This past week, my family and I went on our annual vacation to Sun River, Oregon. We stayed at the house of a friend of my dad’s, spent the days going for walks along the Deschutes River, explored the surrounding towns and lakes and rivers, went fly fishing, ate delicious food, played board and card games and caught Pokemon whenever possible.
As summer approaches its close, here are a few tips to keep in mind for your next family vacation:
1. Build a road trip playlist
Catering to your audience (i.e. your parents) and providing variety are key. No one wants to listen to the same 20 songs on an eight hour drive. Make sure you have enough music to keep it fresh the whole trip. My brother and I put together more than 24 hours worth of music. Some essentials include the Lumineers and Mumford and Sons, of course. Party hard to those sweet, sweet banjo solos.
2. Don’t get too competitive
A little competition can make family games more exciting but too much will only result in bitterness, hurt feelings and residual resentment. Risking it all to become the dictator of the known world isn’t worth the misery of a poorly played game. Sometimes this requires taking a break when the tension become a little too tangible. Keeping it light with laughter and jokes and losing with grace makes everyone’s vacation that much more enjoyable, and you can always depose their reign the next time you play and bring their regime crashing to the ground (no bitterness there, I promise.)
3. Look down
Sometimes you go through scenic drives beside lovely rivers and peaceful streams. Other times your dad takes the gravel road that strictly prohibits trailers and quickly turns into a steep climb up a switchback pass. Nothing will make you pray harder on vacation than looking out your window and seeing not the side of the road, but half an inch between you and a rocky plummet to death and destruction and Hollywood-style car explosions. The temptation is to hyperventilate and keep your eyes closed as tightly as your clenched fists, but if you keep your eyes shut or turned away, there are some amazing views you might miss out on. Look down to the valley and look out to the mountains. They are stunning, and your dad really is a good driver.
4. Feed the fish
Some may say throwing fistfuls of fish pellets into the lake at the fish hatchery just to watch them swarm and bubble in the water is entertainment for five-year-olds. I would disagree. It might feel silly at first, but it feels so freeing to decide not to care who’s watching and be goofy and take joy in the littler things. It can still be exciting as a 20 year old to get a quarter from your mom to feed the fish.
5. Do the dishes
Even though you’re on vacation, chores are still a necessity that have to be done. Don’t make your mother do everything. Please. Participating in meal prep and clean up can also be great opportunities to spend time together and bond with your siblings (goofing off can totally be done during chores, just keep it quiet.) Plus, you can sneak food during meal prep time.
6. Take a hike
I firmly believe that walks and hikes inspire good conversations. It is those moments that are wonderful opportunities to not only catch up with your family, but ask for wisdom from your parents about whatever challenges or questions you might be encountering in your life. So take your family for a walk, and don’t be afraid to ask questions. It’s also fun to hear the stories of your grandparents and all the haphazard adventures they had when they were your age.
7. Pay attention during the drive
There are all sorts of cool and crazy things that you encounter on road trips, but that requires looking out the window or up from your phone. Scroll through Facebook, and you might miss the llama farm (I don’t know about you, but I get super excited when I see domesticated animals likes llamas and cows and sheep). Look down to post a funny picture and you might miss the deer running in the middle of the street through town, totally bewildered and flabbergasted. Blink and you’ll pass right by the tree ornamented with shoes in the middle of the desert.
8. Start each day together
Going on a family vacation doesn’t necessarily mean that you will spend every waking moment with every member of your family. We all need alone time, all enjoy doing different things, but something I especially enjoyed about vacation this year was that morning and breakfast were a gathering time for my family. Not all of us worked on preparing the meal together, but everyone was present, everyone in conversation and connection. One morning, my dad and brother even broke out their guitar and mandolin and the whole family was able to enjoy and dance to their bluegrass jam session. Mornings were a time to center ourselves, a reminder of why we were there: to spend time together and enjoy this week away from work and responsibilities as a family that more and more frequently spends its days and weeks apart.
What would you keep in mind when you go on vacation?
