Our Extended Family Vacation is an important way of creating and maintaining connection, and Grandpa Garth and I made a decision as young parents, and then again as grandparents, that we would always do our best to budget the time and the cash for at least one family vacation per year.
“Buying experiences” has proved to be the most important financial decision we ever made! Our children have vivid memories of kayaking in oyster beds in South Carolina, poking around in tidepools in the Pacific Ocean, tasting coconut and raisin pizza in Aruba, and exploring the slave quarters of a southern plantation. The photos and videos of these times bring back the happy memories so they can be relived over and over.
And now that they are grown, the joy of making memories continues. The logistics have changed, so I’ll share some of what I have learned:
Complications of an Extended Family Vacation
My daughter-in-law handles “organizing the refrigerator” on our vacations. She can turn a grocery run into a work of art.
Everything about an extended family vacation can be complicated. It’s hard to find a vacation rental that will accommodate 6 families with members whose ages range from infant all the way up to octogenarians. We’ve found that Vrbo and Airbnb never fail to provide us with several good option — especially in our home state (Utah) where large family reunions are common. Builders have gotten the memo, and if you plan ahead, you can find rentable homes and cabins that will sleep dozens.
In addition to the accommodations, it can be difficult to organize all of the meals and grocery lists. It’s a juggling act to come up with an itinerary that will meet everyone’s needs. It can be a bit of a minefield to navigate the personality differences, the unique parenting styles, the conversations about politics and religion. Often, it is difficult to get everyone out of the house on schedule for activities. And the inconsistent schedule is a headache for the parents who depend on the relief of their childrens’ nap times if they are to maintain their own sanity. But it is oh, so worth the effort!
Sometimes far-away cousins only get together once or twice in a year, so moments like this one become priceless!
Adjusting Expectations
I’m especially grateful for family members who have been willing to cope with one another’s idiosyncrasies. We have learned that if our annual 3-day weekend is going to be successful, we all need to come prepared to adjust our expectations on the fly. I hope my children will always be good enough to me to give me this much grace — to know everyone here is doing their best, even if we aren’t all doing our best simultaneously. Sometimes, the parents and grandparents need a nap too!
Two grandsons get some cuddle time in with a favorite uncle.
The President’s Day Getaway: Some Things We Have Learned About Vacationing as an Extended Family
1. Claim The Date Early, Consider Keeping it Consistent Every Year:
We learned when the kids were younger that unless you draw a line in the sand and claim a date for a family vacation well in advance, there will be one-thousand-and-one scheduling conflicts to derail it. We used to mark off the first week immediately after the kids finished the school year—usually in late May—for our family vacations. This meant that we were often traveling in the off-season just as summer vacation spots were coming back online. Some years this served us well because crowds were smaller but temperatures were still mild. Other years, (like that year we went to Vail, Colorado and found everything closed for the season), well, we just learned from the mistakes and made our own fun.
2. Consider the Weather:
Now that our children are older, with children of their own, those precious summer months are harder to schedule, so we have opted for a mid-February vacation. Because of our long, hazy winters, we’ve learned that a getaway to a sunny place really helps. Sunshine is the prescription for winter weariness of soul. Thus, we try to vacation in a climate where we can shed our coats.
3. Determine Costs in Advance and Make it Affordable for Everyone:
Grandma and Grandpa pay for the housing accommodations on this trip. We try to choose a location that is “central” enough that no one has to travel great distances to get there. This helps us make sure that a tight family budget doesn’t prevent anyone from being able to attend. Typically, our kids plan to pay their own entrance fees to museums, national parks, and entertainment venues. If they have to travel by airplane in order to join us, they schedule their own travel, and we reimburse them. Our goal has been to eliminate barriers that might prevent them from being able to come.
4. Group Meals Save Cash and Create Conversation
We ask each family to organize at least one community meal during the trip. Each couple plans and preps a meal for the entire group, and we all help with cleanup. This simplifies planning and keeps costs down. More importantly, it allows time for lots of dinner conversations. Often, breakfast is difficult to organize because morning schedules vary, so we just keep a supply of muffins, cereal, frozen waffles, and fruit on hand for breakfasts and people eat when they are hungry.
