How to make your family vacation feel like an actual vacation
The type of vacation where you’re actually rested, the one where you pack up the kids, get somewhere warm, and just… exhale, doesn’t just happen. You have to actually build it, and be intentional about it.
We just got back from two and a half weeks in Florida, and I want to talk about what made this one feel different. And why I’m still kind of turning it over in my head.
The airport used to be where we fell apart
You’ve probably arrived at the airport already annoyed with your partner, and there’s something about the lead-up to that moment: the packing, forgetting things, the “who’s-doing-it all’, that has a way of turning you against each other before the trip even starts.
A hack I’ve been living by is to have a staging area in the garage a week out, a packing list that included the obvious stuff like the cord you use right up until you leave, and a clear division of who owned what. Scotty does laundry and garbage. He calls a laundry deadline three days out. I plan the meals so we land with an empty fridge and nothing rotting while we're gone.
Groceries while on vacation? Not this family
Grocery delivery services might be a premium, but the version of me who gets everything delivered to where she’s staying and not pushing a cart through a grocery store, multiple times during the trip, is a much better version of vacation me.
Do a little planning, get the staples, and the rest of the trip you can literally focus on morning walks to get coffee and afternoons by the pool.
How to get seven mornings to yourself
My husband and I did alternating days – whoever had the morning off got the early hours plus the afternoon nap window too. Which sounds small, and maybe obvious, but over two and a half weeks that's seven mornings each of just... doing whatever you actually want.
For me that was a slow walk on the boardwalk, a coffee, a workout with no pressure to be anywhere after. And that made a huge difference, because I actually wanted to be present, instead of depleted, while trying to get through the vacation.
Not fully unplugging is not something to feel guilty about
I went into this trip knowing that I wasn't going to completely disconnect, and I want to say that out loud because I think there's a lot of noise around what a "real" vacation is supposed to look like. I work for myself, I had things I was excited about, and putting the pressure of total unplugging on myself would've created more stress than just checking in occasionally.
Coming home is its own thing you can plan for
We got back on a Saturday, and Sunday was what I can only describe as a travel hangover. A little sad, a little gross, a little disoriented. What helped was that I had already decided Monday was a lighter day — some work, some maintenance, a few things that made me feel like myself again before the week started. And I jumped into Tuesday feeling genuinely ready. Which, if you know me, is not always how re-entry goes.
Want to listen to me fully debriefing this?
I talked through all of this, including a listener question about navigating different vacation styles with your partner, in episode 134 of All Figured Out. Listen to the episode, and then head to Instagram, send me a DM @allfiguredoutandrea, and tell me if any of this landed.