Ways to Plan An Inexpensive Family Vacation

Family vacations provide some of the most cherished memories. Unfortunately in tough economic times, taking a good family vacation is often not possible. However, there are ways that you and your family can go on a memorable vacation without breaking the bank. Do not let the task of planning your own vacation overwhelm you. Just use these suggestions.

This can sometimes be the most difficult step in planning a family vacation.  Depending on your budget, you might have to limit your location choice to a smaller geographic area.  For instance, airline tickets are expensive.  So a more economical choice for a family of 4 might be to drive to a destination.  I always like to use the 10-hour rule when considering driving to a destination.  If it takes more than 10 hours to drive to the destination city, then it does not make the cut.

Airline travel is certainly not out of reach for the budget conscious traveler.  Airlines run sales to various cities around the country on a regular basis.  A few years ago, I was able to fly my family of four from Atlanta to San Diego for less than $600 total.  That’s right, I said TOTAL.  I just happened to catch an airfare sale at the right time.  In fact, sometimes stumbling across a great deal on airfare to a city will help decide the location for you.

Another important thing to consider when choosing a location is your family vacation interest.  Do they like visiting larger cities instead of rural locales?  Do they prefer the beach over the mountains?  Do they love theme parks or do they prefer museums instead?  Once you clarify their interests, then it makes narrowing possible destination locations much easier.

This is the most important step in planning a great vacation for a family.   When planning a family vacation, I will often use rely on my own experiences from traveling on business.  I have always found it much easier to take the entire family to a city that I have traveled in previously.  Knowing the “lay of the land” makes for a much smoother trip.   But it is certainly not a requirement.  Thankfully there is a wealth of resources on the Internet that make travel planning very easy.

With the advent of websites like http://www.priceline.com and http://www.hotwire.com, getting good deals on hotels has become much easier. There is a tradeoff when using these kinds of sites in that you “bid” on your hotels based on a star classification and the hotel’s identity is kept hidden until you have actually won the bid. Also, when you bid on a hotel room in advance (name your own price) you also have to pay for it then if your bid is accepted. So you lose some flexibility should your plans change. But indeed, it is still a great way to secure good room rates. Priceline and Hotwire also allow you to book airfare and rental cars on their sites with the same “bid/name your own price” option.

Many other websites exist for securing hotel rooms, airfare and rental cars. Websites like http://www.expedia.com, http://www.orbitz.com, http://www.sidestep.com, http://www.travelocity.com and http://www.kayak.com all have traditional methods to planning a vacation. These sites all have their “star” rating systems. But for me when booking a hotel for my family vacation, I prefer to also get some actual feedback from people who have stayed at a particular hotel. The website http://www.TripAdvisor.com is an excellent resource for researching hotels. The website ranks hotels in each city based on the feedback of the people who have stayed there. This is a great way to really find out about the quality of the hotel, the service they offer and often times even the neighborhood the hotel is located. When reading some of the user provided feedback, you sometimes have to sift through several to get a true feel for the hotel and their offerings. But I’ve used TripAdvisor for over 5 years now and have always had very good success.

As for locating good air fares, I typically sign up for automatic alerts to be emailed to me on http://www.travelocity.com. The site allows you to select several cities and enter various criteria for which you want to be alerted. I usually enter a certain dollar value and then the website will  email an alert should a fare appear below this dollar value threshold. It is also good to sign up for fare notification on the airlines website. I live in Atlanta so Delta and Air Tran both have a huge presence here and often run sales. But certainly I would not limit my search to those two airlines only. The best bet is to try to get as many alerts as you can so you can catch good sales as they pop up.

When traveling with a family, sometimes hotels are not the best option. Often times, you would like to have more room than you might get with a traditional hotel. Thankfully there are websites now that allow you to easily research and book vacation home & condo accommodations for your family vacation. One that I recently used was http://www.homeaway.com. The site allows you to tweak your search based on a number of different criteria and it provides reviews from people who have stayed there. So you are able to quickly determine the overall quality of the property at a quick glance. Most properties listed also have photos of the inside and outside of the property to help you in your research. Keep in mind that many of these kinds of properties will have a minimum stay requirement and will also assess a cleaning fee. But each property is handled differently so be sure to read all of the fine print in each description.

Another unique concept that has gained in popularity over the past few years is home exchanging. This is a very innovative way to reduce costs in planning your vacation for your family. The concept works like this. You submit your home and your information into an online home exchange database/website. These usually require a fee for the listing. Then you are able to search other homes in the city you plan to visit and contact the owners to see if you can work out the details of an exchange. One downside (to some) to this kind of setup is that you also have to feel comfortable having someone live in your home while you are gone. Some people are just not that comfortable with this kind of arrangement. But if you feel adventurous, it might work for you.

The good thing about home exchanging or renting a home or condo is that oftentimes these properties are in neighborhoods rather than a downtown city setting. So depending on how adventurous you and your family are, it will give you the chance to “live like a local”…..meet the neighbors, shop at the local stores and eat at the off the beaten path restaurants.

The website http://www.homeexchange.com is good for investigating home exchanges. Like many of these other travel websites, users can provide feedback from their stays so you can really do a good job of evaluating a potential family vacation property. And the website provides forms and other items that you might want to use in arranging an exchange. So if you are looking for ways to reduce costs on a vacation and do not mind interacting with people you have never met, this might be a good option for you.

This seems obvious.  But it is very easy to put off planning in advance and thus you never end up putting together a good trip.  Planning well in advance allows you to set aside money over time to use for your trip.  Incurring a bunch of debt to go on a vacation is probably not the best use of your money.  Instead, try to discipline yourself to set aside money each week to help finance your trip.  And resist the urge to use this vacation money for some other purpose. 

Planning in advance also allows you to take advantage of airfare, hotel, car rental and other various sales that might pop up as you plan.  Just keep an open mind on where you might like to go and where you would like to stay.  Use an adventurous spirit and enjoy a great vacation with your family.