Nothing beats the hotel pool when you're traveling with kids

 

A video clip of us in a hotel pool, somewhere outside of Philadelphia, 2006.

We used to take a couple of road trips every year when the kids were growing up. One was always to our church's annual Bible school, while the other was often to one or more cities in Pennsylvania.

I don't know how or why Pennsylvania became our destination of choice, though I suspect it was because it was close, it was relatively inexpensive, and it had a lot of places to choose from.

I know we went to Hershey multiple times, but over the years we ended up covering other parts of the state as well. Wherever we went, we looked for two things in a hotel:

1. A sufficient number of beds to accommodate the seven of us
2. A pool

And that was about all we needed.

The pool, in particular, was a big attraction. No matter what we had spent our day doing, the kids were often more excited to jump into the pool that evening when we got back to the hotel.

Which was fine. It gave Terry and me time to rest, and it allowed them to work out whatever energy they had left before it was time for bed.

Actually, Terry and I didn't always get to rest, as evidenced in the video above.

This was shot 20 years ago during a family trip to Philadelphia. As you'll see, I'm in the pool with the kids holding little Jack, who I don't believe was even 5 months old yet. My job was to carry him around so he could watch his siblings play while not getting splashed in the face.

I miss those days, but I don't miss the level of tired I know Terry and I were feeling at that moment. Family vacations were equal parts fun and fatigue for us.

Which again was fine. We were making memories, and we had enough sense to realize it.

You know, I can't remember the last time I was in a pool with all of my kids, but I do know one thing...The next time it happens, I probably won't be carrying Jack, who is now 20 years old and half a foot taller then me.

I think he can handle getting splashed in the face now.

I give more thought to scheduling my vacation days than NASA gives to manned space missions

When you add up my vacation, personal days and floating holidays, I have something like 19 days of leisure to play with in 2025.

That's probably fairly typical of a white-collar professional of my age. Some people (particularly those with many years of tenure at their companies) have much more, others have much less. But that's what I have.

While I find it to be pretty generous, I realize I'm looking at this through very American eyes. Those in other countries tend to have more off time – often considerably more – than we do. I'm so conditioned to our system here that if you gave me the Scandinavian treatment and granted me six weeks off a year, I wouldn't know what to do with myself.

In any case, those 19 days are what I have, and I give careful thought as to how I use them.

And to be clear, I do use them. All of them. As I've written before, I don't understand those who leave paid holidays on the table.

• Right off the bat I know I'll burn a week's worth in late July for our church's annual Bible school/retreat at Slippery Rock University. It's a highlight of the year for us and a non-negotiable expenditure of off time (even the recovery day I'll take after we get back).

• As I mentioned last week, we just recently scheduled a trip to Brazil. It's a Wednesday-to-Wednesday thing, but one of those days is a holiday, which means I only have to use five off days. Good deal.

• I also burn a day every spring on high school track PA announcing gigs. I'm announcing five meets this spring over six days in April and May. Some of those are weekdays, with meet start times all in the range of 4pm. That means I have to leave the office around 3pm to make it to the track and get myself prepared before the announcements and event calls begin. Total those early departures across the spring and it means I need to burn a personal day to ensure the company and I are square. Again, that's fine.

I already used one vacation day this year when Terry and I went to Florida in early February to visit Jared and Lyndsey. Add up that day, plus the track announcing day, plus five days for Brazil, plus the six days I take for Slippery Rock, and we're down to just six days to use throughout the rest of the year.

Here's where you have to have a strategy. Do I hold onto them just in case something happens? Like, when Chloe's baby is born, will it be during the week, and will I want to burn a day or two to spend with her and my grandchild at the hospital? Maybe.

Do I want to take off 5-6 days in late December so I don't have to work at all over Christmas and New Year's? Possibly.

Or, rather than using most of it at one time, do I instead enjoy a series of three- or four-day weekends in the summer and fall, as I wrote last August?

These are all legitimate questions, and while I've certainly given them due consideration, I've not yet reached any decisions.

I've said this before, but I think the planning and anticipation of vacations is as much (or more) fun than the vacations themselves. I can't wait to see how this all goes.

Sometimes I think I enjoy planning life more than I enjoy living it

When it comes to going to the gym, while I do genuinely like the act of lifting weights, what I really like is sitting down the week before and planning out which days I'll be working out and exactly which exercises I'll perform (with the attendant number of reps, sets, etc.)

In the same vein, Sunday afternoon is one of my favorite times because it's when I sit down and type my to-do list for the coming week into Microsoft OneNote.

