Planning with the Family

I mentioned this before, but we had a wonderful trip to Puerto Rico with my family in the week between Christmas and New Years. It included everyone from my 8-month old niece (who is now a 10-month old niece) to my 81 year old grandmother (who is now an 82 year old grandmother and avid reader of this blog). Totally fun.

Family vacations are different than individual vacations. When you are this intergenerational, a resort is often better. You spend more time on the beach or the pool than running around town. I think that we learned that the whole family should do at least one thing together each day (an excursion or a meal). For other days, you separate and have fun individually. That means that you get a good mix of adventure, relaxation, and couple time.

So, we are planning to do it again. This time, the destination is Hawaii. It's the 50th state for my mother. It is one of 2 that I haven't visited. And, Richard has been there. In fact, his mother has many contacts there. So, we are adding Richard's mom into the mix.

One of the first challenges is figuring out the "when" and the "where, exactly" portion of the trip. Everyone has different schedules to juggle. We've been going back and forth between Christmas (again) or August. Right now, Christmas seems to be winning (there are some who prefer Christmas, others don't care as much).

The "where, exactly" part is a little more complicated, especially if you have no idea what makes each island different. We finally forced our families to take this online quiz to find out which island would be the best to visit.

We're still working all this out, so stay tuned. I'm glad I really enjoy traveling with my family. I'm looking forward to this trip.