More than a month has passed since we returned from our road trip to Florida. We have had some time to recover and gather our thoughts. And now, with a little over a month until our trip to the Pacific Northwest, I want to share a few family travel tips we learned along the way.
If you weren’t following along with us in May, check us out on Instagram where we posted daily summaries of our journey. You can also find videos about roadschooling on our YouTube channel.
We are confident these family travel tips will help you plan a pleasant experience for your next family excursion. Read on to learn more!
Family Travel Tips
Less is more
My default setting is to fill every available second with something to do. Whether spending a day in St. Augustine or a week at Walt Disney World, I know how to make the most of our time.
Amanda is the complete opposite. She likes to go where the wind blows and will happily nap the day away on a remote beach somewhere. I guess that is why we work so well. We complement each other, which is a vital necessity for parenting.
For family travel, you need a good balance between the planned and unplanned. And a quick lesson we (well if we’re being honest, I) learned was that we needed to err on the side of less planned. This is especially true when you have an 8-year-old and a 7-month-old in the car with you.
If you take a peek at our Roadschooling Louisiana post, you’ll see a ton of grand ideas I thought would be perfect. Come Day 2, it was clear that all those stops I planned for the short 3-hour drive between Lake Charles and New Orleans were far overambitious.
We ended up spending over 2 hours at the Longfellow-Evangeline State Historic Site. While I was initially anxious about messing up our plans, Sarah absolutely loved the historic buildings and museum, Adrian happily burned off energy during our nature walk, and Amanda and I reveled in the crowd-less and enriching experience for our little ones.
All of this resulted in a happy family, a fantastic educational lesson, and a pleasant drive to our next campsite. So, when you’re looking at all the wonderful things you can do with your kids, remember that they are at their happiest when exploring with happy parents.
Save yourself the heartache and follow the first of our family travel tips: less is more!
Be flexible
Through my lifelong struggles with anxiety and OCD, methodical planning has always been my forte. Luckily, as I alluded to above, Amanda is my voice of reason. She knows how to switch gears in the blink of an eye.
Well, this is a skill I highly suggest all of you parents out there try to master. Family travel is inherently stressful and chaotic.
Did we get the diaper bag? Where are the chargers? Turn down the music. Stop picking on each other. Who packed the toys? Don’t wander off. Someone is hungry. We need another potty break. And, of course, the iconic “I will turn this car around.”
The best way to manage all the internal chaos on a family excursion is to go with the flow with all the external stuff. Coupled with family travel tip #1, it is much easier to be flexible if you plan to do less.
Looking back, there were many times in our trip that being flexible improved our experience. The one that really sticks out is the 370-mile drive between Gulf Pines and Fort McCoy, Florida.
We initially planned on leaving around 8 am and stopping in Tallahassee. Well, Adrian decided to start wiggling around 5:45 am. Instead of fighting with him for the next 2 hours, we packed everything up and hit the road.
The trickle-effect meant we were passing Tallahassee well before lunch time, so we continued driving. Ultimately, the early start and the surprise extra hour due to entering the Eastern Time Zone allowed us to stop at Devil’s Millhopper Geological State Park a week earlier than planned. The weather was perfect, and we beat any summer crowds, giving us an unobstructed private viewing of the magnificent sinkhole.
Communicate
Whether we are traveling or at our home base, we believe open communication is the best practice for any situation. This includes Sarah, as we make a concerted effort to keep her in the loop with nearly everything going on or planned, especially when it comes to travel.
Many people feel like children should be shielded from “adult topics,” but we encourage curiosity and consistent dialogue. This is because we are raising future adults not future children. That being said, of course there are limits to everything. Those are for you to choose, not for me to tell you.
All I know is that our trip brought our family closer together as we shared our concerns, questions, needs, and frustrations with the group. Typically, the best time to do this was over dinner in the tent. This is when we were able to check the family pulse and anticipate any problems.
While staying in the Ocala National Forest, one of these check-ins brought to light some major concerns over safety. Instead of shielding Sarah from the conversation, we explained why we were concerned and used it as an educational opportunity.
After collectively agreeing to cut our stay short, we turned the shattered plans into an amazing full day in St. Augustine, Florida where we climbed up 219 steps of the St. Augustine Lighthouse and Sarah earned her Junior Ranger Badge at Castillo de San Marcos.
So, whatever your philosophy on including your kids in the conversation, we believe communication is the family travel tip that can make or break your trip.
Enjoy the (much needed) breaks
Next on our list of family travel tips is a critical lesson we learned during our road trip, but it is applicable for any type of travel. Taking breaks during your travel is important to your physical and mental well-being. And your well-being should definitely be a priority when escorting a family all over the place.
Next month, I will publish a post detailing tips for traveling with an infant. For now, it is important to remember that extended car rides can be extremely boring for kids of all ages. Even with the best planned road trip activities, 3+ hours of driving day after day can get tiresome.
At first, I viewed our pitstops as a necessary evil that would foil my perfectly planned day of driving. I tried to tie in these pitstops with all the “to-dos” dotting our route. I quickly learned that I had things backward.
The whole idea of roadschooling is to take advantage of learning opportunities in your given surroundings while moving. There is an inherent flexibility to it that my over-planning self initially missed.
It became clear to me how vital these breaks were during two stops. One of these was on our way out of Texas and the other was in Biloxi, Mississippi. For the former, we enjoyed a picnic and a walk around the campus of Rice University, and, for the latter, we spent almost 2 hours at a small park near the Biloxi Visitor Center & Lighthouse.
At each stop, we were able to better connect with our environment, dedicate more attention to an educational lesson, and renew our energy for the road ahead. Being flexible with our lessons and destinations resulted in more enriching and relaxed experiences.
So, take the time to smell the roses and enjoy those breaks.
Know your (the kids’) limits
The final, and possibly most important of our family travel tips is to know your and your family’s limits.
If you followed our roadschooling series throughout the spring, you would have seen that we planned to take a loop north on I-20 after leaving Disney World. Well, in a matter of minutes while sitting in Epcot’s “The American Adventure,” we decided to drive straight home the following day and cancel the 12-days remaining of our trip plans.
We realized Sarah was at the end of her rope and I was burning the fuse at both ends. This was the first extended trip we had taken since adopting our pup, Snickers. Little did we know, missing the dog had a very big emotional impact on Sarah, only compounded by exhaustion.
At this moment, each family travel tip we discussed in this post came to a head and we prevented a negative turn that could have sullied the entire experience.
Understanding your limits is one thing. Acknowledging them and adjusting your plans is another. You cannot plan for everything. There are so many unknowns that can impact your travel each and every day. No matter how much you spent, how long you’ve been planning this trip, or how unlikely it seems that you’ll ever return, at some point, you may have to call it quits.
The best advice we can give you is that everyone (especially a family) has limits while on the road. Heed the warning signs.
NExT Chapter
Thanks for stopping by and being a part of our journey. If you are here, we count you as part of our tribe. Your feedback is welcome and greatly appreciated. Let us know if these tips are helpful or not. Keep us updated with your needs, so we can better serve you.
Feel free to contact us about our content, if you’re interested in collaborating or appearing on our blog or YouTube channel, or would like to use our travel planning services for our next family excursion. We’d love to hear your story and help you write your next chapter.
Remember, your best family adventure is possible if you follow these family travel tips: do less, be flexible, communicate, enjoy the breaks, and know your limits.
See you next time in our Roadschooling Portland edition!
Happy (Mindful) Travels,
Michael
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