Please let us know what was your best family holiday ever. We would really appreciate you letting us know what made it so special and why it will always be remembered. If you have links to photos please include them too. Family holidays are great for families please let us know your secrets – Thanks Tim.
Best Family Holiday Ever
Definitely when the kids were still at school, my wife and I snuck them out for a term or two (with teachers’ blessing), packed up and hit the road for 6 months. A year would have been better! Exploring and spending time together as adventurers – it was a real turning point. So good we did again and again until senior high took control and then it was too late! My advice to anyone – your kids will not remember how hard you worked or how much money you made – they will remember being WITH you, and making time is the only way to do that. Just make the decision to hit the road or the houseboat or whatever – and having made that decision, it’s amazing how everything just comes together. Just do it! Together!
When rat said to mole in Wind in the Willows, “There’s nothing… absolutely nothing… half so much worth doing as simply messing around in boats,” he knew what he was talking about.
When I was a kid, we used to spend every summer in a rented beach house on Pittwater. One year, my parents bought me a dinghy for Christmas. We used to surf in the mornings – and I’d wile away the afternoons on my dinghy, which was powered by a 3 horsepower Evinrude. The were simpler times, and wonderful days.
Those holidays fueled a lifelong love of holidays on or by the water. There are few other ways to get away from it all and relax with family and friends that even come close. By the way, 51 years down the track, I still have that old dinghy. And I’ll never part with it.
Camping on the NSW South Coast. We did it when I was a kid, and then we took our kids back to the same area when they were younger. I just remember the freedom we had to explore and discover, and it was great to see our boys go through the same experience. A lot of swimming, but not too much boating involved!
A road trip to Queensland, believe it or not. No one could escape, eventually you have to converse with each other and we invented our own crazy ‘pass the time’ games.
Growing up in Europe we went to a different country almost every year; Norway, Scotland, France etc. My parents bought a small inflatable for my brother and me, and we were always keen to put up our tent close to some waterway and get out in the inflatable. Once we even fabricated a mast and sail using oars and garbage bags – best fun ever!
Our best family holidays have been skiing in Jackson Hole and a bareboat charter in the Whitsundays. What is important is being active, being somewhere beautiful and being together.
Paddling a canadian canoe in the pouring rain. My daughter’s school group finally stopped nattering and the only sound was rain on the still lake.
To a normal person this might sound horrible but you see, I come from New Zealand.
Some of our best family holidays together are spent driving around in a touring car, discovering new places, stopping whenever we see something of interest on the open road.
We recently went to the big island of Hawaii, and had one of our best ever road trips.
Within a space of a few hours, we were driving from an Urban coastline, to semi arid orange landscapes filled with cactus and dry scrub, then through to fertile meadows dotted with little townships and tropical rainforest with majestic canyons.
Its always a bit sad when in the end the sun finally goes down on days like this, but you are left with memories that are larger than life!
Best family holiday? Nothing to do with exotic places. Just memories of the kids and grandchildren being with us and doing outrageous things – like catching their first fish, like being first into the tarn still wearing their clothes, like climbing their first mountain, like trying to gate vault as well as grandma, like group cycing in torrential rain, like walking fully dressed down the bed of a river chasing a plastic duck, like winning points in silly games because points mean prizes. And the next group gathering – this Christmas. Roll on!
Definitely a houseboat in the Kuringai national park. 5 days of relaxing, reading, family fun, good food and sleeping under the stars. And if Dad can hold off any Capt Bligh tendencies it’s also great fun for the rest of the family.
The best holiday has to be the rafting trip with the 3 kids down the Hawkesbury river. I have to admit I was not overly excited about the idea, but once we were on our way, we had the best time ever. Living for 2 weeks on a raft: sleeping, cooking, eating, playing cards, swimming, catching fish,entertaining friends and laughing was pure joy. Well done Tim!