You know what the most crucial thing about travelling with kids is? MIND SET. A while back I read this article, and it’s so spot-on (and hilariously) truthful that I can’t even pick just one quote.
Some of my favorites:
“If your final destination has a kitchen, you are not on vacation. You are on a trip. If you have to grocery shop before or during your time away, it is a trip. If you, at any time during your stay, have to load or unload a dishwasher, that is a Groundhog-Day-style trip.” (We are in the moment where we live for a kitchen on our “trips.” And, I may have also nearly lost my mind not being able to find a solid grocery store near Waikiki beach).
“If there is a pack-and-play in your room, you are on a trip. If you are in a hotel room with two double beds, trippity trip trip.” Yup! Totally us right now!
Can’t. Stop. Laughing. Despite the headaches that can come with traveling with two littles, it’s still worth it in my books. And, we’ve been coming back from some pretty stellar family trips lately: we’ve just returned from Oahu, Hawaii, and our trip to San Diego in the fall was pretty amazing! Our travel entails nothing too adventurous these days, mostly getting outside, enjoying the sunshine, and eating too much ice cream. WIN. The winter time is when our family gets to reconnect since our summers are so crazy with our boat business. Oddly enough we live in a summer paradise, yet have to get away in the winter to enjoy one! We don’t have huge expectations to do much more than see a few sites and get in some good quality family time.
We love traveling to Hawaii and this year we headed to Oahu for the first time. We spent one week in Waikiki and one week in Ko Olina, both which are really amazing locations. We would highly recommend the Ko Olina area for families. There are four lagoons along a boardwalk that links a few resorts, and the lagoons are beautiful protected and uncrowded areas for kids to explore the beach and water. V and I spent lot’s of time together scouring the beach for “treasures” and we had the most amazing one-on-one time doing this. Her sweet little three-year old inquisitiveness is in full force and we had some pretty cute conversations.
Oahu offers a lot of different sites and activities and I can imagine the endless exploring that kids a little bit older than ours would love to do. There’s something about Hawaii that always has us coming back for more. Everyone is so happy, the weather is nearly always perfect (and with the ocean breeze, not overly hot for little kids), and the pace of life follows those memorable island beats that ease us right into vacation mode. Sigh. Take me back.
Our days consisted mostly of coffee run (note, there is no comma between those two items 😉 ), swim, nap, swim, ice cream, iced coffee, swim, repeat. Or something like that. We took in the odd adventure: the Honolulu Zoo, a sunset dinner cruise, a character breakfast and Luau at Disney’s Aulani, Mike took a day at Pearl Harbour (the girls and I were uninvited, apparently for reasons related to our level of patience and/or our snack break requirements- insert that little eye roll emoji here), and a day trip out to the North Shore. For the most part we loved all of our excursions. After returning from the zoo someone at the hotel asked Vienna how she liked it. “There were no polar bears there. It’s too sunny here for them.” Great take away, kid.
At the end of the day we are constantly reminded that down time is the best time.
If you’ve got questions about or want a review of any of the activities we took in, feel free to send me a message! I’ll spare the details and get straight to the main point– a quick photo recap of some of my favourite memories. Enjoy! xo
That sounds like you had a nice, relaxing time! 🙂 Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed reading! 🙂
Omgsh Raina you had me laughing over here “trippity-trip-trip” that’s when you know you are living the parenting life, YEAH! haha! But a family getaway is refreshing to the soul. All the pictures are beautiful. Love them all! Your family is gorgeous.
Travelling with kids is fun and great family bonding. I love these pictures, it look like you all had a blast.
Thanks Anna! We had SO much fun. I agree, traveling is great for family bonding!
Oh my goodness! This is definitely in my family “trip” bucket list. Thanks for sharing for beautiful “vacation”.
Thanks Stephanie! It really is a great family destination… even if it is a trip!