And while I've never really had a vacation I didn't enjoy, to me nothing beats the fun and excitement of actually planning the vacation.

Do you see a pattern here?

I am by nature a planner. This is good thing to be in many respects, as it provides some degree of control – or at least the illusion of control – in an otherwise chaotic world.

But the drawbacks of being an inveterate planner are perhaps equally apparent. You don't always respond well when a plan (inevitably) goes awry. And you'll never be known as the most fun and spontaneous guy in the world.

There's also a tendency, at least in my case, to skip from one life plan to another in a futile attempt to discover the perfect way of living.

In my heart I know there is no such thing as "the perfect way of living," but my head insists it's out there somewhere and that, with each iteration of my life plan, I get that much closer to it.

To be clear, by "life plan" I mean a philosophy or approach to everything that consumes my time, both at home and at work. How should I do my job? How should I eat and exercise? When will I find time for spiritual nourishment? How much of my fall and winter nights should I devote to PA announcing gigs?

I try one life plan for a few months, then when I discover where it falls short, I switch to another. Sometimes these are small tweaks, while other times I make large-scale, wholesale changes.

All of which begs the question of why I can't just acknowledge that circumstances vary and I need to take things a day at a time, adapting to whatever comes my way without searching for a one-size-fits-all template.

In short, why don't I just, you know, live life?

As if often the case when I examine my own personality quirks, I don't have an answer to that question.

BUT...it's on tomorrow's to-do list to check some books out of the library that might explain why I am how I am.

The fundamental question when taking your vacation time: Long breaks or extended weekends?

I question the AI Blog Post Image Generator's choice of hat for this man sitting on the beach, but otherwise it's well done.

One of my favorite feelings in the world is getting near the end of the weekend and realizing, late on a Sunday afternoon, that I'm off work the next day and free to do whatever I like.

But its close cousin is the Friday afternoon "Hey, I'm on vacation all next week and won't be back in the office for the next 10 days!"

When it comes time to plan out my vacation for the year, I find both of these dynamics playing out in my head.

Do I take a few full weeks off and sprinkle in a few personal days here and there as needed?

Or do I take a series of four-day weekends throughout the course of the year?

The answer for me is usually "all of the above."

I'll take a week or more off when we're going somewhere, as we're doing right now for our trip to Paris. But I also like pinpointing a Friday and a Monday per month (preferably bracketing the same weekend) and taking those days off as well for no particular reason.

It's a good blend of planned/purposeful/destination-oriented breaks mixed with "hey, why not?" mini-vacations.

Your philosophy may differ.

Either way, as I've mentioned before, take those vacation days!

Don't be a hero: If you have vacation time, use it

Of all the things that confuse me about Americans (and I say this as an American), the most perplexing is probably the concept of unused vacation time.

I don't have all the numbers in front of me, but I'm willing to bet that nowhere else in the world do people leave 25% or more of their paid time off (PTO) on the table. That's about the average percentage of unused PTO in the U.S. each year, according to figures reported by Forbes.

I happen to really enjoy what I do for a living, but the idea of someone offering to pay you the same amount of money to go off and do something fun and relaxing as they do when you're at work, and you responding "No thanks, I'm good!" does not compute in my brain.

I use every last hour of PTO every year, without exception. It's silly not to.

Now, I realize some people are in job situations where they simply can't take time off, for whatever reason. Or at least they think they can't take time off without something bad happening at work.

If that describes you, please know that I love you. Truly I do. But understand, you're not indispensable. Life at the office/plant/hospital/store goes on without you.

Actually, that's one reason some people give for not taking their vacation time. They're afraid that if they leave for a week or two and everything goes well, their boss will think they're not important to the success of the organization.

I am a boss, and I have worked for many bosses. I can say with confidence that no boss I've ever encountered would think that way.

Admittedly, this all assumes you have paid time off available to you in the first place. The folks at Forbes say 28 million Americans don't get any PTO at all, making the U.S. "the only advanced economy in the world that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation and paid holidays."

This is not a point of pride, my fellow Yankees.

Of course, there are also those who have started their own businesses and simply don't have the financial wiggle room to take off for the beach and go unpaid for any length of time. That I get.

To you hearty entrepreneurs I say, "Good luck and Godspeed."

But as for everyone else, we need to understand that taking vacation time is good for us and it's good for our employers. We can't be "on" 24/7/365, nor can anyone reasonably expect us to be. Human beings are more productive and more engaged when they're intentional about scheduling downtime to rest and recharge.

I'm not the best relaxer in the world, but even I realize the truth of this.

