Get Away

July 20, 2023

There is no such thing as a "family getaway" when your kids are tiny.

Dream vacations, by their very definition, exist mainly in the head, but that didn't prevent me from giving a beach my best shot the summer Madison was almost 3 and Ella had just turned 1. But baby-related hormones must still have been messing with my reasoning ability when I was planning the trip. We did have some fun, but I don't think I relaxed for one minute we were there. Routines were disrupted, food was different, no one slept soundly. I worried the kids would disturb someone every time we entered a restaurant (and I was sometimes right). By the time we got home, we all desperately needed a vacation. And, what I'll admit now but what I couldn't really face then: What I really wanted was to get away from them.

Vacationers with small kids: I SEE YOUR BRAVE FACE.

As time went on, I figured out the key to enjoying a vacation with kids: Wait until they grow up. Revise our definition of vacation. Instead of aiming for relaxation, we decided our standard would be to introduce our family to new experiences, ones that were appropriate for everyone. It worked: We relaxed our standards, re-targeted our expectations, and made some great memories in the following years.

Commiserating with other parents who have been there can help. KOAA's team members were trading juicy vacation horror stories on Zoom and our editors decided to channel the venting session into an article (simultaneously revising our definition of "work" :-) ). The result is our not-very-creatively but perfectly-descriptively titled article Tested Tips for Kid-Friendly Travel. And if you're traveling to one of the 52 regions in the KOAA network, we can likely hook you up with some great new experiences that are perfectly targeted to your kids' age.

So if you still have travel plans for this summer and are wondering how you're going to manage, fear not! The KOAA team sees you, and we're here for you, whether in your backyard or far away.

—Deb