I’ve been on those family trips before – and even some of my husband’s and mine “romantic getaways” have gone this route – but after more than our fair share of yelling, name calling, bad tempers and stony silences, I put my foot down: If my family couldn’t vacation happily, we weren’t going to vacation at all.
Well, obviously I couldn’t live without my vacations, so instead of banning fun, I invented my own vacation—the “Follow My 5 Rules and We’ll All Be Happy” vacation…
Here are the rules my two children, my husband and myself must follow if any of us hope to travel together ever again:
Rule #1: Choose a destination no more than 4 hours away. This is a road trip, and not a weeklong family vacay. Long drives alone stress people out, but when you only have two days to get somewhere, do everything you want to do and then get back home before the Monday commute, more than 4 hours on the road is way too much. In these instances, the shorter the drive, the better.
Rule #2: Plan to eat, but don’t plan meals. Doing so will just result in excessive grocery shopping on your part, added stress when trying to figure out where to put all the danged food and unhappy faces when you try to enforce “meal times.”
Rule #3: Time does not exist when on vacation. That means no enforced dinner times, bed times, bath times or swimming times. That also means that the moment you step out of your office on Friday afternoon, you’re officially on vacation, and therefore, rushing is not an option.
If you get home and your family still isn’t packed, don’t get mad. If you care to speed things along, help them. If you don’t, make yourself a sandwich and wait until they’re good to go.
If your 6 year old or significant other has to pee twenty times in the span of four hours, don’t get upset. Just use the extra bathroom breaks to stretch your legs, read a magazine or get some fresh air.
The great thing about vacations is that you have nowhere you need to be. And the best thing you can do for your sanity and for the sanity of your family is to act like it.
Rule #4: Don't have an agenda! Agenda's tie you down and keep you and everyone else from doing what they really want to be doing--having fun!
Rule #5: Perfection is not an option. If you try to make everything perfect by trying to make everyone do what you think they should be doing, NO ONE will have fun. Let everyone be and you’ll see that vacationing really doesn’t have to be so hard.