Vacation ideas with small children

In My Humble Opinion
1

We have an infant and a toddler and we haven’t gone on a vacation for 3 years. Put another way, we haven’t gone on a vacation for 3 years ** because ** we have an infant and a toddler.

Sometime next spring, we’d like to go somewhere, anywhere really. At the time of this potential vacation, our shambolic family unit is projected to consist of:

-A 3 year old with terrifyingly high energy levels, and a typical lack of impulse control and peril-avoidance (we’re working on it). Likes: animals, books, climbing, aircraft.

-A 1-1/2 year old, who ought to be able to speak a bit, eat messily, and walk, but is unlikely to poop in a toilet. Likes: who knows? He’s a baby right now.

-Two tired, stressed adults who just want to look at some things and eat some other things, while showing said things to the kids.

We know how to travel across the country with the kids, because we already visit family twice a year. However, we’ve never done anything more ambitious than sitting around our relatives’ houses.

Our old vacations were delightful, deliberately unrestful blitzes: 1-3 days each in several cities/parks, putting 500-1000 miles on the rental car. Every day was an attempt to hit as many interesting things as possible, then go home completely worn out. This sort of thing is not going to work with kids. They are however, awake from 6-8 so there’s 14 hours minus the obligatory, schedule destroying, 2 or 3 hour nap after lunch (why didn’t anyone tell us about naps?)

TLDR: We like to travel, but don’t know how or where to go with little kids.

2

Travel cross country with kids, drop kids off with family, head out to Vegas or Hawaii or [insert dream destination of choice] together.

3

That’s hardly sporting, is it? :slight_smile:

4

This is where my parents took my brother and I when we were around that age. Every year. Some years we camped, some years we stayed at the lodge. This is, after 48 years now, my most favorite place on earth. And I never got the chance to take my son there - something I will regret forever. :slight_smile:

ETA I still have pictures from the very first year (they’re in my baby book) we went - my brother was not even a year old and I was a bit older - I was in a high chair in the camper and had spread beets all over my face for some reason - the picture looks like something out of CSI. :smiley:

5

We spend a week at the beach with our kids every year ever since they were born. Pretty much do the same thing every day while there. We usually rent a house or condo right on the beach.

6

My husband and I have vacationed at a cabin resort in the Smoky Mountains for 8 of the 10 years we’ve been together. Our most recent trip was with our son (23 months at the time) and another couple (with their 21 month old daughter). It was a BLAST. we spent hours at the Ripleys Aquarium of the Smokies. We had a picnic in the park, splashed around in a shallow creek, and ran through fields chasing butterflies. We browsed the outlet malls during a brief rainstorm. And each couple took a turn babysitting while the kids ran around like madmen in the cabin, so the other couple could relax in the hottub. It was amazing, and I look forward to a couple more awesome decades vacationing in the smokies.

7

We just got done with a 7 night Caribbean cruise and it can definitely be done with little children. We were with friends that had a 1-yo and a 3.5-yo with them, and they did just fine. Royal Caribbean has a really great “Kids Club” area which is basically free daycare in 3-hour blocks so you can spend time with the kids, drop them off for awhile and go have your own fun, and then pick them up again. They also had a lot of various Dreamworks costumed characters on board (Po from Kung Fu Panda, Shrek, etc).

We had our older kids with us (7 and 13) and they had a fantastic time as well. Our youngest loved the Kids Club activities and the older kid just mostly did his own thing and we barely saw him for a week.

8

Sesame Place in PA? My girls have always loved it, even when small. Orlando has a lot of great amusement parks with tons of rides for the little ones. We went there last year and my kids really liked it.

9

We just returned from a weekend in St. Augustine, and already plan to go back in October - there were plenty of kid-friendly things to do (forts, parks, beach, etc.) and it wasn’t crazy-crowded even on July 4th weekend. During this visit, we camped with the in-laws (they have a giant travel trailer,) but I think we’ll rent a house or condo on the beach next time around. A springtime visit would probably mean great weather, too.

10

Your youngest will still be a bit little, but when my kids were little I did the camping thing a lot.

You can always look for cabins to rent if you don’t want to rough it, but my kids loved sleeping in tents.

For activities they were usually happy playing in small streams, but I would also take them to those places that you can dig for fossils, or gem stones.

What kid doesn’t like playing in dirt? Plus, you can answer their endless questions about fossils and gem stones. Of course, I would always cheat and put something interesting in their buckets so they’d find something. :wink:

Take advantage our their age, because in a few years the will not want to learn about that kind of stuff.

You can get those little Audubon Society field guides and teach them the basics of identifying trees and birds.

The three year old will be able to do stuff like that on a basic level and the 1 1/2 year old will most likely try to do whatever to older one does.

I had two kids that were 18 months apart and I started getting them into stuff like that around that age.

I was surprised at how much they liked something as simple as identifying the shapes and patterns of different leaves.

Beach trips are good with kids that age too.

11

Thanks for the advice, everybody. We’re now leaning towards something outdoors related, because of the relatively forgiving scheduling.

12

We started going to the beach every year when our sons were 1 and 3. The one year old ate sand, which later came pouring out the other end, but it was fun.

13

Second the idea of a cruise, especially on one of the kid-friendly lines (Disney, of course, and NCL in my recommendation). Live in comfort, no obligations, can do things together or separately, there are kid programs and babysitting hours and it can be reasonably priced. We did our first cruise in Hawaii specifically because we wanted this mix, without dragging the mountain that is 4yo twins with us all over the place. It worked even better for 14 days in the Med two years later.

14

Most of my friends with kids - all 4 and under - are at the beach this summer. “Rash guards” (swimming t-shirts) are the hot thing this year.

15

Every October since the Firebug had just turned 2, we’ve rented a house on the beach on Anna Maria Island in Florida. It’s on the gulf coast, so you don’t have the ocean waves to worry about, and you can get a house on the land side of the island, to reduce the water volatility to essentially zero, unless there’s a storm. On either side of the island, the water’s shallow a fairly good distance out. And Florida in early to mid October is usually perfect beach weather.

16

My toddler is almost 2, and he is not a fan of the beach. Hot sand, unsteady footing, unpredictable water. YMMV.

As far as daily activities go, we have recently had good luck with the zoo and the county fair (which had a petting zoo). Museums of big stuff, like airplanes or trains, sound like they might be good ideas for you too.

Just keep in mind that it’s more than just the naps that destroy the schedule. There’s so much more planning and packing at the beginning of the day, more bathroom and diaper breaks, tantrums, the list goes on.

17

Yeah, I took my 4- and 2-year-olds to the beach for the first time last month. They were both terrified to death of the ocean. The older one said it looked like it was going to bite everyone (what with the waves constantly approaching).

18

And, the beach is effing boring after about two days.

19

When my son was 4, he loved going on weeklong car trips with us. But in those days, he was allowed to stand up in the back, leaning on the front seats, and carry on a running conversation about everything that could be seen out the windshield, which is where he learned quite a lot about the outside world. He never seemed to get bored.

Those days are over.

20

Not really. In a front facing car seat or a booster seat the kids can see out the windows and windshield just fine. I just back from a 1000 mile + roadtrip with an almost 2 year old and heard about every bus, truck, etc. that we passed.