Travel Planning with a Family of 7
Our family is often known for prioritizing travel, and we’ve been fortunate to do quite a bit with our family over the years. We took quite a break from our big international trips when Covid hit and we simultaneously had 4 babies in 4 years, plus 2 cross-country moves. Life has settled down a bit for us, and we are finally ready to get back in the saddle. We’ve had some small road trips this year, but now we’re gearing up for a month long vacation across Europe this summer. We are beyond excited, but I won’t lie, we are also a little nervous. We are testing the waters this year to see how it goes traveling for a whole month. If it goes well, we plan on making this an annual thing, where we pick a new part of the world to explore together as a family for a month.
We are now less than two weeks out from our trip, and I thought I’d share a bit about the planning side of things.
We are going to 9 cities in 8 different countries across Europe. Here’s a quick overview of our path:
Barcelona (6 nights)
Nice/Monaco (4 nights)
Milan (1 night)
Zurich (3 nights)
Munich (3 nights)
Amsterdam (3 nights)
Brussels (1 night)
Paris (8 nights)
When I first started looking into going to Europe for our summer vacation, I thought we’d maybe go for a week, maybe 10 days. But as I started evaluating the costs of summer camp and childcare, we quickly realized that it actually was feasible to just use that money to extend our time in Europe a bit more. This was solidified when I discovered that children ride the train for free. We went from thinking about 1-2 cities in Europe to 9 real fast! The next step was to figure out where exactly to go.
Narrowing down the choices was honestly the hardest part of planning this trip. It has been awhile since we have been to Europe, and there are so many places we want to visit. Everything feels so close, and I want to take advantage of that, but we can only do so much. For us, we still have some little ones, which makes visiting cities a bit trickier for vacations. So I knew we needed to stick to coastal, beach options for some portion of the trip to balance out the city sites. The first third of our trip will be spent near beaches. From there, we knew wanted to explore some new cities as well as visit Paris again. We went through many iterations of our itinerary, finalizing it about 6 months ago.
Once we settled on our finally itinerary, I officially went into planning mode. When planning, I break this up into 3 parts: accommodations, transportation, and activities.
Accomodations
I like to start with accomodations first, as they are usually the trickier piece for large families to figure out. Sometimes I find that I need to shift dates or might need to even change cities (we switched from Frankfurt to Munich during this part of my process!). I also try to book refundable options so that I can get all accommodations squared away and make adjustments as needed. I started my research early to try to find the best deals. In years past, AirBNBs used to be the more affordable option, but more and more these days, that just isn’t the case. For this trip, I actually used booking.com to book the majority of our accomodations. The best part was that their site allows you to search the full number of people in your party (7!) without spitting back an error code saying there are no rooms large enough to accomodate your family size. Instead, it showed me every possible combination for our family size, ie. 2 hotel rooms, 1 apartment, etc. Europe also has a lot of “aparthotels,” which are more like apartments. I had no problem finding 2 bedroom accomodations for us in every city we’re going to! For most of our trip, the plan is to have two kids in one room, three kids in the other room, and parents on the pull out couch.
Transportation
For this trip I think about transportation in 3 layers: To and from Europe, Between Cities, and Within Cities.
Obviously, getting to and from Europe we are flying. I was actually able to find tickets for less than $200. My advice when planning a vacation is always to start early and get a sense of what flight prices look like generally so you’ll know when you see a good deal! But one thing to be mindful of, the European budget airlines have very strict weight and dimension restrictions for even your carry-on luggage, and they will charge you to check them at the gate. So pack carefully!
When I was researching travel between cities, we could either fly or take trains. I priced out what it would cost my family of 7 to fly between each of our destinations, and it was over $10,000. Instead, we are paying $700 for Ron and I to get Eurail passes, and the children ride the train for free! We’re excited to see some of the European countryside in between destinations, and generally, I find traveling by train to be a much more enjoyable experience with kids over cars or planes. I purchased the eurail passes during a spring sale, and then about 60-90 days out I was able to start making train reservations for each of our train rides. This part of my planning definitely took the longest, as I worked to understand the different trains, schedules, transfers, etc.
During our entire month in Europe, we will not be renting a car, but rather using public transportation instead. This part, we are quite used to, coming from New York. So to be honest, I haven’t done a ton of research here, as it doesn’t feel as scary to me to just figure it out once we’re on site. But if it’s brand new to you, take some time to understand how the trains, buses, and ticketing work in that city.
Activities
Typically when I am planning our vacations, I do not plan out each hour or even each day. Instead, I create a list of all the things we want to see and do. Our routine is to sit down each night and discuss the next day’s plans, looking through our list and factoring in weather, group sentiment, etc. We have found that keeping our plans loose helps keep everyone happy and allows for more flexibility. Some days we go really hard, staying out all day, soaking up as much as possible. Other days, we take advantage of a rainy morning, and slowly ease into our day.
I’m always pleasantly surprised by how children and families are valued when we travel to other countries. Like I mentioned before, the kids ride the train for free. But also most museums are free for children, or the sites are significantly discounted for children. So it as actually quite affordable to see and do a lot with our whole family.
Ron and I will also both be juggling some work this trip. We both work remotely, and so we are taking full advantage of that perk. We’ll continue to do work east coast hours for the first week and a half. This will allow us to spend all day exploring with the kids, and then settle into work in the late afternoon/evenings. The remaining 2.5 weeks we are completely unplugging from work.
Once I have finalized all of these pieces, I compile everything into a single shared doc, so that we have everything in one place, and it is easily accessible. Under each city, I have these categories:
Accomodations
I like to list out all of the accomodation details to keep it one place - address, check-in and out times, whether or not it has a washer/dryer, etc.
I also notate where I booked it (Expedia, AirBNB, Booking.com etc). It keeps me from scrambling trying to remember where I put that reservation.
Transportation
I post screenshots of the train schedule we are taking to travel to and from that particular city.
I also have any relevant notes about the local transportation here.
Activities
I write a quick blurb about each activity on our list, so I can remember what is was. I also notate whether it was a “must-see” or a “maybe.”
Food
In this section, we jot down restaurants and foods we want to try while there. Having some ideas jotted down helps alleviate the stress of ‘what do you want for dinner?’ each day.
Special Notes
I use this last section to note anything special. For example, in Munich, most places are cash only.
Keeping everything organized, especially for a trip like this where we’re jumping around a lot, helps keep everything running as smoothly as possible. It’s easy for Ron or I to know what to expect, where to find things, and take a look at potential activities and food ideas.
And that’s it! Just like that, we’re heading to Europe for a month! :)
Stay tuned for the next blog post…packing for a month long trip! We’re going to attempt to only bring 4 carry-on suitcases…can we do it?