Choosing a place for your family vacation

“So you think about what kind of family holiday would be suitable for the whole family”

Choosing a place to spend your summer family vacation with your kid(s) can be challenging. It’s not only you and your partner that want to enjoy a great family vacation. You want your kids to also have an enjoyable experience. And as many parents probably agree, if the kids are having a great time then the parents are also enjoying their family vacation. But let’s be honest, a vacation with kids is never the same as a vacation with just you and your partner. It’s your vacation too and you look forward to having some time off and feeling relaxed. So you think about what kind of family holiday would be suitable for the whole family. Are you going by car or by plane? Do you want to go camping or go to a hotel? If you go to a hotel, do you want a hotel with entertainment and how about the location?

Loving family beach vacations!

“And like many kids, our daughter didn’t need much. Just some sand….”

An interesting looking rock 🙂

We found out that beach holidays worked best for the three of us. Our vacation to Kos, Greece and Chalkidiki Greece, are our most memorable beach holidays. We did a lot of beach trips in Greece.  And like many kids, our daughter didn’t need much. Just some sand, some interesting looking rocks, water, a bucket and a shovel. Trips to the beach were simple to do. We would take the car and when we saw a nice beach, we just parked our car and stayed there. The next day we would find a different beach and so on. It never got boring.

Doing simple things and spending time together

And what I liked was the unlimited time we spent together. My daughter enjoyed building sandcastles together, creating art with shells we found on the beach together, snorkeling together, catching waves together, going out for dinner together. Doing simple things together, giving your unlimited time and your undivided attention is, I think, one of the best things you can give your child. And after we played with our daughter she could easily play on her own for a while. And all three of us looked back at a great summer holiday.

There were also days that we didn’t want to go for a drive and we stayed at the hotel and had a poolday. We played with the noodle, played on the lilo etc. And often there were also other kids and my daughter always made a friend that she would play with. Which was of course very nice for us :).

Chalkidi in Greece was quite a cheap family vacation

And I must say that our summer vacations in Greece were not expensive. Especially Chalkidi, which was quite cheap. We didn’t have a big budget, but we booked a room at a nice and clean hotel. Because we hired a car and most of our trips were to the beach it didn’t cost us a lot of money. We only had to buy breakfast and lunch at the supermarket. Dinner in Chalikidi wasn’t expensive at all. We saved some money with this, rented a boat and had the most wonderful summer day spending our time in crystal clear water. 

Crystal clear water, beautiful!

Skiing trips with the family

“Being outside, in nature and being active feels so good for”

Ready to race downhill 🙂

Skiing trips can also be wonderful to do with kids. We have done quite a few skiing trips together as a family. We wanted to go skiing with our daughter so she took classes at an indoor slope before we went on the trip. She was 5 years old at that time, and skiing has become one of her passions. She used to be in a ski team, so she likes to do the fast and black slopes. Being outside, in nature and being active feels so good for us. And I have so many nice memories from our skiing trips. During our first skiing trip I would go in front, my daughter would follow and my husband in the back overseeing everything, But now it’s the other way around. She is just too fast for me to keep up with :).

Besides skiing and snowboarding there is just so much fun you can have in the snow. Like sleighing from a hill, making a snowman, hiking, etc.

Go with the flow

Going on a vacation might also require some adjustments, a flexible mindset, to go with the flow. Like when your flight is delayed, or there is a long traffic jam. That’s when the tablet or phone came in quite handy for us. I remember we were driving home from a skiing trip and we were in a traffic jam for more than three hours. My daughter was on her phone with her headphones.. My husband and I put on a stand up comedian to make the best out of this situation. After a few minutes we heard our daughter laughing too, she found the jokes (adult jokes) really funny. And now that is also something we do together, watch stand up comedians. 

Not too many plans during a relaxing holiday

“We didn’t pin point everything day by day”

To have a relaxing holiday I think it helps not to have too many plans, so there is enough room for you and your family to do what you feel like doing at that moment. And then there is also room for spontaneous things. For us that has worked so well every time. Of course there were things we wanted to do that we had to book in advance, but we didn’t pin point everything day by day.