Having your kids help plan the activities in your travel itinerary is a great way to get them involved in family vacation planning. There are many easy & fun ways that they can help.
Family Vacation Planning – Tips:
To start, check out the website for your destination. What sort of vacation planning tools to they have? Are you able to order vacation planning DVD’s or pamphlets?
Visit your local travel agency and see what information they have on your destination. If you are traveling to a popular destination they will likely have plenty of brochures, maps and other vacation planning tools to pass along to you.
Do some internet research together. Look up area attractions, the local tourism office and the hotel you will be staying at. All of these websites will have helpful vacation planning information.
When reviewing websites for area attractions, make notes of information like:
- hours of operation
- cost of admission
- option for advanced ticket sales
- printable coupons
Ask friends and family if they have traveled to the destination and if they have any travel tips. Perhaps someone knows someone who lives in the area. A lot of times the local residents have great tips to pass along to travelers.
Once you’ve decided what attractions you want to visit, write down what you need to pack for each attraction. Some examples are an autograph book for Disneyland, beach bag of essentials for the beach, camera for the museum, etc.
Your kids can also help write out an itinerary on what you want to see each day. This is a great way to stay organized so you have time to fit in all of the fun activities you’ve planned.
When packing your travel bags, be sure to bring all of your itinerary notes, maps, brochures, etc. with you.
When you are doing your family vacation planning, how do you find information on area attractions?
To stay updated on family fun ideas and family travel tips, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Bloglovin’.
Wow! What great travel planning advice! I had never thought of some of those things like planning tools! We definitely want to take Little One to Disney, so this is helpful! Thanks!
Cheryl, thanks for all the great tips for vacation planning! The kids get so excited when you involve them in mapping out the vacation. Happy times!
We haven’t planned a big family vacation yet, however, I will definitely be coming to your website for ideas. I know that CAA also has travel planners.
Besos, Sarah
Zookeeper at Journeys of The Zoo
We use the CAA travel planner! We plan which attractions we will be visiting!
I ALWAYS look for coupons! I’ve found some awesome deals on food and admission that way! Great post!
Great travel planning! Wow you are really organized! Good for you!
These are wonderful tips! Our girls are small (1 yr & 3 yr), so it’s hard for them to help, but recently we’ve been giving our 3 year old choices about things that she wants to do at Disney World (we go there a lot). She loves choosing the rides and restaurants, but often we don’t go much further than It’s a Small World! LOL.
What a great idea to help get the kids involved and even more excited about the trip 🙂 It’s so important to make them feel a part of it! You are sooo organized!! Love all your tips 🙂
Great tips! Generally when planning a family vacation, we consult our travel agent and also peruse TripAdvisor for reviews and ideas on resorts and local attractions.
I use google searches and forums for info. When we went on a cruise 3 years ago I was addicted to cruise critic
Ooh, I haven’t heard of cruise critic but I’ll be sure to check it out now.