USA
France
Germany
Holidays always take a bit more planning after children arrive on the scene, but just because you’ve got little ones in tow, doesn’t mean a trip with the family has to be hard work. In fact, we’ve made it our mission to make travel with kids as fun and hassle free as possible.
Over the years, we’ve seen that every family has their own little routines when it comes to planning their holidays and we love it when they share their experiences with us and give us a sneaky peak into their world. This week we chatted with Abigail Oliver, founder of one of our favourite parenting blogs, Abigail and the Future, (if you like beautiful photography, you’ll love her blog!). She’s been telling us about her family holiday habits, confessing to a general phobia of packing for trips and showing us how our little Benny the Cat Trunki has helped make the process way more fun!
You can also WIN a Trunki for your family by entering the competition at the bottom of the page. ;-)
Packing your Trunki for a family get away!
Abigail and the Future is a visual diary of one small family’s adventures. Based in Bristol I like to share the places we visit, the sights we see, the people we meet, the activities we do and the ups and downs of family life. We’re obsessed with the great outdoors, travel, treasure hunting and filling our home with our finds.
We love living in Bristol and finding interesting places to visit near by, but when our weekly routines and city life get a bit much, we like to pack up the car and head off for a weekend away. With family and friends spread out all over the country – and abroad, we tend to try and fit lots of visits into the year. We often visit places where we can go for walks and explore new places so our boot is always stocked with wellies, extra socks, scarfs and coats just in case we find somewhere great to stop for impromptu adventures!
We mostly stay at friends and families’ homes when we go away, meaning that we usually don’t have to take too much with us, but still for me I struggle at being a practical packer. I suffer with chronic over packer syndrome and need to take at least three pairs of shoes with me to feel comfortable, even if just for a weekend! Luckily when we take the car its ok to shove a few extra things in “just in case” but travelling on public transport and on planes fills me with a little bit of dread about not having space to pack everything I ‘might’ need. Rob on the other hand is pretty militant when it comes to packing, and only ever packs EXACTLY enough for the amount of days we are away. I hope that Theo will fall in the middle of our packing habits.
Since Theo was young he’s always been excited about going on journeys, and visiting people and is a very good little traveller. I’m excited now that he’s older he can get involved a lot more with the planning and packing process and giving us a helping hand, and with his own case it means there’s more space in mine!
We tend to leave the packing to the last minute, I know, we’re those people! But I find whether we’re packing for a weekend visit to family or a holiday to Butlins in Bognor Regis there’s always so much to think about for a family of three. So with Theo finally being able to make decisions on what he wants to take himself makes the whole last minute thing a bit easier. He definitely has preferences of clothes and toys and we always like to take the time to pick out which books we’re going to take for bedtime stories. Now that Theo has his own fun case to pack and pull along (or ride on!) I’m hoping our packing isn’t going to be so stressful!
Sometimes even if we’re not going away we like to pretend we’re going on exciting trips and pack our bags and pretend to drive the car. Theo likes to talk me through what he’s packing and where we’re going. So far we’ve only pretend visited London and family, but I’m hoping for some more pretend exotic destinations soon so we can pack our swimsuits and towels, our jungle explorer kits or even our mountaineering packs!
