(Even when you’re in an amazing location)
You’re in a world-class city enjoying a once-in-a-lifetime experience. There’s only so many hours in a day and you’ve already had to pick and choose carefully to squeeze in as much sightseeing as possible. It may seem counter-intuitive to take a break under these circumstances, but we have learnt (sometimes, the hard way!) why it’s important.
Kids have a surprising amount of energy! They’re usually the ones buzzing well after we parents are exhausted. Yet kids need down-time too, especially during a busy and mentally stimulating holiday. Play is normally a big part of children’s lives and a structured sightseeing holiday doesn’t leave a lot of time for free play. When our kids are out of routine, highly stimulated and eating more treats than normal (ie. On holidays!) we find they become cranky quite easily if we don’t leave time for rest. Crankiness can easily take the edge off an otherwise amazing holiday and nobody wants that!
It can be hard to take time out from sightseeing when there’s already too many appealing things to do and not enough time. I can promise that the activities you DO enjoy will be much more fun if everyone is rested!
Don’t wait until you realise the kids are at breaking point before stopping to rest - this approach risks missing or ruining something important when that breaking point comes. Instead, schedule rest into your plans so you can enjoy every single day of your trip.
Here are some ideas for scheduling rest.
1. A jet lag day: If you’re changing time zones, try to leave a whole day without firm plans at your first destination. Enjoy as much sunshine as you can get (hotel pools, neighbourhood walks) to re-set your body clocks. Try the local cuisine or room service and enjoy this as an experience in itself.
2. Driving time: This can be restful for the children - though less so for the adults who are driving and navigating! We make car time a mix of passive and active rest. Some screen time is a good idea, but we mix it up with fun car music playlists, games like I-spy, casual discussions about what we see outside and chatting about the holiday. My kids often naturally start games with toys in the car once the screens are turned off and they’ve settled in. On one driving holiday they even composed a song on an app, choreographed a dance to it and picked costumes online! It was totally unrelated to the holiday but it was fun that they designed - a brain break from all the learning that comes with a sightseeing trip.
3. Bedtime: Where possible, we try to stick to a bedtime that’s fairly similar to home. That can be hard with time zone changes and certain experiences that are best enjoyed after dark, but research shows that a consistent bedtime is really important. It doesn’t take many late nights to turn our children into fussy, bickering, difficult little creatures, so we try to make sure there’s at least as many normal nights as there are late nights on any holiday.
4. Late nights need a restful day before & after: I hesitated to include this one because it’s kind of obvious, but I know how many times I’ve forgotten to do this myself and it’s worth a mention. Taking a rest before and after a late night doesn’t mean doing nothing, but just having some flexible, unstructured time. For example, if we know we’ll be up doing a beach walk after dinner or seeing a fireworks show, we’ll have a busy morning but spend the afternoon of that day doing something restful like visiting the hotel pool, reading or watching TV. We might use that time to do some laundry, repack the suitcases or go through our souvenir list. After a late night, we have a slower start and plan activities after lunch. When we plan for this, nobody gets frustrated that we’ve missed the opening time at a certain attraction or - worse - missed something altogether. There is nothing worse than trying to get a tired and sluggish family moving for an activity that’s been booked and then arriving tired, cranky or late!
5. Exploring: Unstructured rest time can be the perfect time to explore an area without the pressure of bookings, entry fees or deadlines. We are planners rather than spontaneous travellers. I’ll do a post on the reasons why at some point, but for starters, it’s just harder to get last-minute bookings for things with six people. Even so, we try to ‘plan’ a day without plans whenever we are in a location for more than a couple of days. This is a great backup option for times when the weather impacts other plans and it’s also time to follow the children’s interests, shop casually, eat at places that interest us, open and enjoy shopping purchases, explore facilities within our hotel (pool, playground, games room, etc.) and just generally enjoy spending time together.
Rest times can be memorable! Some of the memorable rest times we’ve had include:
*Sitting beside a walking trail at the Grand Canyon, just enjoying the peace and quiet;
*Free play in our hotel room in Las Vegas which turned into an impromptu dance concert (the guests downstairs complained about the thumping!);
*Eating ice creams on the beach on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, and
*Exploring a playground in Central
Park.
There are many, many more that spring to mind. They’re not always the moments that get captured in photographs, but rest times have truly made our holidays more memorable and enjoyable.
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