3 Steps to a Better Family Vacation

You might arrive at the same beach condo you’ve always used, but when kids come along, it’s a different experience. Even in paradise, you still have to do all the things you do at home—but now with sand in all the wrong places. Ain’t life grand?

Just because you’re taking a break, doesn’t mean that chaos has its feet up. Even on vacation, things will go wrong. Personally, I’m strongly considering renaming our family minivan “the hot-mess express.” It’s seen more dumpster fire vacations than a junkyard rat. But through it all, I’ve learned a valuable lesson: I actually have the power to smother the flames. And so do you.

What I do before, during, and after our trip will determine whether it becomes a family legend or a liability—treasured time together or a trauma they’ll be unpacking in therapy when they’re 35. The mindsets, attitudes, and perspectives that parents bring into the vacation matter much more than if everything goes according to plan. I like this idea about as much as yearly colonoscopy screenings, but it’s true. And like that butt-exam: sadly necessary.

Our trips have never (and I repeat, “never,”) been what we expected. Our family vacation bingo card involves, but is not limited too: bed bugs; mentally-ill neighbors yelling at the top of their lungs all night through paper thin walls; unexpected hurricanes; water leaks that render showers unusable; a windshield cracked by a stray rock; a surprise need for a root canal; previously unknown shellfish allergies; and puking, ear infections, and fevers, oh my.

But the creme de la creme was the time we blew out a tire at 75 mph, stranding my family of five for four hours beneath the shade of the lone tree outside Tire Discounters, on a patch of grass roughly the size of a beach towel. When we finally managed to get back on the road, we were tragically behind schedule. We pulled up to our hotel about 2:00 AM, only to discover management had cancelled our room, thinking we were no-shows. That one took a year off my life.

In the heat of the moment, sometimes it’s hard to remember that we take vacations because they’re fun. (This is still fun…right?) Through all the ups and downs, I’ve uncovered three important things that I can do—as a husband and father—to help our family vacations be the best they can be.

I hate to say it, but dads, we seem to have an outsized influence in this area. I’m not at all saying moms have no impact on family trips, far from it. But a dad’s expectations and attitudes on vacation seem to carry a lot of weight—possibly because, stereotypically, we seem to be the one member of the family not having any fun. Caring for others is a weighty responsibility, and on vacation, it means much more than just swiping a credit card.

No matter who you are or what your family looks like, you need your vacation to count. To avoid a dumpster fire trip, just remember what you learned back in grade school—stop, drop, and roll.

3 Steps to a Better Family Vacation

1. STOP (THOSE RUNAWAY EXPECTATIONS)

Before you even pack your bags, you have to wrestle with a hard truth: as soon as you involve kids in the mix, what you think a vacation will be—and what it turns out to be in reality—suddenly become polar opposites.

The first step to better family trips: stop and get your mind right.

Reorienting how I think about family vacations trips has been the lowest-hanging fruit for me. Actually, I’ve mostly stopped using the v-word altogether. Slow days on the beach beside my bride, a stay in a secluded cabin beside a mountain stream, or a weekend at a boutique hotel in a new city—that’s a vacation. Fighting over which audiobook gets played next, while fishing a bag of carrot-sticks out from under my seat, while one kid complains of being hot, the other complains of being cold, and the other needs to poop—that’s a trip.

I don’t think Bible writer and missionary Paul went on any family vacations, but his advice works nonetheless:

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind…” (Romans 12:2)

Your mind paves the road that your attitude, emotions, and words drive on. Renewing it, at least for me, means taking the time to remember that even if it’s not a vacation, a family trip is worth the effort.

Studies show the majority of adults (62%) say their earliest memories weren’t from holidays or birthday parties, but from family vacations taken between the ages of five and ten. These family times remain just as crucial as kids age—64% of teens say vacation allows them to do things they will remember for a long time, and 53% say trips help bring their family closer together.

I’ve been that stereotypical dad with his arms crossed plenty of times—usually because I got my wires crossed about whether this outing was a vacation or a trip. Let me give you an easy filter: if kids are tagging along, it’s a trip. Adjust your mindset likewise.

