Now onto the fun part....

After I’ve booked our rental or hotel, I move on to itinerary planning for our trips.

Some choose to take the easy-going, meandering type approach, but in my experience- that is tough to do with kids. They want to know where we're going, and when, and what it will be like. There are few kids that I know that enjoy the unexpected. That being said, you could always save one of your stops as the "surprise" of the day.

Itinerary might be a strong word, and you might be picturing me marching my tribe through the streets at an exhausting pace- but that is not always the case (except, yes, in London- but in my defense- that might've been their one shot at seeing London). In my opinion, it’s always good to have at least a loose plan- so that A) you don’t miss the main sites and B) you’re not jetting back and forth from one end of town to the other- wasting precious sight-seeing time.

I usually loosely plan our itineraries based on “days” that can be moved around to fit the weather, our mood, kid melt-downs, etc. I usually try to put a “museum-ish” day between action packed adventure days so that it’s more low-key and the kids don’t get over-tired OR over-bored. For this, I use a website/app called- www.tripit.com. TripIt allows you to add in your rental confirmations, etc- if you choose, but I just mainly use it to “map” our sights. If you’re heading to a city you haven’t explored before- this is great to get your bearings and make getting around easy once you’re at your destination. I made sure to copy and paste lots of info on pricing, hours, etc. into the notes on the app, so that I wouldn't have to keep burning data when we were out sight-seeing. Here's a copy of the rough itinerary for Colorado Springs/Divide, CO.

Again, check Trip Advisor for reviews of destinations and things to do, and Googling the city will lead you to the city’s/chamber of commerce’s website, and you can check the community calendars to see what’s coming up. Many smaller towns have free events and festivals to show off local color, and I always check those for freebies. For instance, when I googled Colorado Springs, I found a free visitor’s guide I could order, a community calendar, as well as a listing of free museums, etc. that were low cost/free. You can visit their tourist website here. Some of these things are lesser-known gems- one being the Colorado Springs Pioneer Museum, which my older boys were surprised to admit- they enjoyed.

Once you've created a loose itinerary, if you are traveling internationally, or where cell/internet service will be a potential problem, then I recommend printing or writing these things down along with addresses, hours of operation and prices. This was extremely helpful in London, where wi-fi was not always easily accessible.  You can do this, by clicking on the "print Itinerary" icon in TripIt, and then selecting print, or print to pdf for a nice, clean copy.

Don't feel chained to your itinerary! For example, the first day, we decided to skip the Air Force Museum and added in the local Airplane restaurant (mediocre food, but a must-do for aviation fans). We also had to book an appointment for the Wolf and Wildlife Center, so we ended up moving that to another day. The point of this Itinerary is not to make this regimented, but rather, just having all the information you need in one place, at your fingertips, and having a plan that maximizes your site seeing time. We ended up switching out a few of these places in order to squeeze in local things we found on the fly, or to slide in more relaxing down time. Regardless, we always knew our options, and what it would take out of the budget.

We absolutely loved every minute of our Colorado trip, and yes, I would go again. I would chalk this vacation up to one of the most relaxing, and one of my very favorites, and I think that the good planning process involved definitely contributed to our great experience. Do you have places you love to visit in Colorado? I would love to hear about them!

You may say I'm a planner....

      Annnnnd, you would be right. I thought I’d use this post to share a couple of tools that I have used to plan our family vacations.

If you could travel back in time to when hubby and I first met and got married, you’d be looking at the southern grit that had barely been anywhere in the world. Growing up, our family vacation plans consisted of heading to the great Myrtle Beach to camp in our family’s travel trailer- and even then, I can probably count on one hand how many times our family could actually go. If I recall, I think I had been on a plane exactly two times- to and from Washington DC for the National Young Leader’s Conference/Caucus. I had taken a bus trip down to Florida to explore a potential college (because, Florida beach!); and between my senior trip and a couple concert road trips, I had explored a few states on the east coast. Not bad, but I was definitely not a world traveler, either; and I definitely hadn’t planned any of those trips myself. Hubby, however, had already earned himself a reputation as a traveler because he was born to travelin’ parents. He even has a Clark Griswold-like story to tell about a cross country trip in the family station wagon!

