Tips When Traveling As A Family

Traveling is one of the many things I am passionate about.  One of my life goals is to travel as much as my energy and finances can accommodate.  If you are a follower of this blog, you would know that I sometimes travel for work, but mostly I travel with my family.  I find so much joy in building memories with my family.  As a young kid, I was given a chance to travel but only in limited places like my mom’s province or a relative’s place.  So the moment I started working, and was introduced to booking hotels or flights online in the Philippines, like Traveloka, and outside the country, I began my travelling journey.  But I became more passionate about traveling when I became a mom. 

As a mom to a young child, I want to build as many travel memories as I can with my little boy.  I want to explore the world with him (and his dad too, of course), and make sure that he will remember that Mama and Papa was able to give him as much travel memories as we could.  I want to grab every opportunity I can to travel with my family as much as my body (because I won’t be as energetic as I am now), my time (because we have limited time in this world), and our finances (we need to save more) would allow us.

Traveling is something we all love however it comes with lots of preparations.  I am no expert in traveling but let me share to you some tips when you are traveling with your family.


BOOK IN ADVANCE.  One of my Tipid Tips topic before is about online booking particularly airfare.  Airfare takes a big chunk of the travel budget if you were not able to book in advance.  Saving on airfare (or any transport fare) can be a big help on your overall travel budget. 

SEARCH FOR THE BEST ACCOMMODATION.  There are a lot of travel websites offering discounted prices for hotel accommodation.  Make sure you check them.  But most importantly other than the price of the hotel you will stay, make sure you search for reviews (with s, meaning as much reviews as you can) on the place you will be staying.  Whenever I plan a vacation, I always search for the cheapest hotel or hostel bearing in mind that we will be out the whole day exploring the place, but I always end up booking a much better hotel.  This is after careful deliberation that traveling is a part of vacation.  After all, we don’t want to tire ourselves the whole day traveling, and then go back to our hotel and be stressed out because we chose the cheap one.  At the end of the day, cheap doesn’t equate to value for money.

PACK THE ESSENTIALS.  When traveling with my family, I don’t travel light.  I make sure to pack each and every little item that my little boy would need.  I pack a lot of extra clothes, I pack medicines, I pack a lot of snacks, I pack toys, I pack everything I can think of that we need.  I suggest you create a checklist of items you need during the travel.  This will aid in preparing your things and also to make sure you don’t forget to pack the essentials.  This can also help you avoid spending on items (such as toiletries) that you might forget.  Also, don’t forget to pack important documents such as birth certificates (if you’re travelling with kids without IDs) and health cards as they will come handy for emergency cases.

PLAN A RELAXED ITINERARY.  Traveling as a family means you will be with a lot of people.  A relaxed itinerary will help you enjoy your vacation more.  When we traveled abroad with Neo’s grandparents, our itinerary was one-tourist-attraction-a-day and good thing it was because if we squeezed in a lot of attractions in one day, we will not be able to go to all of them. This is because more people means more time in preparing, more time in waiting, and more time in discussing.  No disappointments will happen if you have a relaxed itinerary.

LET GO and ENJOY.  Finally, once you are travelling, please do enjoy every moment of it.  If itineraries and plans are not followed, let it go.  Don’t stress yourself on simple details.  Travelling with kids in tow can sometimes bring about some parenting issues as some children tend to be uncomfortable when they are not familiar with the place.  So as a parent, don’t forget to bring with you a lot of patience.  Don’t sweat the small stuff.

RECORD THE MEMORIES.  Not everyone is financially blessed to travel to same places twice.  So don’t forget to record all the memories.  Take lots of pictures.  Bring home souvenirs.  Create a journal of your travel memories.

And since you’ll be taking a vacation as a family…

ASSIGN SOMEONE TO LOOK AFTER YOUR HOME.  A lot of us forget this.  If you’re going away on a vacation, make sure to inform trusted relatives who live near you that you will be away.  This way they can check your house from time to time to ensure that no wrongdoers (thieves and the likes) will enter your home.  And if you have pets, you can assign someone, a neighbor perhaps, to feed them.  But of course, don’t forget to bring something for those people who helped took care of your house.

These are some of the tips I have when you are traveling as a family.  I may not be able to cover everything, so if you have other helpful tips, please be my guest and write it down in the comment section.  We may be able to help other traveling family to be prepared and enjoy their travel more.