Some may argue that planning itself diminishes the excitement and sense of anticipation of unexpected pleasures and experiences. I do agree wholeheartedly, but when you are travelling as a family and that too with kids planning eases out a lot of unexpected issues that you may encounter on your trip.
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Family Traveling Tips
In travel also, the old adage of: ‘If you fail to plan, you plan to fail’. holds good. So here goes… some family travelling tips to make your trip perfect and unforgettable, something that you can cherish as a beautiful memory without the sourness of some unexpected and unplanned contingency.
These are our Top 5 Family Traveling Tips for planning a perfect Holiday/Vacation
1. Family Traveling Tips – Plan well in Advance
It pays rich dividends to plan well in advance, we plan our family trips as much as 3 to 6 months in advance. It gets us the best deals for flights and hotels.
2. Family Traveling Tips – Flight Search
Spend adequate time doing your research on everything you would need, before finalizing your options. To start with lookout for the best rates for flights to and from your destinations on the internet. We use Skyscanner a lot to check out not only the most economical flights but also to see which is the cheapest month to plan our trip based on the airfares.
And we also never miss checking the Air Asia promotion. As airfares form a major chunk of the budget, this helps a lot. Another important thing to look out for when travelling abroad is the various aspects of visa application.
3. Family Traveling Tips – Look for that perfect Home away from Home
There is nothing like a bad hotel room to put you off on your travels. After all the hectic activities one yearns for a good night’s sleep in a good, comfortable bed. When it comes to booking accommodation, it is all about the best deal and getting value for money.
To this end, it is our experience that you cannot rely on only one search engine for getting what you want. We depend on a couple of search engines for our research before we zero in on our choice.
b) The traveller reviews it features helps you decide, though a word of caution here, one should not look at just a couple of reviews and decide because most of the places will have negative as well as positive reviews. The trick is to see if at least more than 90% of the reviews are positive then it is a good bet.
4. Family Traveling Tips – What to see and what not to see
Another very important aspect one needs to focus on before embarking upon your trip is the attractions and activities you would want to include in your itinerary. We again do online research here and shortlist the must-see places and activities for each destination as per our interests, the time we have and of course our Budget.
One thing to remember is it may not be possible to cover everything in a given destination, especially if you have a cramped itinerary. We again do a lot of research on the net here, also it is prudent to book tickets in advance for attractions where you anticipate queues. For example, on our trip to Rome, we had booked skip the line tickets to the Vatican Museums which saved us a lot of time.
For planning and booking our activities we again use Expedia as well as Isango, and found them good and providing value for money. Lastly, we almost always include a Hop on Hop of Tour of our destination, as this provides us with an orientation as well as a good idea of the major attractions.
5. Family Traveling Tips – Before you step out, have a Residence to Residence Itinerary in your hand
Below are some useful resources to help you book flights/trains/buses, hotels, and tours!
Flights – TripAdvisor or Agoda or CheapAir or Cleartrip or Makemytrip or Priceline
Trains – Click here to book trains
Buses – Click to book bus
Tours – Click here to book top tours around the world
Hotels – Click to book the best hotels/resorts
Choose the best accommodation with TripAdvisor or Cleartrip or Agoda or Makemytrip or Priceline
Do You Love Traveling?
Do you want to know how to travel the world? We have put together a very useful travel resources page with the best travel tips. Go check it out now.
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Great post! I would highly recommend MyTripKarma.com for planning all kinds of trips, as it allows you to do all of the above in a single app.
Thanks. That’s interesting.
These tips are great. I am on the look out for tips like these to make our travels easier. We have a trip planned soon and looking forward to them!!
Thank you Bilna. 🙂 Travel tips definitely make the trips more enjoyable as most things will be planned well in advance. Great to know you are traveling soon. Where are you off to? Hope you have a great and enjoyable trip!
5 finding a good house is always key!!! I have a huge immediate family for which we always have to find a house that accomidation all 18 of us haha. Often using sights in the US like vacation al rental homes. Etc. Thanks for this!
