With its shorter days and dreary weather, December is the perfect time in the northern hemisphere to start thinking about your travels for the year ahead. But while holiday planning can be great fun, it can also be quite stressful.
Booking the perfect family holiday comes with a lot of pressure. Will you find somewhere everyone will enjoy? Can you have a good time on a budget? Will your destination be family-friendly?
With a lot of hard-earned cash riding on the decisions you make on a wet winter day it’s important you consider everything.
Here are my five tips for planning the perfect family holiday:
Decide your family’s traveller type
The first step towards planning the perfect family holiday is knowing your audience. Is your family happiest hanging out by the pool or exploring the wilderness. My seven types of traveller will help you identify the different characters in your household and the holidays that might suit them.
Prioritise
What’s most important to you when planning your holiday? Is it the price, distance, location or the activities available when you get there? Have an idea of where compromises can be made before you start going into too much detail. This will help you to narrow down your bucket list and stick to your budget.
Get organised
Travel before and after children are two different things. Even if you are determined your kids are not going to extinguish your wanderlust you’ve still got one, two or more extra people to supply with passports, health insurance, seats on flights and vaccinations. Start early.
Know your destination
This ranges from reading resort reviews to familiarising yourself with local customs and knowing what essential kiddy equipment you need to pack. There’s nothing worse than reaching your destination and finding it’s not as family-friendly as you had expected.
Take the hard work out of planning
Get a travel expert to do it for you. Tripeasel is a new holiday planning service working with travel bloggers and agents to plan bespoke trips.
It works by pairing you with a blogger who is an expert in your chosen destination and puts together an itinerary based on your requirements. You can then choose to book your trip through Tripeasel’s specialist travel agents. The result is a personalised trip with less stress.
Tripeasel is offering 50 percent off Trip Planning Packages pre-ordered before midnight on 25 December 2015 and an additional 10 percent off on any bookings you make for your trip in 2016. Get started.
Do you have any family holiday planning tips?
I love hearing what people think about my blog so feel free to leave a comment below or browse around. You can also find me on Bloglovin’, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+ and LinkedIn
I love hearing what people think about my blog so feel free to leave a comment below or browse around. You can also find me on Bloglovin’, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+ and LinkedIn
Disclosure: this post contains affiliate links.
Charlotte TheMummyToolbox
Wednesday 6th of January 2016
These sound great! I love family holidays, hate planning/packing/organizing them. I hadn't considered there were types of travelers either so will have a look at your list! Thanks for linking up with #KCACOLS
Suburban Mum
Wednesday 6th of January 2016
Some great tips here - I've not heard of Tripeasel before so will definitely check it out. We are planning a big trip to America for 2018 for my 40th(!) birthday so I think I need to start looking into options! #KCACOLS
Franca Desjardins
Monday 4th of January 2016
Planning your perfect family holiday is not easy at all. There are so many factors to take into consideration as you are travelling will little ones that needs a lot of attention. Knowing your budget is definitely key as from there you can choose what is the best suitable option. I agree that getting organised is super important. Research about your destination is something that you must then you don't get any unwanted surprises! I like the idea of having someone else organising the holiday for us. My mum has always booked her holidays through a travel agent as she things everything is more organised. Tripeasel sounds like an interesting idea. Thanks so much for sharing this at #KCACOLS. As you know I have taken a little break from blogging but #KCACOLS will be back next Saturday 9th January so I would love to see you again!! I hope you had a great Xmas! Happy New Year lovely!! :-) xx
sam r
Tuesday 22nd of December 2015
Defiantly thinking planning is key and knowing what the area is about. Skme great tips, thank for sharing! Merry Christmas X #KCACOLS