Hints on Planning Your Very Own Family Vacation

We have spent most of our family vacation camping and travelling around this wonderful country of ours. I have four children, Emma (27), Jade (25), Rachel (22) and Todd (21). With four children, especially when they were young, it takes a lot of vacation planning to make sure we don’t forget things so we can have a great holiday.

Over this time, we have come up with a number of suggestions that will help you with vacation planning that you may find useful.

Most children get very excited at the prospect of going away. Often they are eager to visit new places - the zoo, beach, mountains, gorges - or they look forward to meeting relatives they have heard a lot about. Some may be keen to travel by a new means of transport - plane, ferry, train - or to do new things - ride a horse, ski, roller-skate, bushwalk, take that coral reef photo. For parents who share their children's enthusiasm for life and enjoy helping them get the most out of new experiences, setting out on a family vacation should be equally exciting and this takes a lot of planning - it doesn't just happen.

Of course travelling with children can be trying and elderly passengers may have special needs. But if you are able to anticipate and minimise the most common problems, your holiday will run far more smoothly.

We have listed the following pages that contain hints on how to do that vacation planning and make your next family vacation a happy, rewarding and memorable experience.