little things that make your vacation better?

[Anonymous]

Getty a day room at an airport-adjacent hotel in the arrival city after an overnight flight. Being able to shower and change clothes is the only way I can face the day feeling ok. This works better for me than trying to reserve my actual room for the night before so the room is available that morning.

[Anonymous]

With small kids and a beach vacation, I brought baby powder which helped clean sand from places I didn’t even know sand could get into. I packed clothes pins to dry swimwear. For cruise ships, I get magnets for the door so the kids know which room is theirs quickly. For roadtrips, I pack a large laundry bag and shove all the dirty clothes in there so they don’t mix with clean clothes. Also for road trips, if we are just going to pull into a hotel late and leave early, I pack a backpack with just the essentials so we don’t have to drag the whole suitcase inside. I keep an emergency pack with bandaids, a nail cutter, scissors, extra pair of contacts, etc and we have definitely used it. International flights, I use a blow up neck pillow bc it saves so much space.

[Anonymous]

Direct flights only; this means no super-long flights/travel times, as well, which limits our destinations but allows us to maximize our vacation time. We will do longer haul trips (e.g. Japan, New Zealand) when we’re retired and can travel for weeks at a time.

If staying in a hotel, two rooms for parents and kids; being able to spread out and having two bathrooms makes a huge difference in terms of stress/annoying each other.

Doing minimal tourist-y or highly scheduled stuff. E.g., rather than trying to see all of the great museums in a city, we pick one or maybe two so that we aren’t rushing from thing to thing.

[Anonymous]

I booked my hotel the night before for a 7:30 am arrival this summer. Last summer we arrived similarly early to a different country and our Airbnb happened to be ready so we could check right in. In hindsight, we would have been miserable without being able to do that, so I plan to ensure we can for trips going forward.

I always come home 1 day before we need to get back to school and work.

I try to not go longer than 3 nights without a washer and dryer for longer trips, if we're doing a combo of hotels and Airbnbs. Even in hotels or on cruise ships, I'll do laundry if we're staying a week.

I have a packing list template for my kids that I update for each trip. It's evolved over the years from a chart with clipart of the items to pack to a checklist.

Direct flights only. I try to mitigate anything that could throw a wrench in our plans.

Join the rental car club so you can walk right out to your car and avoid the counter.

For a week long trip, my DCs each get one day to pick what we do and where we eat dinner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know people who try to travel only with wifi, without purchasing any data. They have literally called me (when they were travelling and I was at home) to get me to look up directions for them and tell them over the phone when they got lost somewhere and couldn’t get wifi. This is absurd to me. I pay for data.

Who doesn't have unlimited data

I think PP is talking about foreign travel. You unlimited data doesn’t mean unlimited anywhere in the world.

[Anonymous]

We don’t plan much and just explore. No need to be at a certain place at a certain time or schedule the day around one activity.

Always stay in hotels.

[Anonymous]

Finally admitted to myself that while I like to be on the go all day, 3 of my kids and DH need downtime in the afternoon. So, I just plan things to do alone or with DD in the afternoon, so we're all getting what we want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know people who try to travel only with wifi, without purchasing any data. They have literally called me (when they were travelling and I was at home) to get me to look up directions for them and tell them over the phone when they got lost somewhere and couldn’t get wifi. This is absurd to me. I pay for data.

If they're calling you they obviously have some data access and could look up directions themselves.

Does it mean that? I honestly don't know how the technology works. They said they had enabled international calling but not international data.

[Anonymous]

- Take the day after we return off.
- Packing cubes, different colors for each person.
- Leave the house clean.
- Make kids pack themselves (give directions - 5 tshirts etc) and only check their work, not do it for them)

[Anonymous]

I have a waterproof bag where I keep all of our charge cords. That way we have just one space to look instead of 100 different bags. I always pack by the day not by the person. So one of our carry-ons always has at least one outfit for every member of our family for the next day.... In my suitcase I will pack the next couple of days for every member and so on and so forth. That way for driving we only have to bring one suitcase into the hotel instead of 5. Obviously a flying it may not make that big of difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know people who try to travel only with wifi, without purchasing any data. They have literally called me (when they were travelling and I was at home) to get me to look up directions for them and tell them over the phone when they got lost somewhere and couldn’t get wifi. This is absurd to me. I pay for data.

Are you posting from 1998?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you populate your calendar with your prescheduled items, you don't need to spend as much time looking up how to get there. Apple Maps even has the public metro options built in so all easy.

I'm a frequent traveler who didn't figure this out until last year, and it was life-changing.

[Anonymous]

Staying at hotels like the Ritz Carton or similar, where there’s amazing service such as twice daily housekeeping and room service with real china, silverware, linens, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Staying at hotels like the Ritz Carton or similar, where there’s amazing service such as twice daily housekeeping and room service with real china, silverware, linens, etc.

$1000 for a single bed and one bathroom. No thanks.

[Anonymous]

Someone to watch my kids.