Plan Before You Go

A dream family trip away, can descend into a nightmare if you don’t plan before you go. Here  are a few tips that should make sure your trip runs smoothly.

Don’t Tell the Kids Too Far in Advance

If you only take one piece of advice, this is the one. A holiday is often booked months and months in advance. For your own sanity, don’t tell the kids too early that the trip is booked.

Time goes slowly for a child and you’re likely to be inundated with comments like, “how much longer?”, “how many sleeps?”, etc. You’ll be sick of hearing about the holiday before you’ve even left the house!

Make a Rough Plan

While it’s great to be organised, don’t plan everything down to the last detail.  Have a list of a some things that you’d like to do while you’re away. Being flexible will mean your holiday will be far less stressful.

Don’t Be Over Ambitious

A trap that many of us fall into is trying to cram too much into our time away. Have a list of things you must do and then play everything else by ear. Running from one place, to another, to another,  will only lead to frayed nerves and complete exhaustion!!

The Internet is Your Friend

Going to a new place, especially when you have children in tow, can be stressful. How will we get from the airport to the hotel? Are there child friendly restaurants? What are the train times? How do I book tickets to an attraction?

The internet has so much information available. Use it to take the stress out of travel before you go.

Budget Tips

Visit travel forums on the area you’re visiting. Travelers love to share their tips, tricks and new found knowledge about their holiday.  You’ll often find advice on the cheapest public transport tickets to buy, how to get cheap theatre tickets, etc. And, most importantly, the pitfalls to avoid! It can save you making some very costly mistakes.