Last Updated on 6 January 2025 by Colette
I was asked a while back to write about how we plan our adventures and holidays – how far in advance we plan and how we decide where to go . . .
In all honesty there’s a whole mix of forward planning and just taking opportunities for travel and adventure as they arise.
For quite a few years now we’ve taken the kids to France during May half term (bar a three year gap thanks to a global pandemic) – May half term is a really nice time to go in that it’s quieter and less expensive than travelling in the summer holidays but if you go far enough south you should still get the weather you’re looking for.
We’ve actually already booked this year’s holiday to France – last year we knew we were going but hadn’t chosen where until the new year. This year we were keen to get it booked and a deposit paid, mainly so we didn’t need to think about it but also so we knew what the costs were so it has actually already been booked for a couple of months – well, the campsite is booked but the tunnel isn’t.
Thinking ahead to next May, Ben will be in the depths of his GCSEs so we won’t be taking our annual trip to France and are hoping we might manage a summer holiday getaway instead – previously we might have snuck the kids out of school a few days early but 2005 will also be Amy’s Year 6 summer so I wouldn’t dream of pulling her out of school early and making her miss all those special milestone moments!
In recent years Dave and I have tried to take a short holiday on our own (or at least without the kids) – this wasn’t entirely intentional to start with but a pattern has arisen and it’s a pattern we like!
Getting away with the kids started with Venice for my Mum’s 60th, Minori for Goose’s 40th, we had planned New York for our 40ths in 2020 (but we all know what happened there) and in April 2022, for our 10th wedding anniversary, we took a last minute trip to Paphos.
Last year our grown up holiday ended up being a short trip to Italy to stay with my parents who were out there for an extended five week trip – it meant we got to see them, got to explore parts of Italy and didn’t have to pay for our accommodation – bonus.
A grown up trip has become something we actively try to plan in – it costs us a lot less to go away just the two of us, its good for our relationship and we come back well rested after lots of time in the sun. We are of course very lucky to have my mum and Dave’s mum to help us out with looking after the kids. Really these are the trips that take the most planning as we have to make sure we fit around what our childcare options are – and they would be the first to fall by the wayside if we needed to trim our travel budget. As such we know when we can go this year but we don’t know if we actually will, we’ll decide later in the year when we know how tight our purse strings are.
When it comes to actually booking trips, Dave tends to take the reins and books the flights / airport parking / ferry / tunnel. We generally book everything separately rather than as a package but that’s just down to how we holiday – if we were doing an all inclusive or something, we’d definitely book a package but aside from that last minute holiday in Paphos, we’ve been travelling to French campsites or privately booked accommodation.
For camping trips, Mich and I usually sit down fairly early on in the year and plan out weekends where we are all free and block them off, tending to leave booking a campsite till later – though this bit us on the bum last summer when we actually really struggled to find a site with availability for the weekend we wanted to go so we might need to be a bit more proactive this year! (You can read our tips for choosing a campsite here).
Planning days out has always been my thing – I suppose in part because when the kids were younger, it was me that was taking them out through the school holidays whilst Dave was working and partly because they would often be work related trips that needed to happen at a certain time.
For planning during the school holidays, I’ve learned the hard way to make sure we plan at least one day a week where we just stay home and do nothing, the rest of the time I plan based on who we want to hang out with and where! I get the kids to write me a list of where they want to go and who they want to see (which to be honest usually matches up with the ideas I already have in my head) and then I plan them out as as best I can through the holidays – of course I appreciate there is a certain amount of privilege in my flexible working which means I can choose when and where to work so I don’t have to worry about childcare through the holidays! I usually have a set budget for school holidays too so the kids know that if they want to go somewhere really expensive, the rest of the week / month is going to be spent in the park or going for walks!
What I’m definitely not very good at is coming up with a plan on the spur of the moment – I can’t get up on a morning and decide what we’re going to do that day – I like to have planned ahead, made sure I know where we are going and when, how much it’s going to cost, where I’m going to park, what we might need to take etc etc.
So really, I can’t say we have a particular plan or routine for planning adventures and holidays, but I do like to plan ahead and have dates set for things otherwise I know they won’t happen – and I find last minute quite stressful! There’s a certain amount of being really organised, and a heavy dose of being flexible and taking chances when they arise.
I don’t know how helpful that was in terms of answering the original question but if you want to know anything else just ask!
You can catch up on our 2025 travel plans here!
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