Last Updated on January 20, 2026 by Ariana Svenson
How do you plan a family vacation? There are many ways to plan family travel, and each way will suit different families. Whether you are planning luxury family holidays or budget family holidays, these tips and suggestions will help. However, this is how we go about getting a plan for a family holiday.
My brother always said that planning a trip was half the fun. We were in our late twenties then. We’d been traveling for years, our friends were travelers, all we did was live, breathe, and talk travel. The world was our oyster and I don’t think we conceived that there would be a time when spending hours poring over books (or nowadays hours on the internet) would be an impossible luxury.
Fast forward to the present where time is a precious commodity. The information on the internet providing way too much information. This is a guide on how to plan a family vacation or amazing family holiday.
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Top 5 Steps to Plan a Family Vacation
Where do You Get Travel Inspiration?
When you set out to plan a family vacation, where do you get your travel inspiration from? Instagram is a great place to get family travel inspiration. You can check out the World Of Travels With Kids Instagram account here and others, like the ones included in our post, Best Instagram Accounts For Family Travel, are a good place to spend some social media time.
In our case, we have a bucket list of destinations as long as our arm. Some places are carefully saved for “when the kids are bigger” (for example, doing some of New Zealand’s famous treks) and others are currently “out of our budget” like Bhutan.
For most people choosing their destination is a long term task, and this blog assumes that you have chosen the area or countries you wish to visit.
Set Parameters for an Affordable Family Vacation
These are the most common parameters for limiting a family holiday:
- Budget – How do we make this an affordable family vacation?
- The number of days you have available – How do we best utilize our time available?
One of the above will be your limiting factor! Some of us are time-poor (or with children’s schooling to consider) while others have got more time but less money. One way or the other, you need to set the parameters for your trip. What is the budget going to be, or how much time do you have?
Decide When You Will go on Your Amazing Family Holiday
Deciding when you will actually go on your amazing family holiday is a big step. This step is often decided by external factors, namely when your boss will approve your vacation or when the children have school holidays!
If neither of these is over-riding factors there is of course – the SEASONS. What will the weather be like in your destination? What is the best time of year to visit? Are there any festivals that you would like to see? This is how we decided when we would go to Bali.
Establishing the Things You Must See
This step can be done fairly quickly – or in a fairly lengthy process. It’s really up to you. It depends on how much time you have and how easily you process information.
Travel Agency Magazines
I pop into a travel agent and pick up those glossy brochures with 7, 14 and 21-day tours included in them. I’ve got a couple of favorite travel providers that get a bit off the beaten track and consider what these 2-3 companies offer for the destination I am interested in, and how they have managed the timing. This is a quick and easy way to establish what these ‘tried and tested’ tour companies consider the major sights in an area, and how they create the overall itinerary.
Lonely Planet Guidebook
When I am certain on my destination, I will go out and buy a Lonely Planet. If I am less certain, I will ask my local library to order it in. The Lonely Planet is a tried and tested information provider and works as an amazing resource for family travel.
They work to a certain formula. You might not always like their information but, in terms of describing major sights and itineraries, we find it to be 95% reliable and presented according to the same formula, worldwide.
A combination of Lonely Planet guidebooks and Travel Agency magazines gives us a solid foundation before launching into the murky waters of the internet.
The Internet, Blogs, And Reviews
We are aspiring travel bloggers, it is true. That doesn’t mean that we find family travel blogs very useful at this stage of the trip. Usually rich in detail and with a lot of opinions, family travel blogs vary widely in usefulness but also result in one big problem: information overload. It is really hard to figure out what is important, and what is not.
We find that ‘family-friendly’ is often synonymous with kids’ clubs, all-inclusive resort-style accommodation which is, it is true, family-friendly but not our travel style. Try to figure out the “travel style” of a blogging family if you are going to base your travel on their advice.
I’ve also patiently read to the bottom of family travel blogs to find that the author spent a day in a place. Which, in our opinion, is not enough time to really provide sound advice.
Trip Advisor is helpful, but it’s just a bunch of people’s opinions. It must be taken with a grain of salt.
A Specialist Travel Agent
A specialist travel agent is worth their weight in gold. However, we believe that before going to any travel agent you need to know what you basically want to do, and what your travel style is. Mumma has worked as a specialist Peru travel agent for over 10 years, so somewhat biased. Check out our blog post about the best Peru Family Holiday.
Having some idea of the itinerary and a genuine desire to see the best of a country is a must. Then you can find that a specialist travel agent who knows the ins and outs of a country. They can provide fantastic advice that is not ‘cookie-cutter’ but genuinely tailored to your needs.
Ask Yourself, What Can You Feasibly Do?
