So I’ve been listening to podcasts for a while now, and one of my favorites is The Mom Hour with Meagan Francis and Sarah Powers. Each week they have a new episode that shares parenting advice and experience on a particular topic–but in a no-judgment, do-what-works-for-you kind of way. It’s just my speed.
(And their episodes always give me blogging ideas, so watch for more references to them and the podcast!)
They’ve also added a series of episodes called “More Than Mom,” in which they discuss things beyond parenting advice. This week’s topic was travel.
Travel’s something I’ve been meaning to write about for a long time, because it’s one of those areas in life where I had expectations based on my own childhood–and then things turned out to be different.
When I was a kid, we traveled a lot–with the result that I visited every state (except Alaska) before I was 30. In the U.S., we traveled mostly by car, often camping in our pop-up tent trailer. Budget motel rooms were fairly rare, and the four of us would stay in one room. Then we moved to South Texas, where it was too hot to camp. Budget motel rooms became more common.
We were fortunate enough to do a fair amount of international travel; my dad was in the military, so when we lived on the East Coast, we could get cheap flights to Europe on Air Force cargo planes. On those trips, we stayed in B&Bs, which tended to be less like showplaces filled with antiques and more like the house of someone who had a couple of spare rooms and was willing to serve you some food in the morning.
Eventually, my parents moved on to tour packages and cruises, but my travel expectations for myself, certainly for the forseeable future, were of the DIY, low-budget variety. And, as it turned out, so were Mr. Sandwich’s. Neither one of us felt like resort people.
But then we had Baguette, and we got to know her needs, and our travel style changed.
First, neither Mr. Sandwich nor I has been on a plane since our trip to Kauai in 2009. This is kind of bizarre, because when I was single, I was the person who was on a plane once a month, and not for work. Even after we married, we flew once or twice a year. But we haven’t taken Baguette on a plane yet–although I’m sure we’ll try it at some point–so most of our travel is by car or train (she loves the train!).
Second, we don’t stay in budget motels.
Baguette is pretty adaptable, but she does best and is most comfortable in a setting that’s like a home. She likes some space, and some delineation of that space, and a comfy sofa. Those don’t tend to be features of budget motels.
Also, she’s not a fan of restaurants. Too much waiting. So we cook more on vacation.
What this means is that VRBO is our best friend. We look for one- or two-bedroom places with a full kitchen, in areas that are walkable and close to amenities, as well as within reasonable striking distance of the attractions we’re visiting. We’ve found a regular place in Santa Barbara (this summer vacation will be our eighth year spending a week there, and our fifth with this particular rental), and based on our Spring Break trip to San Diego, we may have found a regular place there, too.
If VRBO doesn’t have anything available in another location, we look for a hotel room that comes with a kitchen. There are more of these than there used to be; over the past few years, we’ve stayed in Homewood Suites, Larkspur Landing, and TownePlace Suites.
For a night or two, we can manage a simpler room that has a mini-fridge and microwave, but longer than that and everyone gets cramped and edgy. No one wants to be cramped and edgy on vacation.
So it’s not what I expected–but it works. It works well. And if something else works in the future, we’ll do that. But this is really good for now.
How do you travel?
So we vacation in the same house every year — a group of 20+ head down, each family unit renting either a house or sharing a house with another family unit. One family unit takes over cooking one night for the week (one might offer to make breakfasts) – we end up eating great and having a relatively-low-stress beach vacation. It’s wonderful.
It sounds great! Outer Banks? Gulf Coast? Shore?
The main travel change for us once the kids came along was that we pick our lodging based on different criteria. We don’t need a kitchen, but we strongly prefer a suite- a real suite, with a door between the bedroom and the living room, so that my husband and I can get the kids to bed and come out and have some time to relax and talk before we go to bed. We can get by for a day or two without this, but on long trips, it is a real priority.
The other change is that if we’re doing a driving trip, I aim for shorter drives than I would if it were just me and my husband. My idea is no more than 4-5 hours driving in a day. We get up, have breakfast, drive a couple of hours before lunch (maybe with a stop halfway if I can find one), have lunch, then drive another couple of hours. Then we’re done for the day, settle into our hotel, and either do some sightseeing or have a swim in the hotel pool. On last year’s big road trip, I had to plan one longer day just because there aren’t enough places to stop on the drive across northern Nevada. I think that was a 7-8 hour day. The kids handled it better than I expected, but I wouldn’t want to do that for many days on a road trip with them.
Our longest travel day so far is Los Angeles-San Jose. We’ve tried breaking it up into two, but Baguette needs too many things to make getting in and out of a hotel feasible right now. We leave before dawn and drive for a few hours, then stop for breakfast. That’s around when she is waking up anyhow, and we have one regular stop heading north and another heading south.
My childhood car trips were a lot of low-mileage days strung together, and tended to have midpoints rather than destinations. Your itineraries often remind me of those trips!