Letting your children help with vacation planning

I strongly believe the children's opinions count when planning a vacation. We have always taken our children on vacation, however, one of the vacations we planned with them was to travel from Louisiana to California.
Actually, I planned the vacation. My husband at the time told me to plan the trip and he would agree with what I would come up with. The children were approximately seven and eleven.

Rather than letting them be involved, with the planning, I got information from different sources on every state we went through going and every state we went through coming back. Many things I chose were educational, which was good, however, I didn't really consider their ages and interests.
We had what I thought was a great time, but years later we were talking about the many vacations we had taken and they laughed about that particular one. They still tease me about the cactus farms and the chipmunks running all over the place. I guess about the only thing they enjoyed was Disneyland.
Upon finding that out, I told them the next vacation we would take was going to be considered their trip. We got them involved in the beginning stages of planning the vacation. Again I gathered information and we went through each state we were going to and let each child pick out things they wanted to see or do. We figured our time allotment and our financial allotment and tried to include their wishes in what our itinerary was going to be.
Up to this day they rave and boast about that trip. Now my children are twenty seven and twenty four and they want to take that trip again, when their children are old enough to participate in planning a vacation.

Learn more about this author, Miss D Charnia.
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