Anyhoo, in the early days- Martin did all the trip planning. He was really, really good at it. He was the one who scoured the interwebs to find us airfare to Munich for $250/pp!!!! That was 2004, and we haven’t come close to that since. We were broke as a joke, but we pulled the trigger anyway, because we knew that opportunity might not come around again. Still don’t regret that. He also found us great places in Europe to stay on the cheap as a family (hello, we aren’t hosteling with a baby in tow); but that is for another blog.

Cut to a couple years ago, and we were planning our Costa Rica trip, and frankly, he’d become too busy to be the planner. So, I stepped tentatively into the role, at the risk of screwing up family vacation. I mean, it’s a first world problem- but I’ve heard stories from other families about bed bugs, dirty environments, and big $ let downs; so there’s a lot riding on family vacation- especially if you can’t do it often. Last summer, I became the die-hard vacation planner. We weren’t sure where to go at first- in case you didn’t know- Texas is big and getting anywhere interesting- well besides San Antonio, takes HOURS in the car.

We originally started planning a trip to Broken Bow, but once I started the research, I found that we could travel to Colorado for much cheaper, yes, a longer car ride- but the cooler temperatures and even better scenery won the day.

So, I started planning the Colorado trip from scratch- having never set foot in Colorado, and here’s how I did it….

1. If you are planning a trip for seven days or longer, give yourself at least 3 months to plan. This only applies if you are a control freak like me and want to know what you’re in for; what the terrain is like, where the grocery stores are; the best possible places to visit and when to go to maximize your experience. If you prefer a more easy-going, meandering type experience, reduce this time frame to on-the-fly to your preference, and skip to step 2.   
2. Choose your destination: I use tools like www.City-data.com and just plain ol’ google on the city. City-data will give you information about demographics, crime, etc- so that you can choose the areas you might want to stay or avoid. I also use the infamous www.Tripadvisor.com to see what the top attractions are and if they will be interesting and family friendly. I think that sometimes people only think of TripAdvisor for hotels, but it really can be used for so much more.
3. Choose your time frame. Are you shooting for particular weather? Do you want to avoid the crowds/busy times? Are you looking for low-key relaxation, or action packed adventure? When we considered our trip to London, we made concessions on the weather by going in March; so that we could reduce airfare and have more cash to spend in the city. This choice was opposite our original plan to go in June- for the Queen’s birthday celebrations. Turns out, June might have been a bad time to go because many of the main attractions would have been closed for the celebrations, and the crowds- well, let me just say- I’ve since discovered that one of my kids does not do those well. It’s important to check city calendars to make sure that there’s nothing huge going on, if you want to avoid crowds.
4. Once you’ve selected the city you’re interested in, you’ll need to consider lodging. I usually find that this is one of the most extensive pieces of research for me, because we like to search and search for the best possible bang for our buck. If you’re leaning towards a hotel stay, I would definitely seek out reviews via www.tripadvisor.com, and www.familyvacationcritic.com. Family Vacation Critic is a tool I’ve discovered relatively recently. I love that it scores the choices and rates them with Mom and Dad, and different kid age brackets. Obvious advantages to hotel stays are things like pools, maid service, on site restaurants, and location.  However, sometimes it works to your advantage to consider a vacation rental- so that you can save on eating out, and have more space to spread out. If you have several children this is a huge consideration. But remember- rentals may not provide every creature comfort you’re used too, and I usually end up packing everything but the kitchen sink to make sure we’re covered. For instance- we’re foodies, and packing certain spices and things was important to our cooking process. Packing is another blog I’ll get to eventually…. If you’re looking for a vacation rental or actual home, I like to use and compare www.airbnb.com; or www.vrbo.com. I’ve mentioned the later in a former blog post, and I haven’t personally booked through Airbnb yet, but both let you create a trip and save your favorites. You can search by price, bedrooms, location, and more. Both offer pictures of the rental and reviews, in most cases. We have booked through vrbo.com twice and corresponded with owners of potential rentals on numerous occasions and have yet to have a bad experience.

Next up is itinerary planning. That is a whole ‘nother blog because I have lots to say about it. Don’t let it scare you, because just because there’s a plan, doesn’t mean it’s regimented…. I think my kiddos actually enjoy the fact that they knew what each day would hold for them. Until then- happy planning!