Holiday Travel Plans

Off to grandma's house we go...

Growing up I lived just 2 hours (or 1.5 depending on how heavy my moms foot was) from my Nana & Poppy and the decision to fly or drive was always an easy one. I'd have to say that growing up in NJ you were always just a road trip away from NY, Philly, DC and the parks in VA. Now, living in the Midwest is a different story. Yes, in my eyes things are close, 3 hours to the Dells, 4 to St. Louis and 5 to the Mall of America; but I haven't come across many who love to make those kinds of drives on the regular. 

Either way, I have to say, I'd prefer to drive than fly but in the event you can't (like my Chicago to NJ/NC trips) I stumbled upon The Savings Experiment and her lovely Holiday Travel video. She mentions a great site called Befrugal.com where they have a "Fly or Drive Calculator" that calculates costs such as, time spent at the airport and pit stops.

I'll definitely be putting Befrugal.com in my family trip planning arsenal since it was also mentioned it's cheaper to drive when the trip is 4 hours or less. If the drive is planned during nap or sleep time and if there are enough movies and games to play it's definitely do-able. This past September I drove with mom and little sister from NJ to NC like always except this time Yus was with us. So we left at our usual time, 3am and he slept as planned until our first pit stop in VA (4 hours later) at the Cracker Barrel. We did the diaper change, ate, stretched and hit the road again. Four (4) hours and 2 movies later we were at my great-grandma's and he was ready to get out and run free.

Road trips and flights with the little ones take crafty planning but don't hesitate to add 30 minutes or an hour to the trip for the kids to stretch and play. It will do you and them some good. My motto is to tire them out for the ride by any means necessary and the people who look at me crazy in the airport clearly have NO kids at home and get smiles from me in return.

Have fun planning your holiday trips if they are not planned already!

nkoyo