Haha, that is interesting! I know how tough it is. Thanks for the read. 🙂
Very informative!
Thank you Tania 🙂
Thanks for these awesome tips! I especially like number 5 – it’s so important to book somewhere, particularly if you’re staying for a longer amount of time, that feels like a home away from home!
Thank you Mel 🙂 Absolutely.
I love this! I do most of these when I plan my trips with my boyfriend but it will become even more important when I have kids. Thanks for sharing and safe travels 🙂
Thank you Jess 🙂 Glad you like the tips. Happy travels!
Great tips and I love the accompanying images. Happy travels!
Thank you Bree. Glad you liked them. Happy travels to you too! 🙂
Thanks for sharing these tips! Right now I’m planning my husband’s first trip to the beach… Condo and travel plans are set. Now making sure we get all the places and activities I want? That’s a list that needs made!
Thank you Amanda.:) Great to know about your travel plans. Beaches are always exciting and relaxing! Happy travels!
I haven’t used Skyscanner before, great tip! I do use Trip Advisor a lot when we travel. Helpful post!
Thanks Angie. 🙂 Skyscanner has some great features so that’s the first site we check. Trip Advisor is our favorite as we get to know the reviews. We also make sure to share our review on Trip advisor – http://www.tripadvisor.com/members/VoyagerDiaries
It`s very interesting to read tips about how to plan atrip as a family. As a solo traveller I can afford to plan a lot less but I understand how travelling as a family needs more planning. I agree that the best time to book hotels and flights is the\ree months before, thats`s when I bok mine.
Thank you Stephanie. 🙂 I agree, it is so much different to travel solo. We can be carefree.
Yes. It’s all about the research. Even when we don’t plan everything, we have such a solid idea of what we want to do. And we only just discovered SkyScanner and it IS amazing! We’re big Trip Adviser people too. We’re so aligned with you!
Thank you Rob. Nice to know we are on the same page. I closely follow your travel tips. They are amazing! 🙂
I haven’t traveled much but that’s changing over the next few months! It’s great to have tips!!
Thanks Angela. Hope you have wonderful trips ahead. Enjoy and share your experiences 🙂
Such great tips. I am nowhere near planning family trips right now lol it’s more girls weekends and random getaways but I remember our family trips growing up fondly. And am super grateful my Mom put so much thought into them.
Now I feel like I am the one who does the planning and stuff when I go somewhere. I’m very much the “what’s the game plan” type of person and you are right the devil is in the details.
True, I too learnt all the planning from my Mom. I saw her plan most things in life! Thank you Dia 🙂
We like to use Google flights as well to check on flight prices and you can never go wrong with booking.com! The tip about booking the Vatican tickets online is super helpful!
Agree. Infact Booking.com also shows up in Tripadvisor. Skip the line by booking tickets to museums and other attractions always save time.
Great tips for everyone, not just families. Planning can really elevate a trip compared to just showing up 🙂
Absolutely. Thank you Becky 🙂
Exactly. Thanks Becky 🙂
Great tips – and most are applicable regardless of who you’re travelling with! I actually love the planning stage!
Thank you Courtney. You are absolutely right. These tips would be useful to anyone who travels!
Interesting perspective. I generally follow most of it except the itinerary part. I research well but generally work out a final one after I have reached the destination. Sometimes, taking inputs from the locals also, changes what you can see and when you should see it 😀
Agree, sometimes tweaking the itinerary in consultation with the locals does help.
I guess with kids, planning is a bit different. Well, you need to plan in advance. You listed some great tools to use!
True. While traveling with kids, we need to take care of many extra things like their food, meds etc. Thanks Sabine 🙂
Great list. My son is 13 now, and I find he does great without an itinerary. Makes for more spontaneous adventure.
Thanks Alexa. 🙂 I agree, kids now are smart and adventurous!
