Pre-Trip Archives – Page 2 of 2 – Parents with Passports

Galapagos Trip Planning

March 7th, 2020admin0 Comments

The Galapagos Islands! This bucket-list trip can be overwhelming to plan to say the least. Located more than 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador, it is a difficult destination to get to. And with 127 islands in the archipelago (more than twenty of which can be explored), 9,000 wildlife species (many of them endemic to the islands), and other-worldly landscapes, the possibilities on the islands are endless. There is no way you can possibly ever see it all. The first and most important decision to make when planning a Galapagos trip is “land vs sea”. Do you want to …

Alaska Trip Planning

August 22nd, 2019admin0 Comments

We started our “decade of travel” with the kids in 2016 – the year my husband and I turned 40 and the year my oldest turned 8 (meaning he had 10 years left before leaving for college). Our goal during this time period is to take one big trip a year (preferably international) and as many small trips as we can fit in to explore locally and nationally. Alaska has long been on our bucket list, and we decided an Alaskan cruise leaving from Vancouver, Canada would fit the bill perfectly for 2019’s big trip. 2019 also happened to be …

Summer 2019 Road Trip

June 19th, 2019admin0 Comments

Every summer I fly up with the boys to NJ to spend a week visiting family. We’ll usually do some day trips or an overnight somewhere nearby. We’ve explored NYC, Philadelphia, and Hershey PA just to name a few. This summer I decided to change it up a little and turn it into a week-long road trip. Our final destination was Newport RI, largely because I had visited there in the fall with some girlfriends and absolutely loved it. But also because my youngest was devastated that I had visited “the world’s smallest state” without him. We’ve taken 8+ hour …

DC Trip Planning

May 9th, 2019admin0 Comments

This was the second trip to DC for our kids but that honestly didn’t impact our planning at all. They were 4 and 6 when we went last time so I wasn’t worried about repeating things. They were young enough then that they wouldn’t remember enough details for it to seem repetitive. And even if they did, they are old enough now that they would look at things with a new perspective. I figured we’d do some repeats and some new things. Our first time around we went to the National Zoo, walked the monuments, and visited both the Air …

Atlanta Trip Planning

April 27th, 2019admin0 Comments

We settled on a 4 day, 3 night trip to Atlanta at the beginning of our spring break week. There are so many things to do in Atlanta, but we knew the aquarium was at the top of our list, with World of Coca-Cola close behind (for the kids at least). We used that as our starting point and figured out our other activities from there. Atlanta CitiPASS Since we were planning on hitting several of Atlanta’s biggest highlights, the CitiPASS was a great option for us. It is essentially a coupon book for Atlanta’s top attractions. Each booklet contains …

Belize Planning and Itinerary

April 6th, 2018admin0 Comments

As part of our self-proclaimed decade of travel, we decided to let the kids pick the family vacation destination in the year of their 10th birthday. We want to foster a love of travel in them and thought that involving them in trip planning would be a great way to do that. Of course we had to set limits in terms of travel time and cost. RB immediately wanted to go to Japan and JB to Africa. While I would absolutely love to do those trips with them some day, I don’t think they are at the right ages yet. …

Booking a Disney Cruise on Opening Day

March 12th, 2018admin0 Comments

More than any other cruise line, Disney Cruise Line (DCL) has a ton of hype around releasing their next season’s itineraries and booking on opening day. While other cruise lines offer promotions throughout the year that help defray the cost of their cruises, Disney does not (with the exception of some rare Florida resident or military discounts) and usually their prices continue to climb as you get closer to cruise time. For this reason, there is often a mad rush to book on opening day and secure the lowest possible price. I got caught up in the frenzy last week …

Italy Trip Planning

March 25th, 2017admin0 Comments

Our 15th wedding anniversary is in September of this year, and we decided to take a trip to Italy to celebrate! With no family living nearby, we had to schedule our vacation around the school break schedule so that we could take the boys to my parents. We decided to go over their spring break, roughly 5 months before our anniversary. Hopefully an early celebration isn’t bad luck! When we came up with the idea of dedicating this decade to family travel, we hoped to be able to take an international trip every year. The first year was a little …

Disney World Trip Planning

January 20th, 2017admin0 Comments

We took our first trip to Disney World before our oldest started kindergarten. We figured the kids would be good ages (3.5 and 5.5) and it would be nice to fit it in before we became a slave to the school calendar. We booked for May 2013 but then had to cancel due to work obligations. In a last ditch effort to squeeze it in before school started, we booked for mid-August. Yes, August. It was a great trip. But it was HOT. I’m absolutely glad we went. But it was HOT. I have always advocated to my husband that …

Disney Cruise

March 14th, 2016admin0 Comments

There are some people who are cruise fanatics. Every vacation is a cruise. They love nothing more than being on a boat and filling their days jumping from one on-board activity to another. They love waking up in a new place each day. They love getting off at the various ports and exploring the area for the day. They love the four course meals, dressing up for formal nights, gambling in the casinos, partaking in the drink of the day. They love everything about cruises and couldn’t imagine a better vacation. I am not one of those people. The idea …