I just finished reading Scribbit’s post about family vacations. It was a perfect post to me. And it’s got me all psyched up! (yeah, you might want to go read it before we go on…I’ll wait…)
When I was little we had fun family vacations. We flew to Minnesota. We drove to California. We’ve done road trips from Georgia to New York to Michigan. We did Disney. We’ve ridden bikes through old railway tunnels. We went snowmobiling in Colorado. We’ve eaten dinner in a yurt. We camped on Virginia Beach and the Kentucky Horse parks. We’ve even gone to family camps and conferences for vacation.
Family vacations, to me are all about bonding. We go on vacations to get closer to each other. As much as I love my friends and wanted to be with them (even as a teenager), I looked forward to vacations because they were our special time to be together as a family. We laughed, played games, did things we’d never done before and learned to love each other more.
Les and I are planning a vacation now for just the 3 of us. We’ve been on a cruise & to Missouri with my family, we went to the beach with Les’ fam, but we want to go on our first “family vacation”! I want Lydia to grow up remembering the fun times we made for our family. I want her to know that we took time off of work & commitments, spent extra money and planned a special trip just for our family. I want our children (one day) to be best friends and enjoy spending 12 hours in a car together (ok, that might be a stretch!). I want every vacation to be a celebration of our family!
I say all that to say…what should we do on our first family vacation? We want to go in the next few months. I know there’s Disney, a cruise or just the beach, but unbelievably, we’ve done ALL those since Lydia’s was born! I’m not remotely complaining. I’m just hoping to find something new to do this time. Any suggestions for our first family vacation? What was the best family vacation you ever had?
My best family vacations were probably the least thought out. The trips to the mountains or to a random lake… we used to go to these cabins and walk to ride horses and make ice cream in our cabin at night. So much fun!!!
Our best family vacations were in my aunt’s cottage on Lake Erie. Our whole family, sometimes over 15 of us, would all head there, and we would not only share bedrooms, but we shared ONE bathroom! HA! When we got older, we had to have a sign-up for showers! Each individ. family picked a night to cook dinner and we had sandwiches and leftovers for lunches. We spent sunny days on the beach, rainy days inside playing games (no TV!) and we took one day to go to Cedar Point Amusement park. We also rode the “bicycle built for two” and played sports and games outside. There were no real “plans” for the most part, we just did whatever we wanted. Just being together and bonding with people we didn’t see every day. I think even though we went back to the same place year after year, there were always different memories which I’ll never forget!
My favorite family vacation was to Memphis. Except for my mom crying at Graceland. That was a bit much for my seventh grade self. There were a ton of fun museums and restaurants!
My favorite place now (and will probably be our first family vacation) is Chattanooga.
I, personally, think that Birmingham would be a wonderful vacation for the three of you! (hint hint)
My favorite and best vacation was going to Tennessee to the Smokey Mountains, staying in a cabin up in the mountains. We did a lot of hanging out in the cabin, but the most fun for me was going out to eat at fun restaurants, horseback riding and just souvenir shopping. It sounds boring, but it was the best time and I have so many great memories from it. Tennessee is beautiful and I really recommend it.
I would also recommend Chicago, but wait a few years till Lydia can experience the American Girl store!
St. Louis is really great with a lot of things just for children like the Science Museum and the Magic House and they have Grant’s Farm there which is like a huge petting zoo! All those things would be great for her age. And then you guys could stay on the river and go up into the arch and experience Union Station and eat lots of really great food! I love St. Louis . . . 🙂
All of the vacations I remember were all in Europe, so…Europe gets my vote. Paris is cool, Germany, Greece, Italy…anywhere in Europe, really.
🙂
Do you want cold weather vacations or hot? My family always enjoyed the mountains in any weather from playing in a cool mountain trout stream in the summer to skiing in the winter.
I agree with Val…Tennesse, especially this time of year. Gatlinburg would be fun!!
…and if you came to Gatlinburg, you’re not far from me! 😀 We love our camping trips, and we agree that our best memories of vacations growing up were of camping, too!
Most of our family vacations were to either Disney or Myrtle Beach, or with our entire extended family (30+ people). But we did go camping and I always remember that as really fun, even if we just went down the road to a close little campground. Unfortunately, you live in the South, right? It might not be so bad in the spring, summer in the South is just too hot to camp.
But I have great memories of cooking in the fire, washing dishes by hand, taking hikes, seeing deer, and just playing around in the pop-up trailer we had with my little sister.
I think I agree that a mountain trip would be fun this time of year. I’m not much of a Gatlinburg person anymore, but with a little one I think it would be fun:) I want Evan to see some ‘real snow’ soon!!! Ok maybe that’s me:)
We just took our first family vacation last summer and it was amazing! I thought I would be bored, because, like you, we always went places with other people. But it was awesome. We went to my family’s lakehouse in North Georgia for a week. Some days we went on the lake and fished (if that’s what you call it), napped, whatever. Max was only nine months old, so he wasn’t too enthused about having to wear a life vest, but he survived. One day we went to Cleveland to Babyland General (Cabbage Patch overload) and spent way too much on a new doll for Livi. It was so relaxing, and we really had a lot of fun just being the four of us.
When I was little, we usually just visited out-of-state family for a vacation.
Now that I have my own little one, we haven’t been on too many vacations — but we did go to Disney for a few days last year. It’s so much more fun with a child!
I’d say maybe you want to go to a city you’ve always wanted to visit.