Top 6 Family Holiday Planning Tips

Let choosing your holiday destination be a combined effort. Talk about the places and options, and what you will do and see there. It helps build the anticipation once the decision is made and the countdown to departure begins.

Look at maps, blog posts and guidebooks together to help all three generations understand where you will be travelling to in relation to home, activities on offer and accommodation choices.

Encourage learning about the people and culture that you’ll be exposed to, as well as how to say, ‘thank you’ and ‘please’ in the language of the destination that you will visit. It goes a long way.

Support the ‘why’. We know that travel brings many lessons and the sooner children are open to these benefi ts, the better. Let them ask how far, how long, names of attractions and the people they will meet each day.

Give children and grandparents cameras – or phones – and encourage them to take photos of whatever interests them, whether it be the architecture, cars, food, animals or scenery – and especially each other. At the end of the trip, get together over a meal and let each photographer share what they found most interesting. There is no age limit to this method of storytelling. Printing a photo book of the best of them makes a wonderful keepsake.

Write a journal, share anecdotes over dinner at the end of each day, learn new things, be open and respectful to those who will host you – and each other, and you’ll find the greatest gift of all will be the conversations and quality time with each other.