Family Vacation Planning

There are many ways to go about family vacation planning. There are also many sites to help with choosing destinations, traveling activities, hotel reviews and more.

Our family is currently in the family vacation planning mode. So I will share with you how we are going about making our plans.

At the beginning of January, we sat down around the dining room table for a special Family Home Evening discussion.

My actual objective was to talk to the kids about money: debt, earning, budgeting and of course, saving.

I kept it short and simple; answering any questions they had along the way.

In our discussion on saving, I expressed the importance of saving for SOMETHING. Not just arbitrarily saving. You have to have a goal in mind.

So I then proposed that we could start saving for a family vacation.

As a side note, you should know that we are not big travelers. Our family vacations usually consist of camping in the nearby woods for two or three days.

Don’t get me wrong, our family loves camping. But I think the prospect of doing something different was exciting for all of us.

Here’s the process we went through in our family vacation planning:

1. We made a list of everywhere we would want to go. Everyone in the family got to be involved and could name any place they wanted. We listed everything from the standard, “Disneyland” to “Mt. Rushmore.”

I guess we’re all a little cynical and realistic because we didn’t get any requests for “Hawaii” or “Europe” or anything too crazy or expensive!

2. Second we narrowed down our list. We did this by taking a vote. Everyone could vote for two destinations. Doing this helped us whittle it down to three choices.
3. Next we got a large jar and labeled it “Family Vacation.” This jar will hold our savings. So far, we’ve all contributed to the jar and we have the rule that “once it’s in the jar, it stays in the jar.”

   It’s fun for everyone to be able to see the progress we’re making and also for everyone to feel like they’re working towards a common goal.

4. One mistake we made: After we narrowed down our list to 3 destinations, we should have estimated how much we would need to save in order to vacation to those places.

   This would give us a number to work towards instead of just arbitrarily saving, as stated above.

   Don’t worry, it’s not too late! I have been researching lately and will soon have a number assigned to each location.

   The amount we save just may end up determining our final destination.

5. Another mistake: We did not consider a date. We now need to decide WHEN we will be vacationing.

   Partly, we avoided this step because we don’t really know how long it’s going to take us to save this unknown amount.

   We are planning on vacationing THIS YEAR. So after we accomplish step 4, we should be able to pin down the date.

Most likely, we will be driving to wherever we vacation. I have high hopes of organizing some entertainment on the way. This will include movies, games, coloring and puzzles for all ages.

Don't you think family vacations are important? I do. It's a chance for your family to get away from work, school, the phone and other day-to-day responsibilities.

It's a chance to re-connect and get to know each other a little better.

I think it's also important to involve the whole family in the family vacation planning process. It will help each family member to feel valued and give them a chance to feel a part of something fun and big.

I hope this helps as you venture into your own family vacation planning.

UPDATE: Our family met again to talk about this. Our 7-year-old was in charge of FHE and he came ready with a list (with my help) of items that needed to be finalized.

We decided where we were going, when we were going, and sat at the computer together to figure out how much money we were going to need (looking at hotel costs, park entry fees, etc.).

We also counted the money we have already saved and figured out how much more we'll need to save to reach our goal.

It was fun for the kids to see our progress and it united our family to have a common goal to work towards.

Everyone is really excited!