Nordic countries, like Finland, Denmark, and Norway, always seem to land near the top of the World Happiness Report (they’re numbers one, two, and three this year). There are multiple reasons as to why that is, but experts often point toward the power of appropriate expectations. While Americans seem to think everything should always be going up and to the right, improving and easy, that’s not the mindset in those countries. Not to say they don’t enjoy an easy day like the rest of us, but perhaps living in a harsher climate teaches you to be made of tougher stuff. The cold, darkness, and snow are going to come. So you put on a smile and go out to face it anyway.

I’m not suggesting that you need low expectations for your family trip, but maybe it’s time for you to drop the v-word from your vocabulary, too. Appropriate expectations will reframe your mind and attitude, so you’ll be present (and happy) for the family that’s been waiting months for this extended time with you.

You can leave that 24-pack of condoms at home, stallion. A trip is NOT a vacation.

2. DROP (AND PLAY)

Sometimes, God’s voice sounds like a nine-year-old girl. Specifically, my daughter, as her shadow fell across the book I had in my lap while sitting on the beach.

“Dad, will you come and play with me? Please?”

Thankfully, I managed to catch the words, “Hold on, baby, I’m reading,” before they went from my brain to my mouth. God pricked me in that moment. I’d spent most of our trip thinking about me—and that needed to change. Now.

I closed my book, didn’t even finish the sentence I was reading—and I swear the smile that spread across her face was larger than the shoreline.

The second step to better family trips: drop what you’re doing and play.

Our mainman, Paul, has some more definitely not written for a middle-aged-dad-on-vacation-but-it-still-works advice:

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. (Philippians 2:3-4)

You’re probably better at this than I am, but I’m not great at making time for myself in a normal week. I like to read, run, and make up stories. Between needs at my paying job and needs at my non-paying one (you know, the home), I rarely have time for pursuits that fill me up. So, when trips roll around, I can get into an unhealthy habit of trying to get as much proverbial fuel in the gas tank as possible—at the risk of missing opportunities to bless others, especially my kids.

All three of my youngins are circling the drain on single digits—the twins turned ten in two weeks. And still, the thing they want most in the world is for Dad to play with them. Baseball or Legos, card games or video games, Barbies or bandits, the medium doesn’t matter as much as the time spent together. That gets amplified on vacations, when dad purposefully puts a pin in email and work projects.

(Which is another thing you must drop once you arrive at your destination. NO. MORE. EMAIL. Seriously. I thought I could balance it too. You can’t. Don’t open the door to work, or the monster will get you. I promise, it’ll all be there when you return. Cold splash of water: You aren’t as important to your job as you think. If you died, your boss would replace you, so let’s just assume they can manage without you for seven days. Cool? Cool. This same cut-throat approach should also apply to distracting apps, text threads, and any device with a screen. Put it down and walk away. Turns out, you can actually breathe without it.)

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t take any time for yourself. On our last beach trip, I took a run along the shore nearly every day—and it was glorious. It reminded me why I love running, and I felt better after each one. But the rest of that eight-hour beach day didn’t need to be devoted solely to pursuits that only filled me up. Read some, sure. Take a nap, the beach is great for that. But be sure you also build a sand castle with the kids, teach your son to fly a kite, go swimming with your daughter, and take a stroll with your wife.

These seemingly small moments become core memories that last a lifetime—even more than meeting the Disney Princess, getting tickets to that concert, or peeking into the Grand Canyon for the first time. As much as you can, fill your vacation with “yeses,” especially when they don’t involve extra spending. The family that plays together, stays together. You’re building something that will last forever.

And for the love, leave that laptop at home.

3. ROLL (ON THE FLOOR WITH LAUGHTER)

There’s no magic formula to dumpster-fire-proof your vacations. Things are going to go wrong. Flights get canceled, kids get sick, late-season hurricanes strand you 20 minutes from your destination in a hotel you hadn’t budgeted for, while you spend 48 hours watching the Weather Channel and reruns of Bluey (that last one might just be me.)

