I'd like to hear from others who travel for several weeks at a time with children. These kinds of trips raise different kinds of issues and I'd like some resources for helping me plan my own trips. Some of the issues I'm thinking of:
- Award availability for families, esp in J and we need 5x
- Hotels with suites for families, esp with 3 kids
- Fatigue!!!
- Trains and other public transportation vs car rental
- Competing ideas about travel/length of stay/endurance from spouse/older kids
- Apartment vs hotel for long stays
- Cost
We are in the unusual position of having careers that allow us to take up to 7 weeks off (all at once) every year. We also take 1-2 weeks off at holidays etc. And we have 3 children (7-16 yrs) who are, of course, off every summer. Generally we spend 4 weeks somewhere. At our beach house, in Europe at one or two locations, some combo of FL and Caribbean. Two years ago we did Europe (2 weeks) and South Africa (3 weeks) and it was incredible, if a bit stressful (little one was 5...sigh). This summer we are 2 weeks at beach house then 3 weeks in UK.
I'm already gearing up for summer 2017 when I want to do a RTW with Europe, SE Asia, and Japan. It takes me 6 months to figure out what we're doing and then I usually book air 330+ days out. I'm thinking we need 5-6 weeks. But the family will most definitely push back because they are homebodies.
How do you all plan? How do you prioritize? How do you persuade the naysayers? How do budget?