Planning Your Family Vacation - What Are Your Priorities For This Year's Trip?

Maybe your main priority is just to rest and relax, but there are many ways to enjoy yourself and experience new things while you do that.

Here are a few other priorities to consider while planning your family's next trip.

Experience the Local Culture

This is especially important with foreign travel. Few people would fly their entire family to Italy just to check into a nice resort and lie by the pool all day.

Decide what attracts you to a certain region and whether or not that is the main reason for your trip. If it is, plan your activities around experiencing that part of the culture.

Sample the Local Cuisine

If food is high on your list of priorities do some research on the popular dishes for the region where you will be traveling and the best places to find them.

If you want to try your hand at preparing some of the local fare, plan ahead to get a hotel or resort room with a fully stocked kitchen. Then ask around to find out where you can purchase the proper ingredients. You may even find a native who would be willing to invite you into their home for a cooking lesson and some authentic home cooking.

Visit Famous Landmarks

This is a common way to plan a vacation and some places lend themselves to this kind of activity very nicely.

If you want to see several monuments and museums, though, be sure to plan enough time for travel between the attractions and time to enjoy them while you are there.

Plan your days so that you visit one or two places in the morning and one or two places in the afternoon. You may also want to squeeze in another sight in the evening, if possible.

Be sure to see the attractions that you most want to see early in the week so that if your schedule doesn't work out exactly as planned you won't have to forgo your first choices.

Create Family Memories

Sometimes the best way to do this on a trip is to just get in the car and drive. Some of our best vacations have been taken this way.

On one trip we knew that we wanted to visit a ghost town, visit my sisters, and visit my husband's grandmother. Other than those goals, we just drove and did what sounded fun.

We ended up riding a ski lift (in July), four-wheeling and touring the Anasazi ruins at the bottom of Canyon de Chelley in north eastern Arizona, standing in four states at one time at the Four Corners National Monument, seeing some of Colorado's most gorgeous scenery, visiting a theme park, and many other adventures.

It was a great trip-and totally unplanned! And we still talk about it five years later. Do the things that your family enjoys most and the memories will last a long time.

Rest and Relax

If your only goal for your trip is to spend long hours doing nothing, then go for it.

This priority will best be accomplished, though, if you have activities for your children to participate in. You could bring along a nanny whose job it will be to entertain your children or you could visit a resort or take a cruise that offers children's camps.

Whatever you want out of your next family vacation a little planning ahead can make it happen. Do your research. Book your rooms. Plan your route. And enjoy!