We are a traveling family

We are a traveling family. What seems normal to us is plain craziness to others. My almost 3 year old has been on a dozen flights around the country and numerous road trips in his first 3 years, with more trips planned. It's second nature to us. We also live in the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex with no family within a six hour drive, so traveling is a necessity. We’d like to share some of our experiences and tips with the hopes that it benefits you, and other families with their travels; and maybe you’ll share your tips with us as well!

In July we planned a week long family road trip that spanned 2100 miles and 3 states, from Dallas and Amarillo Texas, to Albuquerque and Santa Fe New Mexico, through Colorado Springs, Breckenridge, Estes Park, and Fort Collins Colorado, back south to Manitou Springs and then a final visit to Amarillo before arriving back in Dallas. This started out as a simple, “let’s visit our sister in her new house in New Mexico and my Mom in Colorado” to weeklong trip with a dozen stops in between. Each stop provided an opportunity for the kids to stretch their legs, but also for everyone to gain new experiences.

With all of our travels we start out with a simple email agenda, and by the time we leave we have a detailed spreadsheet. It never fails. We just can’t plan a vacation that doesn’t involve numerous stops and visits and a detailed agenda.

Here’s a free printable template that we use for planning our vacations. You’ll see columns for each day broken into rows for morning activities, lunch location, afternoon activities, dinner location, evening activities and where we are sleeping. 

I also use a similar template to plan my clothes and accessories. This helps me to plan ahead with extra stuff that we might need like bathing suits, hiking boots, warm coats, etc. 

How do you plan for vacations or trips? Do you have big spreadsheets too?