What To Expect On Your First Family Vacation

Family Vacations are the best, especially when it’s your first time, which is why SmartBizSavings wants to share our philosophy on Family Travel Tips. When a couple first has a child, it can be difficult to separate them at the early stages in their life. This often inspires you to stay home as much as possible, in fear of being faced with scary situations, inconveniences and hard to maintain routines.

Well our philosophy is that there is no better bonding time than going on a family vacation. When the child starts to grow and make memories of his/her own, it is high time to make them the best they can possibly be by exposing them to different types of people and places.

Here Are A Few Things To Expect:

Expect To Answer Questions

– A young child is new to the world and that infamous line “Are we there yet?” is going to echo in your brain. Here’s a tip: don’t oppress it, encourage it. Use it as a moment to explain time, space, and geography with them. Nourish their growing brain. It is between the ages of 3 and 8 usually when a brain soaks up the most information that they will carry as adults.

The wonders of the world are going to be a mystery to them – let them know what they are experiencing. If you are going on a road trip, explain the mountain ranges and give a little American history. If you are traveling to the water, excite them about the process of rain, water, sea life and other things. If you are going somewhere in the desert, talk about the dunes, the cacti and other fun facts. This is the best time for you as a parent to be the teacher! Give your children the information before anyone else.

Save Your Money Before You Go – Keep in mind, you are not a couple anymore. There is now another person that you are sharing your life with. This is bound to be more expensive. You have to buy an extra plane ticket, food, clothes and more souvenirs. The best thing to do in this case is to start a point rewards system with hotels and travel services. Reward programs offer great discounts on tickets to entertainment parks, car rental and hotel reservations. Take advantage of these savings, because then you will have more money in your pocket for the trip.

Expect Minimal Variety – Now that you have children, a lot of the vacation experiences are geared towards them for the next few years. There will be no more trips to bars or clubs for a while. Kids need to do kid things. Arcades, G-rated movies, kid sections in amusement parks, everything you knew about vacations is going to be altered. Family vacations are about sticking together. These are the best memories that we keep. Allow the kids to be kids and don’t alter their imagination by taking them to the places you want to go. Give them something to remember.

Make The Joy Last Forever!

Wherever you go, make sure to make it exciting. The bonding experience that comes from these kinds of trips are the kind that stick. We love to look back at pictures when we are older and remember how much fun we had. Twenty, thirty, forty years down the road it is always going to be treasured.

One thing you need to remember is to take pictures! Take as many as you can together. These will always be the pictures you keep. Family is forever, and so are pictures if you remember to take them!