Very detailed! I’m sure we’ll be traveling just like you when we have children in tow. :p
Thank you 🙂
It’s great to read these tips! I don’t travel with a family so I didn’t realize even half the amount of planning it takes! 🙂
Thank you Liesbeth. I know, I understand. I enjoy your posts and never miss reading them. 🙂
I haven’t had the pleasure of planning a family vacation in a long time as my children are adults but do have fond memories of the ones we did take. Planning adds so much anticipation to trip. It was almost as much fun as the trip itself.
You are absolutely right Tricia. It is indeed a lot of fun planning a trip. 🙂
Great article! I’m a big planner when it comes to traveling–if I’m going save up and then spend that amount of money, I want to make sure I’m maximizing my time and efforts! My husband, daughter, and I do a lot of family trips with my parents, sister, and her fiance: there’s just so much to juggle when you’re traveling with that many people. You’ve got some great tips here for people who are planning to travel in a larger group. 🙂
Thank you Natalie. 🙂 I can imagine. Traveling with a family and that too if it is large group, planning does help a lot.
I admire you for being so well structured…but hell that would drive me insane^^ I like going with the flow,if I like a place I simply sit down and have dinner there (if it’s in my budget)…but then I am traveling solo or if I travel with my family, we are all grown ups, so no need to structure everything…we started doing what everybody feels like^^ but then structuring also I think just works for some places…like Ireland we were able to plan pretty much ahead…for malaysia ahhh well not so much…you just never know what happens next 😀 I actually have come to love that, I do a lot less planning nowadays…But then everybody travels different…
Your tips will be a great help for everybody who doesn’t know how to start and where to look ^^
I agree with you Sabine. It is fun when we tend to be adventurous and go with the flow. It works best when we do a solo or couple travel. But as you said visiting certain places and that too if you plan to have a family vacation, it is always good to plan your trip so that you don’t have surprises. Not that planning eliminates any risk/surprises but to a great extent it helps you be prepared and know many things and gives you the time to relax and enjoy the vacation with the family.
Yes, we are all about the plan… and then trying to stick with it. I think (besides the flights/costs) the place to place travel plan is the most important part. Especially for us on road trips with kids.
I agree Rob.
Great advice and good tips! Traveling with kids requires indeed planning, not only to give them a certain structure and great time but making sure that as parent you have a good night of rest!
Absolutely! 🙂
I imagine with kids you would need to plan more and be more detailed. But too much planning loses the mystery and surprise for me.
I agree. But while traveling with family/kids, certain amount of planning helps.
I am the planner, Bruno could rather go unplanned, so we find a middle ground! Great tips, always looking to hear about new ones!
Agree with all of your suggestions. I usually have two rounds of planning, an initial one to work out how long, what to do and what needs to be booked early- i.e. flights! and any specialty tickets. do Visas need to be organized etc. Then have another round about a month before we go to fill in the blanks of things we want to plan We do leave some time unstructured, unplanned to see what we find.
That’s perfect planning Elizabeth! 🙂
Hi Voyager, How are you? Great article I found your post in Viral content buzz. Just want to say you got a very incredible blog about traveling. Very informative! I will for sure remember your words, and tips too. Im looking forward to keep in touch 🙂
Thank you Johan. Glad you liked the tips. Do share your site link.
Great tips! For our family, number 3 is the most important. Our kids need a comfortable place to rest and then they can handle anything. Trip Advisor is the one resource that I couldn’t travel without.
Tripadvisor is definitely our bible when it comes to travel planning.
I totally agree with you: I always leave some room for last minute changes or expected events, but you need a good plan,especially when it comes to transport. Tripadvisor and travel bloggers are my go to resource for practical tips: there is nothing like personal experience!
You are absolutely right Marta.
very nice post shared
Great advice – you are so right!
Great tips! We plan our vacations six months to a year in advance.
Great suggestions! I am planning our trips for next year and this will come in handy.
Excellent tips! Your suggestions make travelling so much easier!