- Two activities a day — and never both in the same afternoon
- Keep one day completely free — no plans, no driving, no negotiating
- Choose somewhere with a kitchen and outdoor space — it pays for itself
Try it once. The trip will feel twice as long and half as stressful.
Bringing It All Together
Family travel became rushed, costly and stressful — and the weird part was, no one was happy about it. Slow travel remedies that by intentionally doing less.
Choose a base. Stick around. Schedule a few things, and go with the flow for the rest.
Kids have a home-away-from-home for a week. Adults have time to kick-back. And everyone returns refreshed instead of needing vacation after the vacation.
Which was the whole point of a holiday in the first place.
For more on this topic, check out the full Travel Tips collection
