Skip to main content

Family Travel Tips

School break is right around the corner and I bet all of you parents and kiddies are planning a family trip. Whether adventuring somewhere warm or simply taking a long weekend in the hills, it's important to be prepared and have the right attitude. I recently sat down with one of most well known family travelers, who puts the "What the FU..." in family fun. Feel free to take notes on the Travel Top 10 from Handy Andy.

10: Don't set an Estimated Time of Departure. Keep your options open. Not setting a specific time to leave makes your kids more excitable and agitated, which is exactly the temperament you'd like your children to have before locking them in a moving box for hours on end.

9: Make sure to pack snacks for the ride. Like chocolate frosted donuts.

8: Nothing makes a long car ride better than asking the family to play the "quiet game" while you participate in a conference call.

7: It's not about the destination. It's about the journey. Especially when the journey includes getting lost twice within 25 miles of your house because you would rather trust Google maps than road signs or just a basic, good old understanding of geography.

6: Make sure to plan several activities that pique the interest of each family member, like shopping for men's dress shoes and dress shirts or going to a brewery and watching hockey.

5: Sacrifice your data plan for cartoon watching in restaurants. Yes, it hurts the pocket book, but it means you can eat your dinner.

4: Whatever you do, don't pack the kids' stuff. That way, when something is missing you can feel totally good about shrugging your shoulders and mumbling, "I dunno" when a kid asks where her goggles, underwear, blankie, teddy bear, or mittens are.

3: Buy the kids whatever they want. Again, it hurts the pocket book but do what you can to get in one more beer.

2: Road trips are a great time to catch up with your spouse- talk about all those things you've not had the chance to process. Remember to keep your wife close and your phone closer.

1: When you get home, and everyone is cranky, and there's tons of clothes to wash, trinkets to put away, and mouths to feed-disappear. Follow that misguided, misdirected Google maps app and get lost.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

When The Team Won't Follow the Leader

I am aware that there are some critics out there who think that Andy and I are kind of loosey-goosey parents. Some think we don’t have enough rules or enough structure or discipline in our family. I’ve always felt really bad about this because, from one perspective, I can sort of see what they are talking about. Not a day goes by that I don’t feel guilty about being a shitty parent. My thoughts before passing out each night, exhausted, are about how I could’ve done a better job today and that I really hope I can do a better job the next day. Tomorrow is a new day to make rules and implement them, right? But I finally figured out what the missing link is for me and Andy and why we just can’t be the structured, rigid, disciplinarians that we “aspire“ to be. The other day I was picking up the kids. When we were driving home, my mind was racing with about 50 different things I needed to do at home and at work. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t really present in the moment with the kids even thoug...
Post a Comment
Read more

Charlotte's Story

What can you do in seventeen minutes? Watch an episode of your favorite sitcom without commercials? Run two miles at a good clip? Eat a meal, or in Andy's case, microwave a meal and then eat it? Have a baby? Because that's what I did. You heard me right. I birthed a baby in seventeen minutes because I am a machine. I am a machine ! I am a baby birthing woman of steel. I am not much of a bragger and you may recall that I was never good and never bad at anything. I have no particular achievements to tout, academically, physically, professionally or otherwise except baby birthing. I'm really good at this and I'm pretty darn proud of it and I'd like to brag about it to you now. This is Charlotte's birth story. For the first four or five months of my pregnancy with Charlotte, most people forgot that I was even pregnant. This does happen to you with multiple pregnancies. I never forgot that I was pregnant. Morning sickness heart burn and frequent bathroom t...
1 comment
Read more

The Perennial

Turning 40 is hitting me like a ton of bricks. I’m talking somebody standing at the top of the Empire State building with a wheelbarrow of bricks that they throw on top of me as I stand on the street. Every brick that catapults toward me has a different message: Your hair is getting gray. Your eyebrows are thinning. The skin on your neck and elbows is getting soft. Your hands are wrinkly. Your midsection is getting softer and rounder. You wear progressive glasses. You wake up and go to bed really early. You talk about things like vitamins and retirement. Your back hurts when you get out of bed and when you stand too long or when you sit too long. You think about taking Metamucil or Fiber One to keep you regular. You have one glass of wine and feel hung over the next day. Your kids talk about buying bras and getting their period. You should have stood up straight as a kid because now your neck and back are stuck in this awkward, turtle-like position, and it...
2 comments
Read more