Family Summer Vacation Traditions to Start Now
No, being asked “are we there yet?” every 10 minutes doesn’t count as a vacation tradition. Whether you’re traveling to the next town or seeing the world, adopting a few simple customs can help you and your kids to cherish your travel memories for years to come. We talked to a few family travel experts about how they make trips with the kids special.
Prepare for the Place
Start your travel traditions before leaving home, suggests Kaamna Bhojwani-Dhawan, the founder of MomAboard.com, a trip planning service for families. “My family of four has been traveling around the world since my kids were 3 months each (they are 5 and 8 now), and we have a ton of fun stories and traditions to share,” she says.
“My favorite, which is becoming more fun as the kids get older, is to watch a movie set in or about the place we are in or going to. I find that it helps to set some context for the kids as well as get them more excited about the trip. For instance, we watched “The Sound of Music” in Salzburg, Vienna; “Jodha Akbar” in Rajasthan, India; “Ratatouille” in Paris; and most recently, “The Martian” in the Wadi Rum desert of Jordan.”
Hand Out Gifts
To your kids, receiving small gifts during travel might become part of their favorite part of vacation — so you don’t have to tell them that doling out small items is actually designed to keep them happy. That’s what Alisha Molen, a Disney Cruise guru at PicturetheMagic.com, did on one cross-country flight with her three young children.
“I created ‘gifts’ or ‘surprises’ for each to open at different points along the way,” she says. “Since our trip was to Disney World, most of the gifts were Disney-themed. A coloring book, a word search, a surprise Disney movie on the iPad, some healthy snack combined with a treat, etc. I gift-wrapped the items or put them in manila envelopes with tags that said ‘Do not open until 11am.’”
Hunt for Treasure
Searching for just the right memento from your trip can become part of the fun of traveling, if you frame it as a tradition. Pick a type of souvenir now, and make it a family challenge to find one on each trip. You might collect easy-to-find souvenirs like Christmas tree ornaments or coffee mugs, or challenge yourselves by trying to find more specific items, like art made by local artists.
Do Some Good
Going to different places provides a great opportunity to teach your children about giving back. Challenge your family to find a way to help the local community on each vacation. Perhaps you can drop off canned goods at a food bank, or help clean up a local park or beach. A similar family custom encouraged Connor Berryhill to name himself “The Microactivist,” and to start an organization that gets kids involved in beach clean-ups.
“My love of the ocean and the desire to protect it has grown out of a family tradition of making sure we leave every beach we visit cleaner than when we came,” he says. “In the beginning we would just make sure to grab a few pieces of trash as we were leaving, but over the years it has grown into a tradition that is fun and uniting.”
Kathryn Walsh is a freelance writer specializing in parenting and travel topics. Her work has appeared on mom.me, TheBump.com, and USAToday.com.
