Planning Family Vacations With Kids

This is a reply to a request for a hub on traveling with toddlers, so let me lay it out for you. Children having fun means parents don't and if you, as a parent, are having fun on a vacation, then you can be sure your kids are steamed that they've been taken for a ride - In more ways than one....

So, does that mean you need to sacrifice your fun for your kids? Not necessarily. All you need to do is find someone who will act as a proxy for you, while on vacation. Other than this, there remains the issue of choosing a kid friendly holiday destination and making sure your children have company, in the form of friends and other kids their age. We'll take a deeper look at all this one by one below the fold, but in a nutshell - You're looking at a kid friendly hotel which offers baby sitting services along with all the amenities you need to keep children happy (more on that below), and you need to kind a vacation spot which offers something for you as well as for your kids.

There are two parts to getting a kiddie holiday right - The hotel and the destination. A wrong choice of either of the aforementioned will land you in depp doo-doo. First, the destination. What do kids want in a holiday? Well, just like adults, they want to go where the other kids are going. It's called peer pressure and it starts way early nowadays. If we're talking about California, there's only three places which are safe bets - Anaheim, Carlsbad and Monterey. In other words, Disneyland, Legoland and the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Let's just say that Anaheim will make your children happiest, Carlsbad is probably your best bet, and Monterey lies in between. The Golden State is so vast that it'll take me hours to list all the other kiddie attractions in the state, but I think you get the picture.

Secondly, there's the hotel. There's not much point in spending a week in paradise if you still have to clean up after the kids, stay in to look after them, feed them and follow their incomprehensible babble. The whole point of the vacation was to take a break - a change. For both parnets and kids. For the kids, that means amusement parks and beaches and rides and fishes and turtles and stuff. For you it means sun, sand, surf, massages, shopping, dining, adventure sports and just being free of the daily grind - A getaway. For this, you need what is known as Kid friendly hotel. The specifics are pretty simple - Daily maid service and same day laundry/dry cleaning, cribs and rollaway beds, high chairs and strollers, room service, a concierge who can, on short notice, arrange everything from an accredited baby-sitter to theatre and cruise tickets. Some hotels offer comprehensive services for a full family stay, like the Kimpton Kids program from Kimpton Hotels, which even has rooms specifically desgined to keep kids safe, in addition to offering all the above mentioned. You should call a hotel, and talk to their information desk regarding your needs before you make a reservation. This is a full list of family hotels in California categorized by city, which includes user reviews and other necessary information like maps, price range and contact information.

Take care to select the right destination and the right hotel and 90% of your problems are solved, in so far as it concerns a family vacation, or traveling with toddlers. Additionally, it might be a good idea to take along at least one of your kids' good friends, since it saves you from having to pay constant attention to your child. Secondly, you might want to invite grand-parents or other relations, like an aunt, who might relieve you of some of the burden.

Course, there still remain a lot of issues, including your budget and the actual travel (flights, local transport, etc.), not to mention packing and what to carry and what not to take. But, maybe that'll be another hub for another day. The problem with the internet, and with hack writers like me, is that we tend to offer too much information. So, I'll sign off on that note. Take a look at the links below for specific information, hotel listings by area and kid friendly activities and tips for parents planning a holiday with family and kids in tow.