Part of getting your mind right (see point #1) is coming to terms with the fact that things might not go according to plan. Anyone can learn to roll with the punches. But if you really want to take your vacation up a notch, you have to learn to ROFL—roll on the floor, laughing.

The line between tragedy and comedy is paper-thin, and where you fall is mainly a matter of perspective. Humorist, Mel Brooks, once famously quipped, “A man walking down the street falls into a manhole, that’s comedy. If I have a hangnail, that’s tragedy.” The lesson? Take yourself out of the situation, and comedy comes into view.

The funny thing about being stranded on the side of the road while Tire Discounters fixed our flat? We’d just bought a dozen donuts to save for the road. We ate them all. It was a gloriously sugary half hour. And worth it.

The Bible’s book of wisdom, Proverbs, explains the power of laughter when it says:

“A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” (Proverbs 17:22)

When it says “medicine,” I think it really means it. Science has shown that laughter secretes four hormones that do your body good, including dopamine (the “feel-good” hormone that promotes feelings of joy ), serotonin (which helps reduce anxiety and stress), and oxytocin (the “love hormone” that creates bonding and feelings of closeness). Perhaps the only thing separating a terrible trip from a triumphant one is being able to laugh at what comes our way, be it good or bad.

Dads, this is your time to shine. A recent study, published by British Physiology Society, found that eye-roll-inducing dad jokes actually make us better. According to Marc Hye-Knudson, a humor researcher, a father figure’s willingness to embarrass himself repeatedly with “dad jokes” subconsciously instills a level of toughness and ability to deal with awkwardness in their children. He writes that, “by continually telling their children jokes that are so bad that they’re embarrassing, fathers may push their children’s limits for how much embarrassment they can handle. They show their children that embarrassment isn’t fatal… an immensely valuable lesson.”

Another humor expert, Ros Ben-Moshe, writes that “when dads (and mums) draw on humor, laughter, and play, it teaches children there’s another way to respond to conflict and crisis. It helps provide a new perspective on challenging situations and, when initiated and modeled by adults, can be particularly effective in quelling anxiety.”

Family trips open the door to stress, but a well-timed joke can push your family from tragedy to comedy, even if the external circumstances haven’t changed.

What did the sea say to the shore? Nothing, it just waved.

You’re welcome.

HURRY UP, WE’RE TELLING OUR TRAUMAS!

I have so many more terror-inducing vacation stories to tell, but this isn’t about me. This is about you, and the next time your family piles into the minivan to do something fun together. If you can get your expectations in check, learn to play, and laugh along the way, I’m willing to bet your kids will be talking about the trip for years to come.

I’m no parenting expert. All of this wisdom, if we can call it that, comes from experience. I’m just a middle-aged dad, living on the boundary line between Kentucky and Ohio, trying to make a positive dent in the world (most notably through raising three kick-ass kids).

I know it works because I’ve seen it. Just last week, as I gathered my thoughts for this article, I sat down in the living room with my wife and daughter after dinner. “What are some of our craziest vacation stories?” I asked.

My wife started running down the list, and my daughter jumped right in. Soon, one of my sons found his way into the conversation, and all four of us were laughing.

“What’s going on up there?” yelled my other son from the basement.

“Come upstairs, Zeke!” his brother yelled, “We’re sharing our vacation traumas.”

“Yay! Wait for me!” he yelled as he came running up the stairs.

Turns out, kids don’t want a perfect vacation. They just want you.

*** A short caveat: life is dumb expensive, and I completely realize that even being able to take a family vacation out of town is a privilege. That being said, if your job offers you time off, please don’t leave it on the table. (A recent study found a whopping 62% of Americans don’t use all their PTO. Insane.) You don’t have to leave town for time off to do you some good—a rocking staycation over a long weekend can do wonders for your soul. One of the first things God did after creating the world was to institute a day of rest and recharging. You are more than a productivity machine. If you have kids, it is even more important that you find time to focus on them, recharge your own batteries, and model that life as an adult can still be fun. Everything in this article still applies, whether you’re hitting the beach or the local burger joint with your kids.

Disclaimer: This article is 100% human-generated.

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