We often organize a single grocery list on a Google doc and have groceries delivered to the rental unit shortly after our arrival. This eliminates the mad after-hours dash to the grocery store to restock diapers and formula. It also helps eliminate over-buying supplies we can’t eat before we go home and limits duplicate bags of salt and vinegar chips cluttering the counters (Although an overabundance of salt and vinegar chips has never been a problem we couldn’t overcome).
This breakfast ham and cheese braid and a big bowl of fruit cocktail were part of one of the family meals prepped by a daughter on a recent extended family vacation. Each family is in charge of one meal and they can make it fancy or keep it simple and just order pizza for the group.
5. Closeness only Works if Privacy is Available
Every family needs a space they call their own where they can close the door to escape from the chaos. We plan on and budget for a separate bedroom for each couple, and we look for spaces where the kids can crash on bunkbeds or pull-out sofas. Infants sleep in a pack-n-play with Mom and Dad, often tucked away in a walk-in closet, rather than in a room of their own. If you are traveling with infants, a space where the little ones can get an undisturbed nap is critical. If needed, reserve an extra hotel room away from the noisy crowd just for napping in. Babies can tolerate having their nap schedule adjusted to accommodate the 10:00 a.m. hike that didn’t actually start until 12:30, but not for three days in a row. Making space for quiet time makes all the difference.
One uncle brought his supply of nerf guns and they were a hit on a lazy afternoon when we thought we had run out of fun stuff to do.
6. The Three-Day Limit
When you are combining lots of families, the long, drawn-out week on the beach with everyone underfoot in the same household might not be the best option. We have found that the nerves usually start to fray by about day three when we are in a shared space. For this reason, we choose a 3-day weekend during a National Holiday so that people don’t have to use a precious vacation day from work in order to join us. They’ll want those vacation days to use with their own families!
The grandkids enjoy playing “vintage” games with Great-grandma. She brought many of the games her grandchildren used to love to play.
7. The Pool is Cool
We never book a place for a group this large unless there is a swimming pool and hot tub within walking distance. If you have ever traveled with kids, you will understand…
The swimming pool is an important part of any vacation with kids. We make it a point to find accommodations where a pool is available.
8. Hire a Photographer
If your budget isn’t already blown, this might be the perfect opportunity to sneak in that family portrait you have been longing for. If you are traveling out-of-town, you can just Google “Family Photographers in ______(city)” and look through portfolios of any local photographers that pop up in your search. The best photos we ever got were the ones a professional snapped when she followed us around for a couple of hours on the beach. We posed for group photos, but the candid shots of different groups as we played around in the sand are the real treasures!
One of my very favorite photos from any family vacation was taken by a professional photographer. We hired her to simply follow the kids around and capture the magic as it happened.
We dressed for portraits, not the beach. But the kids didn’t care! That first time barefoot in the ocean is something I’ll always be grateful we documented. The family portraits don’t have to be posed to be precious.
Other Factors to Keep in Mind
- That $150 per day fee the rental owner requires to heat the outdoor pool in February is money well-spent.
- There are no guarantees protecting that unattended frozen chocolate chip cookie dough Grandma hid at the back of the freezer.
- Nerf guns and a plentiful supply of ammo are the antidote to a lull in the conversation on any extended family vacation.
- Great-grandma’s stash of puzzles, crayons, matchbox cars, old-fashioned board games, and PlayDoh will be amply used. Make sure there’s space in the car to bring them along. Make sure there’s space in the car to bring Great-Grandma along too. Her company will be a highlight of the trip!
- Plan one group outing (but only one) per day to get people out of the house. Children’s museums, the best public park in the city, state parks, hiking trails, and family-friendly museums are all good choices. Leave families some free time for exploring on their own.
The Real Reason We Do This
A belated Christmas gift brought peals of laughter from the grownups.
Our adult children relish the opportunity to laugh together.
For Grandpa Garth and I, the success of the entire endeavor hinges on finding an elusive window of uninterrupted grownup conversation among adult children late one evening after all of the grandchildren are asleep. Our children and their spouses renew acquaintances, laugh until they cry, and heal one another’s hearts. For us, this has become the whole point of the entire trip. It’s expensive “group therapy,” and worth every penny. Grandpa and I enjoy having all of our children under our roof again, even if it is only for one night.
Not every venue can accommodate large group conversations. We make that part of our rental vetting process.