Holidays with a family.

We’ve just booked our Easter holidays. HUZZAH!

We have rented a villa in the South of France….Again!
I can’t wait.

I always said I’d never be the person who goes on holiday to the same place.
Well guess what?
I AM THAT PERSON NOW AND I DON’T CARE.

The idea of booking holidays with a family makes me itch.

What We Don’t Want On A Family Holiday

A hotel – Sharing a tiny space with my family for a week? 7 nights of sitting in silence so the children can sleep – I don’t think so!
A balcony – Seth will climb over it, fall off and break something/someone.
An unfenced pool – Both will fall in and drown, without a doubt.
Other people – There’ll be groups of teens being loud, lairy and full of the joys of youth, vigour and life! No one needs their face rubbing in it!
All inclusive – The children would eat chips every night. So would I to be fair. We need variety and a vegetable or two.

We don’t enjoy sitting by a pool for a week, we prefer to explore.
We don’t want to send the children off to a kids club while we sit and drink all day, we want to spend time with them.
We don’t need evening entertainment, we generally stick to our routine when we’re away. If my children go to bed at 7 they wake at 6.30am. If they go to bed at midnight they wake at 6.30am and we all fall out when we’re tired.

I find it so easy to decide where not to go.

What We Do Want On A Family Holiday

Both our children are fair skinned with white blonde hair. This rules out anywhere really hot, besides, both get mardy if they’re too hot and sweaty (as do I) but both love the beach and playing in the sea.

They like to be outside a lot but I don’t like rain (it plays hell with my hair dye) so that largely rules out the UK, especially if it isn’t summer. Besides a holiday in the UK during school holidays is as much as a holiday abroad and about as much faff as leaving the actual country.

Before our eldest started school we could sneak away in the summer but outside of school holidays. Now we are confined to the school holidays so we try to look at places where prices don’t increase due to holidays.

We find that hiring accommodation and travel separately often works out a lot cheaper for us, especially if we can find a discount code. In fact, given the amount of websites dedicates to airticket booking and cottage booking, it’s as easy, if not easier to tailor and book the perfect holiday for the family.

As you see, we’ve done a lot of leg work finding the perfect location at a perfect price and so we WILL be visiting the South of France for the foreseeable future! This must be the reason people holiday in the same place!

I jest, it’s actually the perfect place to holiday with children.
It’s a beautiful region with plenty to do, go up for the mountains or down for the beach.
There are lots of places to walk and lots of places to visit.
We get to enjoy a family holiday without completely throwing out our existing routines (they work for us, I am not letting go of them yet).
The weather is always considerably warmer than here.
The food is fantastic and the wine is abundant (and cheap, so very cheap).
The cake is immense.
The people are friendly.
It’s perfect and the children love it.
We’re a family of Francophiles now.

This is why I am now that person who holidays in the same place every time.*

How do you holiday?
Do you do somewhere different every time or have you found ‘your’ place to visit?
Has having children changed the places you consider visiting?
*This year we are also going to Czech Republic, we DO do different just not always.