Family Vacation Planning

Have exciting family vacation plans?  Or are you still hoping to plan your Summer family vacation?  I fall into the latter category, although my daughter has a volleyball tournament in Phoenix, so this will be a fun road trip.

Whether you have a family vacation trip planned or not, here are some great resources to help you in your planning.  These travel tools are the ones my husband and I use all the time…

Road Trips

Summer means road trips!  Whether you like to plan lengthier road trips or short bursts, there’s nothing like exploring our beautiful country.

We live in Southern California, so the weather is always good for a family vacation road trip.  What I love about road trips is that although it’s good to have an idea of where you want to end up, a lot of it you can play by ear, even on the road!

RoadTrippers.com – a new favorite of mine.  You choose the start and destination points and the type of activities you’re interested in and they give you options along the way. 

Choose hotels, food and drink, attractions & culture, outdoor & recreation, points of interest, vacation rentals, camping & RV, entertainment & nightlife, and services.  Get the app and you can share the adventure with the rest of the members of your family.

Alternative Fuel Station Locator – the infrastructure is getting better to allow for interstate travel if you own an electric vehicle.  This website helps you map out all the charging stations along your route so you can plan your stops wisely.

Hotwire.com – we are still big fans of Hotwire.  Hotwire gives you the flexibility to drive anywhere and decide nearly last minute where you want to stay.  It takes the fear of the old “no vacancy” signs of year’s past…and you can usually snag a great deal!

Outdoorsy.com – ever thought about renting an RV?  We really wanted to buy one and looked for over a year until we found the one the whole family liked.  A friend warned us to rent an RV first (we’d never camped in one before). The result?  We LOVE RV life but decided renting suits our lifestyle (and bank account) better.  

We don’t need to store it anywhere, pay for insurance, upkeep and repairs, or feel sad when the newest model comes out with amazing time-saving or convenient features.  Now we just rent one from someone who did buy one.  We’ve rented a few of them now and love that each time the design and floorplan are different.  

Renting a RV to road trip it is an experience you’ll never forget.  We rented one and drove and parked on the beach in Central California, where we stayed for two nights.  It was a trip we’ll never forget. When we were done, we cleaned it up and returned it to its owner!

RVShare.com  – Another great place to rent an RV.  One more reason why we like renting RV’s is because we can fly somewhere, pick up a rental RV, use it for our road trip, and then return it.  We don’t need to worry about driving it ALL the way back to California each time. 

Last Summer we rented a RV from Orlando, where our daughter’s volleyball team had a tournament, and drove it slowly all the way up to downtown Washington, DC. We arranged to have the RV owner pick up the RV in Washington and drive it back to his home in Orlando.  All it took was paying for the charge of changing his family’s return flight from a vacation they were on.  

Different National Parks have different size requirements for RV’s, so by renting the right size RV, we will have no issue staying in a park.

Trip Planning

Whether you are a family vacation planner or business traveler (or both), it’s always fun to see the amazing opportunities of sights, tastes, and sounds all around you.  Here are some websites we use frequently…

TripIt.com – is the ultimate organizer for all of your travel plans.  It stores your confirmation numbers, reservations, contact info. for everything – hotels, cars, events, dinner, tours, you name it.  Best yet, it does most of the organizing for you. 

It reads through your email and sets up your trips for you in TripIt.  If TripIt misses anything, you can forward emails to plans@tripit.com.  With TripIt Pro, you can even be notified via text about gate changes and keep an eye on when a window seat opens up!  I have used TripIt for the past four years and LOVE it, it keeps me organized.

TripAdvisor.com – TripAdvisor has long been a favorite travel tool.  Not only does it suggest hotels, vacation rentals, things to do, restaurants, and more, these places are reviewed and rated by other travelers. 

So if you only have a day in a city, you can benefit from the ratings and reviews of previous travelers to make wise use of your time. I have found some very unique restaurants and amazing sightseeing places by using TripAdvisor.

Google Flights – I hit the Google Flights website as soon as it’s time to book a flight.  Google Flights makes it easy to look at all flights from the airport you’re interested as well as opting to choose surrounding airports. 

Dates flexible? Google’s Calendar and Price Graph help you choose the best dates to get the lowest price tickets.  One you choose your one-way or roundtrip flight, Google directs you to the proper airline.  Google Flights makes planning so much easier.

Cruise411.com – Thinking of a cruise?  In our book, a cruise is the ultimate family vacation! We’ve used Cruise411 for over 10 years – it’s the best place to look for cruises…and snag a great deal.  They promise the lowest price on every cruise line, every ship, and every cabin.  For the best deal, try booking just 3 months or less to score heavier discounted rooms.

These are our top favorite family vacation planning websites.  We’d love to hear yours!  Leave us a note in the comments to share your travel planning besties with the rest of us!