Every family is different. Some people love a detailed plan and need to know what’s coming next. When travelling with children, we’ve found it works well to pick a few things we really want to do or places we’d love to visit, then take the rest as it comes.
What are you most looking forward to today?
It might be a boat trip, a visit to a temple or a wander around a town. Some days that means one bigger outing; on others, two or three smaller stops. It depends on how far apart they are and how much time you’d like at each. You can plan your route, check opening times and book any tickets around those.
By all means, look up a few other ideas too. They just don’t have to become a list of thirty places to tick off before bedtime. If there’s time to stop at a viewpoint along the way, lovely. If you fancy a stroll around the harbour, go for it. And if not, there’s no catching up to do.
See what the rest of the day brings
Sometimes there’s still plenty of energy for exploring after an outing. Other times it’s hot, the children want to be by the water, or you find somewhere nobody wants to leave. So you stay.
Leave yourself room to decide when you get there, depending on the weather, everyone’s mood and how you’re all feeling. The night before, you really can’t know whether tomorrow afternoon you’ll fancy climbing a lookout tower or just getting an ice cream. And you certainly can’t predict the cat you’ll meet along the way, who’ll take charge of the itinerary for a while.
Less clock-watching, more holiday
When your plans are packed back to back, even a quick snack can throw the timings out. Let alone several snacks. Then the children want a little longer to play, and you’re already working out whether you’ll make it to the castle before last entry. Suddenly you hear yourself saying ‘Come on, then’ rather more often than you’d hoped to on holiday.
And the children pick up on that hurry. You might be telling them there’s no rush, but you’ve just asked them to hurry up and finish their drinks for the third time.
With a bit of breathing space between plans, you can linger over lunch or stop at a playground without spending the rest of the afternoon rushing to get somewhere. That extra viewpoint? You’ll either get there or you won’t. It doesn’t have to feel like an unticked box.
When rain changes the plan
You’ve been looking forward to the boat trip since before you left home, but you wake up to rain and the trip is cancelled. Of course that’s disappointing. Especially when the children have been ready to go, hats on, since breakfast.
But you don’t have to come up with the perfect replacement straight away. Perhaps go for something nice to eat and have a look together at what else you might enjoy. There might be something indoors nearby, or the rain might pass in a little while. And perhaps, once the coffee and pancakes arrive, you won’t fancy going anywhere at all. It can still be a lovely day, just a different one from the day you’d imagined.
Leave room for a surprise
This won’t suit every family. But we find it helps to remember that, when nothing terribly important is at stake, we can let the day unfold a little. Have a few plans to look forward to, while leaving room for whatever surprises us along the way.
When you don’t expect every day to go exactly to plan, it’s easier to enjoy the things that turn out differently. Rather than feeling disappointed about what you didn’t get round to, you might find yourself thinking how nice it was to spend that time at the playground. And that café right next door, the one you hadn’t planned to visit? The coffee was really good!
Perhaps you’ll make it to that viewpoint after all. Perhaps you won’t. And perhaps you’ll discover that, as far as the children are concerned, the best bit of the day was the cat anyway.