I think it's great and also agree with others that it might be hard to pull that all off depending on kids and work schedules. That said, my family loves travel and we do a bunch of that.

My kids are both in college now and I would say you should try to be a little flexible with travel. We did a lot of travel based on family visits (going to the midwest? spend 2 extra days in Chicago) and for holidays and events like weddings. We also did/do some driving trips to visit relatives or whatever and see things on our way.

We try to plan travel with our kids now every summer and then other stuff happens more organically related to visiting them at school, meeting them for holidays or family events, meeting them when they are studying abroad, etc.

Hi OP. I think everything you’ve laid out sounds great! You might get more positivity on the travel forum. Yes, some families have constraints that others don’t (budget, time off, family obligations, sports priorities, kid-related travel challenges like SN or food allergies). But that may not apply to you (it doesn’t apply to us, for instance).

We did a beach somewhere in the Carribean or Mexico every Spring break and winter breqk while DS was in elementary and middle school. And an international trip every Summer.
Now he is in high school, those winter and spring break trips are over with school pressure, but we have an international trip planned for Summer.
One spring break while in Middle school was a he carried his work to the caribbean trip and emailing the homework was a challenge with the spotty wifi. ( class had 2 extended days for a English report)
So its really kids school that dictates trip vacation schedules.

In daycare I didn’t want to travel bc it’s tough with young kids. In ES, we could travel Easton. By MS, it’s hard on my kid to miss much school so it’s hard again and only getting harder.

Spring break is easiest but it’s incredibly expensive compared to any other week.

Watch that you don’t let vacations become too expected and performative as “traditions,” iron-clad, when they get older and get jobs and meet significant others. Don’t be That Older Mom who expect their every vacation day and dollar to be spent with you Because Family and Because Tradition.

I agree that it gets hard with a school schedule. And if they do camp or sports you're working around those schedules too.

I love travel and I love traditions, but don't box yourself in to thinking you have to do camping or a national park or whatever. Especially as the kids grow and you know their personalities and interests, you'll work with that. Sports halls of fame, amusement parks, whale watching, cities known for music.... If we said we must do beach vacations in December, we'd miss all those other types of trips.

Finances and schedules and interests ebb and flow. We try to do one "big" trip a year, but some years we've done 3 and some years we've done none, for various reasons.

I think you're missing the forest for the trees with your rise colored glasses of future vacations.

Do you have a super income income? Once school (fyi -and school starts earier and earier in August and youll need to plan a week prior to be home for open house) and friends and sports start, your vacation option become a bit limited especially coordinating it with your and DH's work schedule).

Why not just take it year by year? Kids' interests change, their tolerances change (mine found Natl Praks kinda boring - no appreciation for scenery and the hikes were no different than the ones we do closer to home- see according to them), budgets change, dynamics change, etc.

I’m with the PP that the vast majority of our travel is to see family. And we live close to my side! At least one but usually two of the big blocks of time off work/school are visiting my ILs. It’s fair and family is important to me but it does mean we can’t travel to as many different destinations. We have tried to get people to go places with us but it’s been difficult. My husband’s parents won’t come to us despite going to lots of Band Bs and resorts closer to where they live, and we would rather go to their actual house than stay at and the places they like with young kids.

I’m trying to convince my husband we should go at least one place new each year. I get more time off work than he does so it’s been challenging.

That schedule is tough to pull off once kids hit MS and especially if they play sports in HS. Fall sports practice starts the first week in August. Plus as they get older they want to spend time over long weekends or breaks with friends (or just to sleep in).

Our usual traditions are:

One long weekend trip in the fall or January, sometimes two weekends (FCPS schedule makes this easy to choose from multiple weekend options). These trips are to Florida to visit family and theme parks.

Drive to see family over winter break, but otherwise stay home for majority of the break.

3 night trip over spring break somewhere driving distance, but home for the majority of the break.

Week at the beach in July

Long weekend camping in summer

We sometimes throw in a vacation in late June as well.

Are your international/50 state/NP goals going to overlap with your 4 annual trips ? That is, so you want to go to the same lake each year or do you want to find a lake in a new state every year? Does skiing in Europe meet two goals?

How do you feel about your kids missing school to travel? Do you have family you need to visit? How much time can you take off work? How will you prioritize kids activities as they get older (e.g. my kid is starting a sport that has daily practice over spring break)? Are your kids easy travelers (ie, will these trips be enjoyable for everyone?)

I have the complicating factor that I’m divorced, so splitting the kids’ time off school. The terms of our custody agreement also prevent taking the kids out of school for leisure travel. So for us-this wouldn’t work at all. For our family, Spring Break and Winter Break are often used for visiting family. We usually do a week at the same beach each summer, and then a week doing something new (sometimes we skip the beach if we want to do a longer trip somewhere.) My kids are 12 and 9-we were planning to do our first big international trip in 2020 (when they were 6 and 9) but that got canceled and with uncertainty and travel chaos I’ve put off rescheduling it. Looking at next year. We usually do some long weekend trips. This is the first year I’m looking at traveling over winter break that isn’t family related, and plan to make that a more regular thing. So for us it would be:
1 summer adventure (new place each time)
1 week at the beach in August
Winter Break trip every other year (new place each time)
And some long weekends sprinkled in
I usually also do a 4-5 day trip without the kids, with friends every year. Id love to do more though-I envy the vacation time and money you must have available!!

You are clearing 7 figures+ with that kind of vacation schedule and if you’re making that income I don’t know how you have 4 weeks off for family vacations so it would be unrealistic for many, yes. We do an annual trip (yes trip not vacation) every august. Have never missed a year, even when kids were newborns.

It’s realistic if you have the disposable income to afford that and you all like those things. I hate camping and dude ranch type things and my DD hates the lake. We don’t like going to national parks. We don’t want to drive through all 50 states - sitting in a car for hours is not our idea of fun.

The biggest issue is working around school schedules and working these into your work schedule if you even get this much time off. You get a week between Christmas and New Years, a few long weekends and a week in the spring, all of which are really busy travel times. Not sure how you could do a fall road trip and most National Parks are either a flight or very long drive away. And, your travel ability depends on your child’s interests. If she gets into sports, lots of sports have school break time commitments.

We travel a lot and your schedule seems pretty ambitious. But it does sound like you don’t have to plan for family visits.

We actually never stopped traveling after kids so ours have been camping and vacationing since they were babies. We do a big trip and a couple of three day weekend trips most years and we go to the beach most weekends where we have nothing else going on. but we are really limited by kids’ sports.

This sounds like a great idea/tradition to do.

I'm up late thinking about yearly trips we want to attempt when DD is older.

What age did you start doing yearly vacations? What is your vacation schedule?

Winter- ski/winter resort/ holidays w family at home
Spring -camping/dude ranch type trip
Summer - beach/lake trip
Fall- road trip/ possibly checking off national parks

We would also love to do the 50 states w DD before HS graduation and take 2 intl trips a year- one splurge and one budget trip

Is this just too unrealistic?