Not wanting to take the kids far away on vacation? The thought of spending hours and hours in the family minivan bringing tears to your eyes? Having to choose between airline tickets and sending your oldest to college? While this article can’t solve any of those problems for you, how about providing some great personally tried and tested staycation ideas for families?
Vacationing with kids can sometimes be a handful, depending on how many you have, their ages, and what their tolerance levels are. As someone who grew up in a large family, I totally get it. Sometimes simply getting everyone dressed in the morning can be a fight to the death, according to the 2 year-old who wants to run around diaper-less.
But sometimes we need a break. A reprieve from the daily schedules. The carpooling. The fighting about staying home yet again.
And there’s a thrifty alternative to jet-setting across the world with kids in tow: the staycation.
In a nutshell, yes. A staycation is a great alternative for families with kids: you’re close to home in case anything happens and you need help; you won’t have to break the bank to have a good time; the kids are in a pseudo-familiar place to help keep them from panicking or stressing out.
Keep it fresh and fun. Try new things. Watch your kids grow, all with the comfortable safety net of being close to home.
Try out these great staycation ideas for families!
#1: Create Your Own Drive-In Movie Theater
Photo by David Clode on Unsplash
As kids, we loved going to the drive-in movie theater. Although they’re a little harder to find nowadays, you can create your own drive-in movie theater experience, right in your own home!
Option 1: Inside
Have your kids build a fort in the living room (or wherever you have your largest TV), making sure there’s an opening to view the screen. Fill the fort with pillows, blankets, stuffed animals, and all things soft and cuddly. Fill a bowl with popcorn or snacks, and turn off the lights for a true movie-goers experience.
Option 2: Outside
Give each child (and adult!) a box big enough for them to sit in, whatever art supplies you can find, and instruct everyone to decorate their “car” for their drive-in movie experience. Tape up the sheet to the side of a building or wall (or use a white wall if you have one), and point the projector at it. During the movie, you can have a “snack shack” set up where movie-goers can come “purchase” items, or give everyone a bag of goodies. What a perfect staycation idea for families during the summer!
#2: Get Lost in a Children’s Museum
Children’s museums are so much fun! Whether it’s a museum of natural history or curiosity, chances are your family is going to have a great time. Children’s museums are geared to engage little minds, keep them occupied, and inspire learning. Hands-on activities, interactive exhibits, and demonstrations hold little attention spans, leaving the parents free to either participate or sit down and take a break (while still watching their kids). And even if your children have visited a museum while on a school field trip, chances are there are exhibits they haven’t seen, things they want to see again, or maybe they didn’t remember as much as you thought!
#3: Go Camping
When I was little, my siblings and friends and I would pitch our tent in the backyard on our trampoline. We didn’t sleep much, but it was so much fun and we were able to pretend we were camping on the moon. You can find a local campsite and try the true camping experience, but if you’re not sold on that idea, pitch your tent in the backyard! Don’t have a backyard? Pitch your tent in the living room (or largest room in your house)! Pretend you’re on an adventure, trekking through the jungles of the Amazon or the Outback of Australia (without the poisonous critters!).
#4: Visit a Farm
While visiting a farm might require a little driving for those located in mostly metropolitan areas, being able to step foot on a working farm is just the ticket to a successful staycation for your family. Some farms have animals that visitors can help feed and look after. U-Pick farms are a great way to teach your family about where their food comes from and give them an opportunity to understand the work behind it.
Funny story: my family visited a berry U-Pick farm in Washington and loved it. While we were walking around and picking as many berries as we could, my niece would follow around her grandpa and reach into his bucket when he wasn’t looking and eat handfuls of berries. It took him a while to figure out why he couldn’t fill his bucket!
#5: Create a Scavenger Hunt
Are your family members adventurous and curious? Do they enjoy solving puzzles and clues? Pinterest has some awesome ideas for creating your own scavenger hunt. I’ve done this twice as a Cub Scout activity, focusing on learning directions and using a compass. I wrote the clues on notecards and then slightly burned the edges to give a more “authentic” look. The boys loved trying to figure out the clues and running around.
Scavenger hunts are completely customizable and can be adapted to any living situation. Boundaries can be your background, street, park, or even city-wide (tricky, but not impossible).
#6: Have a Park Day
Every city has a park. Bigger cities have multiple parks. Why not spend a full day at the park? Pack a picnic lunch, some games, sporting equipment, changes of clothes (just in case), and a hammock? Visit a park that is new to you, full of new epic swings, new trees to climb, grassy hills to roll down, and every type of playground configuration your family can imagine. If you don’t have any kids with you, set up your hammock and get lost in a good book!
#7: Book a Hotel with a Pool
Sometimes we need to stay overnight somewhere besides our own home, giving us more of the “getaway” feeling. Why not book a stay in a hotel that has a pool? Pretend to be a mermaid or fish. Play find-the-toothpick. Teach your kids to swim. Race each other up and down the pool. And the hotel can be as fancy or basic as you want, depending on your budget.
#8: Set up a Game Tournament
Game night is always a fun activity for families. But take it a step further and create a tournament surrounding board games, sports, or playground-style games. Using a chalkboard or whiteboard, or even just a notebook, create a scoreboard with you family members’ names. Take it outside. Croquet. Arm-wrestling. Twister. Jenga. Cards. Soccer. Mix it up. The possibilities are endless!
Have you ever planned a successful staycation for your family? What staycation ideas for families would you include in this article?
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