10 Reasons Why You Need to Take a Family Vacation

A good solid family vacation is what we all need this summer. You need it for your mental, physical, and spiritual health!!

It does not have to be expensive or all that far away from home. But I hope you get to leave town this summer and go do something fun with your family.

I love family vacations. In fact, that might be another reason I will never be rich. But I don’t care, and neither should you. The fact is we ALL need a family vacation this summer, next summer, and every year after.

In fact, it does not even have to be in the summer. You just need a vacation!

Even a day trip will do!

Sometimes all we can manage is a day trip. You can still get so much family time and experience new things together on a day out together.

I am giving you ten solid reasons why you MUST take a family vacation.

You don’t have to invite all of your relatives and friends. Get away with just the people you live with and maybe a grandparent or two. That is enough. Or just take your spouse or your best friend who likes to travel. Find people that are fun, and GO!

And yes, make your teenagers go. They may resist, but that is just their adolescent social anticipation anxiety talking. Once they get out, they will probably benefit the most.

Why take a family vacation?

#1. When you take the whole family away from the distractions of everyday life, you are all forced to pay attention to one another.

Suddenly, there is no job, no lawn work, and no homework. It is just you and your family. Usually, you are sharing small spaces too. So the vacation forces your attention back to the people who matter THE MOST in your life. Your family.

You do not have to be wealthy to take a family vacation. This can be as simple as a long weekend at Grandma’s house.

I always notice things about our children while we are on vacation that I had not normally noticed. Often it is behavior issues that need to be addressed. Why are behavior issues always more evident when we take them to their grandparents’ houses? If your kids are gong to embarrass you, they will be sure to do so in front of the in-laws. ha!

Your kids need you, and so does your spouse. We need each other. People were never meant to live in an iphone tunnel.

#2. You build bonds that you will need to fall back on in your daily life.

While we are spending all that extra time together, we are growing closer, better bonds with our family. Now sometimes this part is hard when you complicate it with cousin/aunt/uncle bonds on top of it all, so it is important to do some of your vacations as just your nuclear family.

When we are on vacation, we go out to eat together more, we have to all agree on activities, and sometimes we all have to share beds. All of the outside pressures of friends and work fade away, and you are free to grow closer with one another.

We need vacations to build those relationships because when hard times come up in our daily lives, we need to fall back on these bonds that we strengthened on vacation.

Traveling together gives you a shared experience to look back on and laugh about for years.

#3. How you spend your off time tells your kids what your priorities are.

When you spend that off time with your family, hanging out with them, playing with them, and eating together, you are sending a message of support. You are showing your family that they are so important to you that you want to spend your off time being with them. They are your priority.

#4. We all learn so much on vacation, without even trying.

Whether you go to Smithsonian and art museums or head to the lake or the beach, your kids are learning. You are learning too.

Studies have even been done that show that kids who vacation with their family learn more. When you travel, you naturally encounter new things you have never seen before. You learn geography just from the traveling, and how to get around an airport if you are flying.

Nature trips can be just as educational as museums, in my opinion. Think about all of the different observations you make each time you visit a beach or a national park. Even if the lesson is, “Wow, this is what happens when I do not wear sunscreen. Ow,” the whole family is learning.

We learn about life, the world around us, and sometimes, how to deal with difficult family members. These are all important things to learn.

#5. You may also decrease your likelihood of divorce, by strengthening your marriage with family vacations.

According to this article, couples who do not travel together have higher rates of divorce.

Vacationing together will definitely make you utilize your “getting along” skills. My husband and I are twenty years into marriage, and this is sometimes still a struggle. That is why there are opposing points of view on whether vacation is good for marriage or not. I still think it is good for your relationship though. Just don’t be the partner who takes joy from everyone by constantly complaining about how much each thing is costing. Try to enjoy the trip!

If you go into the trip with the mindset of kindness and getting along and bending to others’ wishes sometimes, vacation and traveling together can absolutely benefit your marriage.

#6. It is healthy and refreshing to take a break from regular responsibilities.

