Getting Ready to Go on Holidays with Kids
Trips take a lot of work. It seems simple – pack some clothes, book your accommodation and voila. If you talk to friends who’ve done a trip, or (even worse) your parents about how they did it when you were kids, they always forget the details. There’s a heartfelt meaningful lesson in that, of course, but for our purposes of the nitty gritty – it’s not simple. It never is. People who say it’s simple are magical unicorns and all the best to them. But for the majority of us mere average parents, it’s not.
The week before we went away on our international adventure, I was doing so many little jobs that I barely had time for the big ones.
Here is a snapshot of the list of the things I needed to do before leaving (not all that week, thank goodness, but leading up to it as well).
list of things to do before an international family trip:
Organise flights
Organise travel insurance
Organise passports (photos, applications with witnesses, posting, etc)
Let school and preschool know we will be away
Let extra curriculars (e.g. child sports) know we will be away so we get a makeup class
Let banking know we will be overseas so they don’t freeze our account
Sort out overseas phone connections (turn roaming on)
Book overseas activities (so everything isn’t booked out when you get there!)
Accommodation (research, book)
Clear camera memory space
Plan and buy things for the kids’ bags for the car/plane trips
Snacks for the trip
Water plants and plan for their survival strategy while we are MIA
Turn off internet, hot water etc
Haircuts for everyone (somehow it always works out this way with timing)
Wash clothes so we have clothes to take, and so there isn’t a whole load of dirty laundry when we get back
Clean up the backyard in case of rain/storms while we’re away
Plan car parking/lifts to the airport
Making sure we have all the accessories and clothes we’ll need
Organising luggage (having appropriate bags, labels, locks, etc)
Making sure we have the right clothes, shoes, and accessories for the destination. I tend to plan ahead and get things end of season so they’re super cheap, or I look in op shops, or borrow from friends.
Sometimes I even do a full house clean and grocery shop (non-perishable) before we leave, so it’s nice to come back home.
Sometimes I even cook a meal for the day we’ll get home, and leave it in the freezer. I don’t know why, we always get takeaway anyway!
So many more…especially if you’re camping and taking your own gear. The list goes on and on. (Yes, this is where you finally see that I’m a little bit crazy, but also how big a deal it is for me of all people to be pursuing more adventures with my family! Go me!)
I know it gets easier the more you do it, and the older your kids get, but wow there are so many things to think of other than just packing. In fact, packing is the very last thing I do. Now I know people who just pack and figure it out the week before, but that’s not my style. I like to avoid stress! Because I do get stressed – and that’s not fun for anyone. Plus I’ve found the more we leave to the last minute, the more late nights we have before going away – which means grumpy parents when we’re supposed to be having fun.
It's also much cheaper to plan ahead. For example, available bookings are usually expensive if you’ve left it last minute, and you don’t have flexibility. Clothes won’t be on sale. Passports need a fast-track service. Banking and roaming fees are more expensive in the foreign country. Snacks and activities cost way more at the airport than at normal shops. You pay for your lack of flexibility and urgency. If you don’t care about the costs, then jeez save yourself the effort of all these things. But again, if you’re like the majority of average families, then saving money on these things makes sense.
planning and packing personalities
Now it depends on the couple, but for us all these little details tend to be my responsibility – purely because I think of them. When I try to offload items to my husband, he needs a daily reminder (which means it’s still my responsibility, right?).
We had an argument one evening the week before we were leaving for New Zealand, because I’d asked my husband to print out our flights and all our booking information. He kept forgetting and defensively suggested it was stupid to print them out early (and who needs printed paper anyway – we have phones). I kid you not, the printer broke two days before we had to leave. And at the airport, the quickest way to get through the long check-in service with kids was to hand over a piece of paper instead of flicking through our phones back and forth. Those are the types of things I want to avoid. And (as I explained) if these little jobs are done early, then we can focus on the other jobs the last couple days (basically, it affects me because I do everything, but not him because he didn’t realise all the other jobs to do). Besides, I don’t think having our documents organised five days before international departure is ‘early’ anyway! But, regardless of your style (his is more last minute and high-tech, mine is more organised and old-school), someone has to do all these things at some point. If you want to do it last-minute, fine, but it’ll be a late and crazy rush. Or you might just get back and find all your houseplants are dead. That’s fine for some people too – not for me!
Rant over…almost
This rant is basically my way of acknowledging the effort I’ve gone to, just to get us to our holiday. When you look back it’s easy to remember the good times and it can also seem so easy from the outside looking in. To everyone who saw us go from camping, to Melbourne, to Brisbane, to New Zealand, in and out of school holidays and work, it’s not simple or easy or effortless. I vowed on the way to Brisbane, after spending the day packing, and picking up the kids with their changes of clothes and car snacks/activities ready to go, that I was done for the rest of the year.
“No camping, no long weekends, no quick trips anywhere. I’m staying home until Christmas.”
A few days after being home, I’m wondering if it might take me that long just to get through all the washing from our NZ trip. Oh, and all the other ‘getting home’ jobs – mostly unpacking – that need to be done and no one thinks about. Time will tell!
The temptation to fit a quick trip in is strong – but what I’ve learned is the organising beforehand and unpacking upon return are way out of proportion for a short trip compared to a long one. It’s almost easier to go for a long time and make all that effort really worth it – the preparation work is sometimes nearly the same. Or, maybe I need to work on being okay with less preparation. It’s something I really have been trying with our camping trips, to be honest. I’ll do another post about that sometime. For now, I’d love to hear from you –
What style are you:
Organise early for less stress?
Wing it for less stress? Or…
You magical unicorns…what stress are you talking about – holidays aren’t stressful!
Let me know in the comments below!
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Preparing for an International Trip with Kids for the First Time