One of the best parts about taking family vacations is the life-long memories you create. For the kids, it is exciting to leave their home town and explore new surroundings. Some of those surroundings, of course, naturally develop into lasting memories. For parents, a lot of the appeal of family vacations has nothing to do with the actual place they travel to, but simply having the family altogether for an extended period of time.

The more you travel as a family, the more tradition you create. It is important to create traditions because it will inspire you and the rest of your family to recreate those traditions the next time you all travel together. Here are a few different ideas to help you get some traditions started.

  • Obviously if you go on vacation, you will naturally be taking lots of photographs. Some of those photographs might be of nature and wildlife, while others may be family photos. But what about taking family photos with a family icon? A popular children’s book series is Flat Stanley, a fictional character who travels the world in envelopes. The real-life Flat Stanley can accompany you on your family vacations and be in lots of your family photos throughout the years. On each vacation, a postcard can be created with greetings from Flat Stanley included. The more places Flat Stanley travels, the more places you can map out of all of Flat Stanley’s adventures Your kids will love this companion, and it’s certainly is a lasting tradition.
  • Something that kids realize when they travel is that there are certain shops or restaurants that they can find on vacation, but not in their hometown. When traveling via airplane, try frozen yogurt from a shop in an airport that you don’t have at home. If you like it, it can be a tradition to find all of the chains of that frozen yogurt shop wherever you go. And if you see it on vacation, you must get frozen yogurt from that place, even if you’re not hungry, because that’s what tradition is. Finding notable treats, restaurants or shops that you can’t find in your hometown help to create memories and new experiences.
  • Gathering souvenirs is another way to keep strong tradition in your family vacations. Some people like to buy t-shirts of the cities they visited, while others keep ticket stubs of events they attended while on vacation for a scrapbook or simply visible proof of all the sites you’ve been. Other travel souvenirs include mugs, magnets or other small toys that will help you remember the place you traveled.
  • A classic family vacation tradition is to play the license plate game. If you’re doing a lot of road trips during your vacation, there’s a good chance you’ll see plenty of different states of license plates. The person who spots the highest total of states in your family wins a prize. Playing games in general only while on vacation is a good way for kids to get excited about going on vacation because it gets them in vacation mood.

Call Grand Pacific Resorts today at (760) 757-3608 to see how we can help you get started on making lasting traditions for you and your family.