Even when our boys were babies, we still committed to taking vacations. This is largely because I LOVE traveling. While breastfeeding, I did not love the traveling part. That was hard to me. But I still did it. I just did not travel as far away, unless I had to. Plus, I chose places to visit that were appropriate for babies.

People criticize going to Disney with small children. However, I found Disney with toddlers to be more fun than trying to go to a movie or even the beach with toddlers or any place where they had to be quiet.

Now that my children are all over the age of seven, family vacations are becoming truly fun and refreshing to me.

I am starting to have fun at the beach even. I still constantly scan for sharks, stingrays, and jellyfish, but it is as close to being chill as I am likely to get.

#7. Memories. If you want to have beautiful memories, you must go out and make them.

I would not trade my family vacation memories for anything. They have nothing to do with why I chose to take a family vacation. I really do that because I think traveling is fun, so I want to share that with my people. Plus, I want to provide wonderful things for my family. Who doesn’t?

I LOVE looking back on the memories we made. Those vacations with toddlers that were so hard? I even love to remember those. Maybe those are even more rewarding as memories than they were in the moment sometimes.

#8. FUN!

Fun is the opposite of bogged down and depressed. Get out and see the world. Get out of your rut. Have fun! Even road trips can be fun if you load up on your favorite foods and activities.

The whole point of a family vacation is to go have fun together. It is important to not lose sight of that. Plus, I think the very funnest people to vacation with are the people you live with everyday because you all already know how to deal with each other. Ha!

#9. New Experiences and sometimes even new skills

You almost always have new experiences on vacation. Sometimes you even come home with new skills. Go on a whale watching boat, try out surfing, or rent a kayak for an afternoon. These can all be new experiences. After a day of paddling a kayak on the water, you will have picked up the new skill of kayaking. It probably takes a lot longer than that to learn surfing, but that is definitely a skill you could improve on vacation.

I personally like to work on my skill of finding cheap restaurants to eat lunch and easy foods to microwave in the evening. I sure do not want to cook on vacation.

#10. Build confidence, courage, and lessen anxiety.

They say the only way to overcome a fear is to face it, and we have watched our children face many a fear on family vacations over the years. Together we have faced fears of going underwater, jumping in the deep end, going out in public, being seen with parents, and riding roller coasters, just to name a few.

When you face a fear and overcome it, you build confidence and courage.

Plus, that time that kids spend being constantly surrounded, supported, and encouraged by family gives them confidence and courage that will carry back over into regular life.

When you feel like you are part of a family that has your back, you don’t have to face the world alone. And in modern days schools, the world can be a scary place. We need each other to build one another up.

#11. Bonus– Correct any toxicity in the group while you are all smushed in together on your vacation.

When you are all crowded together in the family minivan, you can turn off all the noise and electronics. Get everyone’s attention, and address any problems your family has been having as a unit. Apologize for your own role in the problem. Talk about ways to fix it and what is and what is not okay.

It is so important for our kids to know we are on their side, and we are all in this life thing together.

(Okay, I know I said, 10, and here we are at 12 reasons to take a vacation…..)

#12. Use your vacation to remind and encourage your family that they can always choose God and that God made them, so he loves them and wants to help them.

And it’s okay if it is only ten minutes after you have to apologize for yelling bad words at the GPS when you missed that turn….(I have no sense of direction.)

One thing that is causing so many people to be depressed today is not just the lack of vacations. It is that too many people are not taught that God sees them and cares for them. This gives your life a soul center that you need. It is immensely comforting to know, at the end of the day, when vacation is over, God’s got you.

So in conclusion, you need a family vacation to recover from life, to rest, relax, and restore some joy. It is good for your kids, good for your relationship, and what are you waiting for. Sometimes the anticipation of it is just as rewarding as the actual vacation, so book it in advance!

For more summer vacation ideas see these articles:

Summer Bucket List Free Printable

Top 6 Must See Places to Visit in Monterey, California

What to do in Washington, DC