Trips with kids under 6 that felt like a “real vacation”
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Anonymous
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Family camp was the only trip with young kids that felt like a real, relaxing vacation for me. Every summer for 10 years.
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Anonymous
| Do what is best for you and your kids. I enjoyed beach houses when kids were little and all inclusive beach resorts in warm weather because I like that and my kids like to swim and run around outside. I don't find sightseeing with little kids relaxing and it takes up too much time organizing and making arrangements and running around. |
Anonymous
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Beaches poster from above - we’ve traveled all over with our kids since birth, and they’re great travelers but that all-inclusive resort trip, which is quite different from our normal type of travel, was definitely the most relaxing. We’ve also done cruises (and we aren’t “cruise people” at all) and they are also easy in that you can unpack once and easily see lots of things from one room. We tend to do more interesting and port intensive European cruises though we’ve also done Caribbean. Disney was the best but they’ve all been quite good. Not sure I’m ever going on another one, however.
My kids are now 7, 9 & 12 and we’ve done a lot of travel. This year we stayed domestic and did a bunch of national parks. We live in the city so my kids are good walkers, and we all enjoyed some big hikes and other adventures. |
Anonymous
| If you have traveled that much and didn’t feel like you were on vacation, then yes, I do think your expectations are too high. We have absolutely felt like we were on vacation when traveling with our kids, but we know it’s not going to be the same experience as when we travel just as a married couple. Probably the most relaxed we have been is at luxury resorts with childcare, so if you aren’t doing that, try it. But otherwise I do think the issue is just how you are looking at the experience. |
Anonymous
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I'd echo family camp. Taylor Place in Vermont (or something like that).
I also love Woodloch in the poconos. There's no child care but meals are included, tons of kids activities and it's within a 5 hour drive from here. |
Anonymous
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Our best, most relaxing vacations when our kids were small were in the Caribbean in a big 2br/2ba condo that walked out onto the beach.
That makes naps, meals, etc, so much easier; we could sit on the beach with a monitor during naps, grab snacks easily to eat on the beach, make easy breakfasts and lunches. We would go out to early dinners with the kids. 2br/2ba meant a separate bedroom for the kids so that we could put them to bed early without forcing us to tiptoe around. Having a big space allowed us to spread out and not trip over each other. Activity level was very low--lots of walks and looking at fish and playing in the sand. We would focus our trips around hanging out on the beach, which we love to do. Obviously, this doesn't work if a real vacation means outings and activities. We don't like resorts, but as others have mentioned, if you do want activities, that's a good option. |
Anonymous
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Low expectations and I’m willing to see what worked & what didn’t and change / adapt for future trips.
I would probably say Beaches Turks & Caicos many many years ago. We did use the kid club / nursery. |
Anonymous
My kids are 7, 9, and 12 & I just posted about Beaches T&C! What else have you got for me. I feel like we are travel twins! |
Anonymous
| FDR Resort in Jamaica is only fir families with kids. You have a nanny assigned to you for entire stay. Lots of repeat guests who have same nanny year after year. As a parent, you get a chance to relax and your kids will be safe and have a blast! |
Anonymous
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We rented a house in Florida for a month. It had a pool, was walking distance to a park and golf course, was a 10 minute drive to the beach. There were no expectations.
Every single day: Wanna swim today? Ok. Then, a walk to the country club for cheese fries on the patio. |
Anonymous
We did 2 Austin Adventures trips this last summer which were awesome - small groups, geared for families and lots of beautiful scenery and fun adventures. They really were wonderful trips. Prior to that we’ve often rented homes or done home exchanges in Europe for 2+ Weeks (dh and I can work remotely in the summer if we plan ahead). We’ve done Provence twice and Portugal once and have a wonderful time doing lots of day trips and having a nice home base with pool and kitchen etc. Hoping to do Italy this summer. Copenhagen has been one of our family’s favorite international trips. We were there for 4 days before a Baltic cruise which was also great as an easy way to see lots of the Baltic region and find which places we want to return to. We have family in Southern California and Santa Barbara is a great place to vacation - kids loved surf camp, the zoo (can also do zoo camp), hiking in the hills, surrey bikes along the beach, great food. San Diego is also great for kids who are active and love animals and the outdoors. |
Anonymous
Depends on the kid and frankly the parents. We definitely take vacations with our kid. We do trips also but we have had some amazing vacations. Why do you not think this possible? |
Anonymous
| I'm in the camp that there aren't any vacations with small kids, just trips. Just having to make sure they are fed adequately turns it into a trip, in my opinion. The little buggers want to eat multiple times a day; it's very inconvenient! |
Anonymous
| I used to work as a nanny and was taken on vacations. The parents spent most of the day golfing or going to the beach or on excursions wherever we went. I can imagine they enjoyed those vacations. |
Anonymous
Oh and my favorite vacation was Beaches in T&C. I even got time off because of the kid's club there. |