How to Plan for Your Upcoming Summer Vacation

There may have been a time in your life when you could, at the spur of the moment, leave town for a day, a weekend, or a week.  You might decide that you would like to go to Chicago.  On Thursday you would make hotel reservations, go home and pack, and Friday morning, jump in the car and head to Illinois

Now you have kids, perhaps a pet or two, and last minute vacations are not so simple, especially the time-honored tradition of the family summer vacation.  We all know how those vacations live on in memory, so we strive to make each a success.  And that takes planning.

Over the next few weeks, we intend to take you, step-by-crazy-step, through our two very different ways of planning for a summer vacation.  Discover how we each create a budget, prioritize activities, and prepare our families for the adventure.  It is our hope that by seeing these two different styles you will be able to create your own very effective planning style for this year’s vacation.

Next week we will discuss how we choose our destination.  For Jacki, destination is often limited by the funds available, so discover her method (which includes Excel spreadsheets) for picking the best location for the money.  For Staci, destination is a family decision based largely on themed trips.

In future weeks, we will explore how we pick the best travel dates, select activities and things to do, and prepare the family with pre-trip activities.  We will wrap it all up with how we keep ourselves calm, collected and able to enjoy the actual vacation and how we let the vacation continue after we find ourselves back home.