The Classroom is Everywhere: 7 lessons from traveling with little kids

Your perfect vacation might be a lazy tropical getaway, sipping drinks poolside or exploring a new city from dusk to dawn. And then you have kids and that perfect vacation looks a little different now.

Traveling with young children requires a whole different approach. Instead of your travel partner with endless energy who can power through skipping lunch and walking 20,000+ steps a day, your pint-sized travel buddy might need a nap (and SNACKS).

You will meet no one who is a bigger proponent of the importance of traveling with kids than me. But truth be told, it is more of a relocation than a true vacation. After almost a decade of traveling with little ones, here are my top seven pieces of advice:

1. Maintain their regular schedules. With our first child, we spent a lot of money going places only to spend a chunk of the day back at the hotel while our child napped. Now that we have more than one child, we stick with our regular bedtimes while relying on the car or stroller for naps for our youngest. Sure, in the end, they aren’t as well rested, but the hope is they sleep better at night and you don’t waste most of your daylight at the hotel. We go to bed early, wake up early and do it all over the next day. By maintaining our schedule, we don’t need to deal with the fallout from vacation once we are home. This, of course, does not apply to overseas trips or places with enormous time differences.

2. Splurge on a large hotel room or Airbnb with amenities. Before kids, it is easy to book a small, cramped hotel room and decide you will spend little to no time in it unless you are sleeping. After kids, we have found it is important to book a room with a separate living area or, at the very least, a balcony you can retreat to at night once your child goes to bed. For destinations more remote, where we know we are going to be really active during the day or know finding restaurants or groceries will be challenging, we always book an Airbnb so we can cook and get a great night's rest.

3. Aim for one activity a day. Set your sights low and you will be surprised what you can accomplish in a day while on vacation. By waking up early, you already beat the crowds, which means less time of your day spent waiting in line. Now that is a win!

4. Visit destinations you have already been to. Most people do a fair amount of travel pre-kids. If this is the case with you, take your children to places you already know and love. This way, you can hit the ground running by already knowing where to go, where to eat, etc. And by visiting places you've already been, you can rediscover a favorite place with a fresh perspective.

5. Consider bringing backup. Perhaps you have parents, in-laws, childless friends or neighbors that adore your children. Invite them along for the trip with the understanding they will watch your children one evening so you can go out to eat -- or one morning or afternoon so you can do an activity not suitable for little kids, like rafting, snorkeling, horseback riding or scuba diving. We have rarely done this, but in theory, this sounds amazing!!

6. Let the children be part of the planning. You don't have to relinquish all control and spend the next 10 years of your vacation time at Disneyland. However, in order to help your children get excited about the trip, let them be part of the planning. If you have one child into transportation, another into science or another obsessed with animals, make certain to build space and time into the itinerary to foster those interests. I know my children love the water, so if there is a lake, beach or pond near us, I know we will be spending ample time there.

7. Always have an "only-on-vacation" reward in your back pocket. Perhaps at home, you’re strict about sugar, you despise Play-Doh or kinetic sand, or having your children watch mindless hours of television. However, when on vacation, your children know the home rules go out the window and they get to have vacation rules. Maybe this means dessert after lunch, endless amounts of temporary tattoos or perhaps a show each evening while you're making dinner. It does not matter what exactly it is, only that it is something you usually say no to when you are at home.

The biggest thing I have learned about traveling with kids is to go into it without any expectations, know your limits as a parent and utilize your strengths. Some of the best vacations we have enjoyed as a family are because of the awesome house we booked, the great list of kid-friendly restaurants we procured ahead of time or simply keeping our days wide open and letting our day go where the mood took us. Vacations with children need not be elaborate; they will remember the ice cream, the staying up late or the extra screen time more than how many museums you visited or tourist attractions you checked off this list. If you just relax and lean into the chaos, you are bound to have more fun, less stress and a happier family vacation overall.

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Lisette Wolter-McKinley is a freelance writer for Seattle Refined. Follow more of her adventures here.