“Family is not an important thing. It’s everything.”
Michael J. Fox
So, you want to go on a family vacation that everyone is actually happy to have been a part of by the time you all get back home? Well, I can help you out with that – and I have the road trip credentials to prove it. I’m talking about real world, in the trenches, family road trip veteran credentials. Our family has logged over 130,000 miles of road trips, in the last twelve years. When my father in law was diagnosed with a terminal condition, we drove from NJ to Tampa, Florida, almost one out of every 6 weeks, for three years… on the first trip, two of our kids were toddlers and our youngest was an infant. If you asked my kids, then ages 10, 10, and 7, they’d tell you that our family’s cross-country-solar-eclipse-chasing-road-trip, was tied with Disney, as the “best vacation ever.” In 2018, we followed our eclipse trip with a trip from NJ to New Orleans, with our then 11, 11, and 8 year olds. In 2019, our road trip took us on a tour of the U.S. Southwest – Arizona, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and California. We’ve road tripped through fourty two U.S. States, and, we all still enjoy being around each other. Since summer is the season of the great American road trip, I wanted to share some of my hard-earned travel advice in the hopes that it will make your adventure a little bit more enjoyable!
First things, first: PLAN! You should have a plan, a backup plan, and a backup to the backup plan. Seriously.
The Ten Commandments of Family Road Trips:
Commandment Number 1: Humble yourself– The first secret to a successful road trip: It’s not you, it’s them… and you. You’re all really annoying… No seriously, you are. I know your kid can be kind of a jack ass, sometimes, and that your kid has mood swings and, occasionally, can even seem completely intolerable – and I haven’t even met your kid. So, how could I possibly know this? Well, because I just described every human being, ever. That’s right, friend: you, too, can be a total jackass. You get hangry, you take your stress out on other people – innocent bystanders, if you will, and you are wildly far from perfect. So, why do you expect your kids, parents, sibling, or spouse to not be annoying? Why do you get so annoyed with them, when they behave no worse than you, or any other human being? Instead of making someone else put you in your place – put yourself there. With the exception of those that have murderers and sexual predators in their lineage, you are not better than any member of your family. You don’t deserve adoration and worship for loving and supporting your family. So, get over yourself… humble yourself. It is a fantastic place to start. [Ed. Note: this doesn’t mean that you allow them to walk all over you, without consequence. It means that your responses to their human faults come out of humility and a desire to help them grow, not out of a reflexive, “who do you think you are talking to,” attitude.]
On the same line of thinking, if you want to enjoy your time with your family, I’d encourage you do abandon your “crown.” You may have grown up with parents who said, “someday, you’ll have a family and you can do it however you want, but, for now, you do it my way.” Try to remember how that made you feel. Chances are, it made you feel disregarded, disrespected, and resentful – it probably made you wish that you were just about anywhere else. These are not exactly the emotions that we are shooting for, on a family road trip. But, your parents were partially right – now you are the parents! You CAN do it your way. So, will your way be the inflexible and dismissive way, or, will your way be communicative and inclusive? This isn’t “my way or the highway, I’m the one running this show, so, tough luck if you don’t like it,” time… I mean, it can be, if you want it to be. You have that power… Just don’t be surprised when no one comes to visit you in your nursing home someday.
Commandment Number 2: Have some (familial) hubris– Your family also happens to be pretty awesome, and, chances are, you already know this. Celebrate it! Let THEM know why you think they are awesome and what they mean to you. Be specific … it means a lot to someone to know that they are valued. If you can’t identify the ways in which they are awesome, there are only a few possible reasons, with the most common two being: 1. because you all spend so much time apart, that the things that make them awesome don’t jump readily to mind anymore… or, 2. because they are all serial killers; the latter is highly unlikely. Not to worry – you have a chance to relearn what’s awesome about them… After all, you’re about to go on a road trip with them.
Commandment Number 3: Adjust expectations– Guess what? You’re going to get into a fight with at least one of your family members – I promise. Also, this trip will not go perfectly. This needs to be a fact that is openly discussed with everyone in advance of the trip. Everyone needs to know, well before you pack the van, that this isn’t going to be some perfect family-time panacea. The success of a family vacation doesn’t lie in whether or not the trip attained a “Christ-like” level of perfection. Although, it does, to some extent, depend on preconceived expectations and after-the-fact perceptions of the trip. Don’t assume everyone has the same expectations for the trip that you have. Have a family meeting and discuss the trip in advance; find ways to incorporate each family member’s interests. Don’t be a jackass and make the whole trip about you – and don’t allow anyone else to do that, either. Communicate civilly with your kids – as if you like them, or at least hope to someday like them. If you are planning to head to Orlando, but not hit a theme park, that might be a good thing to tell them in advance… If you’re only going to a theme park for a day, make sure they have a heads up. Don’t be surprised if they beg, whine, and, pout for more, even though you did give them a heads up (your expectations need to be adjusted properly, as well). That isn’t them being ungrateful… it’s just typical, predicable, human behavior – and when they don’t beg, whine, or pout, tell them how proud of them you are, for having such a high level of gratitude that they could do what most people can’t. After all, they aren’t perfect, and neither are you – and your goal should be to guide them through those kinds of frustrations, so that they know how to handle them later in life. Their behavior isn’t a personal attack on you, anymore than you were personally attacking your parents when you did the same thing as a child – and spare me the “my parents grounded me/beat me/yelled at me, when I acted that way.” Who cares what your parents did? Not me, and not your kids… The question is: was the approach that your parents took the best way to handle things? If so, then great, do that. If not, then make the required adjustments so that you can be a better parent in that area than your parents were to you.
Family Road Trip 