When I am about to plan a family vacation, this is the step that trips me up! I see an amazing list of places to visit in any place and want to do it all. Pre-kids I was always the type of traveler that was busy from dawn to dusk squeezing in museums etc.
With kids, and with the family in tow, the ‘what can we feasibly do’ question depends on a number of factors, including:
- The age of your kids – For smaller kids, do they need a day time sleep, how far will they be able to walk?
- How you personally view ‘a family holiday’ – How much downtime is needed?
- As the kids get older, what are their interests, etc?
It was a large mindset change for this mumma to transfer from solo backpacker to family traveler. Now, several years and 3 kids later, I understand that while you might not see as much the kid’s perspective will bring a great deal of joy to our visit. It’s not just about the places you have been, but the experiences you have as a family.
Before Booking Hotels and Creating an Itinerary Ask Yourself The Following
- Have we allowed for “down-time” for the kids and family?
- With under 7’s and smaller, that means a couple of days recuperating from travel/and or jet lag. For us, travel is a huge stress, both physically and mentally, on little bodies. Even as adults we feel strung out by the tempo that surrounds D-day (departure day) and then getting on planes, strange hours, dehydration, and then the surreal feeling of arriving in a new place. Being kind to our minds and bodies after arrival is vital. Being the family holiday trip planner is hard enough, make sure to allow for self-care time during your vacation. See our blog post Baby Jet Lag Tips & Overcoming Toddler Jet Lag for tips and information on how to mitigate, and cope with, jet lag in your children.
- Then during the itinerary, we try a 1-day activity, 1-day downtime pattern. Downtime might mean sleeping in, lazing around the pool, or going to a playground. For school-aged kids, it might also include some school work.
Often, if we can, we book our flights and accommodation in one go and then take a “breather” from the stress of being a holiday travel planner. Having a fairly loose itinerary is vital with kids. As long as we have a place to stay then we are happy to “make up” the itinerary when we arrive. We have found this is one of the best ways hot to plan a family holiday for us.
How to Plan a Family Vacation: Trip Planner Guide
Planning the perfect family holiday takes some time! However with good planning your next step, the family holiday trip planner booking and organizing phase, will be MUCH easier.
The 5 Essentials to Planning a Vacation
As we discussed above in order to utilize this helpful family holiday trip planner guide, you will have all the following mapped out:
- Destination
- Approx. Dates for the Trip
- Amount of Time Available + Budget
- The Trip Pillars
- A Basic Itinerary
You can move onto how to plan your perfect family holiday or affordable family vacation. Now we are getting into the nitty-gritty.
Talk to Your Travel Agent
The easiest way to organize an amazing family holiday is to see a travel agent, especially a specialist travel agent in the area you are visiting. You may already even have a relationship with someone who has helped you while doing your research. I am a holiday trip planner but travel agents take much of the headache out of your family holiday.
At a minimum, they book your flights, transfers, and hotels checking a range of details like connection times, and ensure the bed arrangements are suitable. They can often get better rates than you can online. If you also have them organize your activities while in-country, then much of the hassle of travel is gone.
Travel agents do of course come at a cost. But, if you don’t have the time or energy to plan a family vacation, then this will be money well-worth spending. In this day and age they also need to be competitive. Recent experiences with travel agents have saved us money, as well as helped things flow smoothly. If you have kids under 5, then working with a travel agent might be the most practical option for you. Let a travel agent be your main holiday trip planner and you can focus on the fine details.
However, if you are an independent traveler from ‘way back’ the idea of relinquishing control over your travel options is tantamount to heresy! Even if you do book some of your holidays with a travel agent, having these steps in your mind is vital.
Review Your Passports and Visa Requirements
Before booking your flights, get out your passports and make sure they will still be valid for your entire holiday. Also, many countries require that you have a 6-month validity upon your arrival back home. Check your home countries requirements! This is the first thing I do when I plan my trip for my family or create travel itinerary.
Check to see if you need a visa for the countries you are visiting. If yes, confirm that you will have enough time to apply for them comfortably before your proposed travel dates.
Most countries recommend that you do not book flights BEFORE applying for the visa as no visa is EVER guaranteed.
Flights – How to Search for Flights and Score the Best Deal
First up, you need to get flights locked in. Once they are booked then know your budget for the rest of the trip. If you are flexible with flights and can depart within a certain few days, then we recommend searching flexibly.
I am not going to tell you if you shop on a certain day or time you will get bargains, but if you can change your departure day +/- 5 days you can often get much better deals. When buying for 4 or more travelers that could mean hundreds of dollars.
Once you have decided where you are going, then subscribe to emails from a number of different places so that you are alerted when the sales start.
