Summer is a time of optimism, when we expect fun and relaxation in a season of heat, mosquitoes, and no childcare. Nowhere is this more visible than the annual family vacation. We strive to plan the perfect trip where we will enjoy each other’s company and grow closer as a family. Unfortunately, this rarely happens. We all have a story of a family vacation going awry.
Traveling with a large group, including kids, means you don’t have flexibility when things go wrong. I asked some of my friends to share their vacation horror stories, and my inbox was flooded.
My friend, Pia, booked her family’s room at the popular Paradise Inn in Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state months in advance. But when they arrived, it turned out they were 12 months too early. Pia had made the reservation for the following year. The remote lodge had no available rooms, and the staff told them to “leave immediately,” so they could get down the mountain before dark. After dozens of frantic phone calls, they found the only place that could accommodate their family of four: an RV with an outhouse for $420 a night.
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Kids get sick. A lot. Yes, even on vacation. It’s hard enough managing a sick child at home with access to your pediatrician, Netflix, and endless Pedialyte, but in unfamiliar surroundings, it’s catastrophic. I’ve been the mom on the airplane whose baby screamed the whole flight from a sudden onset ear infection. Another friend, Cara, says her kids have a track record of getting strep throat in July. She’ll never forget a camping trip to Yellowstone National Park. One kid woke up burning with fever. They packed up in the dark, facing a miserable trip home. Ah, vacation memories!
The stress of maximizing precious vacation time means that we are not always on our best behavior. Disney World is full of parents yelling at children to shut up and have fun!
Tracilee, a local preschool teacher, recently encountered a frustrated mother at Sequoia National Park. The poor woman was trying to get a picture of her three sullen preteen daughters when she finally lost it and screamed, “You know what, I don’t care if this picture has you all looking like this. I’m going to post it everywhere and show everyone what horrible people you are!” I would love to see her Christmas card this year.
Another friend, Shannon, told me that she and her husband had words on a camping trip after a night where he slept peacefully in the tent and she sat in the car with a crying toddler listening to the “Muppet Movie” soundtrack on repeat.
“You want to go home?” he asked incredulously in the morning. “Why? We’re having a great time!” They are now divorced, only in part due to that camping trip.
So what’s to be done about the myth of the happy family vacation? Child-friendly destinations like Great Wolf Lodge order us to “build lasting memories,” but notice that they don’t specify good memories (my recollection of terror on their Howlin’ Tornado water slide absolutely counts).
With families, it’s the shared memories, both good and bad, that bond us together. I heard many more vacation disaster stories than I can fit here, and everyone laughed while telling them. Pia’s kids traded a night at Paradise Lodge for a lifetime of getting to make fun of their mother. Maybe we just need to stop forcing family vacations to be a perfect experience and just let them be… an experience.
Jessica Barnard writes about Gen X for The Belmont Voice. When she’s not planning the next family vacation, she’s a program manager at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. Shortly after filing this column, she learned the flight to her next family vacation had been cancelled. She did make it out the next day.