Anonymous wrote:Op here: well this is all a bummer. We have been trying to hit up a lot of national parks but it is hard to do that in the winter or sometimes even in the spring.

Spring can be fine for the SW parks. We’ve had good experiences the past two Aprils.

It does get really challenging especially if there are other constraints. We usually find that mid-late July works but we need to be back by very early August.

I assume once they are in college and interning, etc. it only gets harder!

^I should add if we had two kids I'd scrap the idea of a summer vacation entirely and just focus on the long school breaks.

It's hard if your kid is involved in things.

Summer before HS, as long as we were back by August 1 and avoided some key dates where the fall sport was doing evening camps (just 3 scattered weeks) it was easy.

Summer after 9th, not terrible, but harder, because the coach changed and had MORE sports stuff and kid wanted to be there. Plus was working and doing a short away camp. We managed to find one week.

Summer after 10th, we've had to reschedule twice already but found a 6 day period that should work. Between a legitimate internship, test prep, and some sports (which have now fallen way way down in priority) it's like scheduling around a whole different adult person. We do not know yet if we can visit family in late July/early August via 1 week in the car or if we'll have to do two very quick plane trips. It's challenging.

I suspect the summer after 11th will be a little easier if we book for right when school gets out.

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, I hate the school schedule here. In my home country, there are longer breaks every season, so people can actually go on trips far away from home without being frazzled, but here, it seems like the only time we can take a relaxing two week vacation to see family in Asia or somewhere else is in the summer. The problem is that none of us want a tropical vacation at the hottest time of the year!

Generally there's two weeks off around Christmas/New Years.

I have a MS kid who is starting travel soccer in the fall.
I just found out the travel team does a soccer camp the week before school starts. Thats the week we’ve booked for our beach week. She gonna miss the camp which sucks. Guess next year I’ll be in the same boat as all of you.

Yeah, I hate the school schedule here. In my home country, there are longer breaks every season, so people can actually go on trips far away from home without being frazzled, but here, it seems like the only time we can take a relaxing two week vacation to see family in Asia or somewhere else is in the summer. The problem is that none of us want a tropical vacation at the hottest time of the year!

Op here: well this is all a bummer. We have been trying to hit up a lot of national parks but it is hard to do that in the winter or sometimes even in the spring.

We had to give up big summer trips and traveled more at spring and winter breaks.

1 HS and now 1 college---family vacations are limited to the xmas week. It's the only week I can guarantee every one will be free from obligations.

Yes it’s moved earlier into July. School starts in early August.

Never had a vacation schedule. Took one about every five years.

It’s tough. If your kid does summer swim & a fall sport or marching band, you have maybe one week free. Of course you can miss a week of summer swim, which is what we did last year to see family. Then squeezed a trip into that one week mentioned above. But it wasn’t even a full week trip due to the time constraints.

We have not been able to take a full family vacation for a few years. Our oldest works at a summer camp that runs the first 8 weeks of summer. Our youngest needs to be back by second week of August for fall tryouts.
It really stinks. I hate that the tryouts are so early but I think it’s compelled by the fact that most schools in other jurisdictions are back in mid August so the sports sessions start earlier. We end up taking a day off here and there during the school year to maximize the school breaks but it stinks. We lost all the years when my kids were in MS and could have travelled more easily to Covid shutdowns.

Did you find that your vacation schedule changed when your kids went to high school? We normally do a two week trip in August, but that seems or due to band schedules. Our school doesn't get out until late June so btwn that and annual work conferences plus my kids hoping to be a CIT plus sleep away camp basically feels like we are out of luck for summer vacation with the kids.

We will make strong use of memorial day and labor day I guess!