For example:
- Your frequent flier airline
- The national airline of where you are traveling to
- Online cheap search engines (We like “I Know The Pilot” and Skyscanner)
Frequent Flier Membership
- There are a plethora of blogs out there about how to get the most out of your Frequent Flier miles.
- We have traveled 3 out of 3 of our last holidays on points, and we have ‘normal’ spending patterns.
Too Cheap/Too Good To Be True
- If you find yourself salivating at a price that seems too good to be true: check the routing, the layovers, or the arrival time. It probably has some catch; you need to read the fine print! The key to being a good holiday trip planner is to research everything.
- Remember – a 6 am departure means that for an international flight you need to be at the airport at 3 am. Not much fun, especially not with kids.
- A 12-hour layover between connecting flights is NOT fun. It is like a version of hell with small kids.
- Consider a better connection or turning the layover into several day stopovers which can assist with jet lag as well as meaning you get to see a new destination. It all depends on how time-poor you are!
We have done this travel hack with Expedia over the years, but Skyscanner seems to have exceeded them with their searching abilities at the moment. Basically search for flights to your destination and then add 1 stop or 2 stops. Reduce the amount of clutter by searching only for the airlines you know to stop in the places you want to visit. These sites also help you really map out an affordable family vacation destination.
Booking the Accommodation
This is the big travel decision for this family. If we are on a family holiday of a month or less, we book all of our accommodation in advance. For longer trips, a more casual approach can work but, once again, is the eternal battle (or balance) between time vs budget.
If we are slow to travel, we check out sites like Airbnb, Flip Key, VRBO, or Home Away. Tripping.com also provides a search engine of all rentals. You can read our full list of pros/cons of home rentals here in our post The Pros and Cons Of Airbnb’s for Family Travel.
In short, the benefits of staying in someone’s home or apartment are that you can self-cater (important for the budget), get more space than a hotel room, and finally, get to live in a “real neighborhood”. On the other hand, hotels provide a more consistent experience, and perks like a gym and swimming pool and are often better located. Each family is different, you know yours.
How to Plan Family Holiday Activities
If you are short on time; and would like your holiday to flow seamlessly then contracting a tour provider, at least for complex sections makes sense.
We recommend looking for a local company that is well recommended and treats its staff in a responsible manner. We specifically look for these kinds of companies because it is our belief that any cheap service can’t treat its people, equipment or even cars right! For us, it is a no brainer: we don’t want to unnecessarily put our kids at risk so safety is more important than budget.
Having worked in tourism in the Americas, we agree that if you go book train and local attraction tickets yourself, you will DEFINITELY save money. However, the savings can be pretty minimal, and we would rather be spending quality time with kids than trying to entertain them in queues. Again, you know the balance between your budget and your time.
If you are keen on booking your own activities and tours there are two sites we generally recommend. Those sites are Get Your Guide and Viator.
Tips to Prepare for Your Perfect Family Holiday
We have done an immense amount of traveling as a family. Not to mention that we have two blogs on traveling. So it goes without saying that we have tons of resources for you on how to plan a family vacation. Here are some of our top recommendations below.
If you are planning a family holiday anywhere in Western Australia, you are in luck. We have created an entire blog dedicated to all things WA. Being that we are from Western Australia, and extensively traveled through the region, we can offer the best insider information and travel tips. Check out our Western Australian Travel website.
Other places we have extensive knowledge on planning affordable family vacations:
This is our guide to baby travel gear. As you evolve into the parent role, you realize that babies and toddlers have a lot of STUFF. Read our full list in Baby Travel Essentials: The Best Travel with Baby Gear. Also, Ideas To Ace Traveling As A Family & Travel Essentials For Kids.
Need help planning how to visualize the departure & get very organized? Check out our Amazing Family Holiday Checklist to Have a Stress Free Departure Day.
Are you going on a beach holiday with your kiddos? The Ultimate Beach Packing List For Family Days and Holidays is a great resource.
The Best Road Trip Foods: Awesome Kid Snacks for Road Trips is a great read if you are planning a family road trip.
The Verdict – How to Plan a Family Vacation or Affordable yet Amazing Family Holiday!
The bottom line is planning a family holiday can be stressful. However, it doesn’t have to be; it can be fun instead. The key to how to plan a family vacation is organization and planning ahead. We hope this post has helped and provided you with resources to use when your planning your next family vacation.
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Ha – was only passing a travel agents this morning and felt the urge to collect some brochures to help plan a trip. I thought i might be alone on this one given the amount of on-line info, but you can’t beat a few glossy pics to help with inspiration!
i totally agree. call me old fashioned but i find it so much easier to flip through the pages, reviewing maps, pictures and itineraries all at once. then you flip back to something you liked. It seems so much easier than the info online. And easier to digest when you are looking ‘big picture’.
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