Take those PTO hours, folks, please. For your own sake.

Working through the dead zone between Christmas and New Year's

 

Years ago when I would plan my vacation days for the year, the first thing I would block out was the week between Christmas Day and New Year's Day. This was mostly to take advantage of the kids being home on holiday break so we could do things together and I could assemble heir toys while cleaning up the mess we had made in the living room opening presents.

Even now, with four older kids having moved out, I still like to take that week off to relax and recharge before returning to work in the midst of the cold and gray of January in Northeast Ohio.

This year, however, I've been working this week thanks to having used up all of my vacation days early.

There were a few reasons for this, the biggest of which was the week I took in March to accompany the Wickliffe Swing Band on its once-every-four-years trip to Disney World.

I wouldn't normally take a week off in March, and truth be told, I wasn't thrilled about burning a week of vacation that included a combined 40+ hours on a bus.

In retrospect, though, I'm glad I did it. It was a fun adventure, and it felt like the least I could do to give back to an organization that has given me so much over the years.

But those were the days I would normally reserve until the end of the year. Throw in the week I took in late June/early July for our family beach vacation, plus another summer week for our annual church retreat, plus the standard assortment of one-off personal days here and there for various reasons, and I found myself essentially out of PTO by September.

I'm whining about a first-world problem, of course, but it makes for an 8- to 9-month stretch between weeks off. That's a long grind, though one that's made easier this week by the fact that (a) I can work from home, and (b) most of my co-workers are on vacation right now, so it's very quiet and I'm getting a lot done.

Still, I do miss the slower, carefree days that normally make up late December for me. I can't do quite as much non-work stuff as I would like this week, though all in all I really shouldn't complain.

I will complain, of course, but I really shouldn't.

I'm trying to remember how we planned vacations in the pre-Internet age

As I mentioned a few days ago, my family and I recently took a fun and relaxing vacation to Bethany Beach, Delaware. I booked our rental house through the VRBO app. We navigated the 9-hour drive using Waze. And of course we looked up information about local attractions online.

At no time during the planning or execution of this vacation did I speak directly with anyone. It was all facilitated by the little electronic miracles known as smartphones.

So now I'm wondering, how did we do all of this before, say, 1996? How did we plan vacations without the Internet? I simply cannot remember.

Here's a good example: At the end of my freshman, sophomore and junior years of college, I took trips to the beautiful city of Montreal. Each time I did this, I brought a friend (Kevin in 1989, Nate in 1990) or family member (nephew Mark in 1991) and we drove the 10+ hours from Wickliffe to Southern Quebec.

As I look back on it, I wonder:

• How did I make hotel reservations? That is, how did I know my hotel options, and where did I find the correct phone numbers to call? I couldn't just Google that information back then.
• How did I purchase (in advance) tickets for the two Montreal Expos baseball games we attended? Did I send them a letter or something? How did I know how much the tickets would be? Where did this information come from?
• How did I know the correct driving route to cover the 560 miles from my house to Downtown Montreal?

I can't remember how most of this was done, but I do know the answer to that last question.

The two options when it came to long drives back then were having a road atlas in the car with you and/or ordering a AAA TripTik. I always had the atlas handy, and at least once I remember getting the TripTik, which was a paper printout of very thorough driving directions provided by the helpful folks at the American Automobile Association.

Many of us back then had the special ability to decipher an absurdly detailed road atlas map while safely driving a car at 60MPH and trying to figure out exactly where we were and where we were going.

But what of the first two points? It's not like they listed Montreal phone numbers in the Cleveland Yellow Pages. How did I figure out who to call and what their numbers were?

I think the two answers were (a) library books, and (b) directory assistance.

Back when libraries mainly loaned out actual books, there was an array of destination-specific travel guides you could borrow when planning a trip. If these guides had been published in the previous 5-10 years, the phone numbers in them were probably going to be accurate. So those certainly helped.

There was also directory assistance. As long as you knew the area code of the place you wanted to go (in this case 514 for Montreal), you could dial <AREA CODE>-555-1212 and ask the nice person on the other end of the line for whatever phone number you needed.

There was a charge for this, of course, but it worked.

So I guess that's how I mapped out these trips to Montreal: Books, long-distance directory assistance, and large bound driving maps?

All I know is we somehow found our way there and back, and those vacations remain some of my most memorable.

But I'll be honest: I would much rather go the smartphone route. Fewer fines for overdue library books and no separate charges for each Google search. Technology has spoiled us far more than we probably realize.

The worst part about a dream vacation? Not being on vacation anymore

One year ago today, my family and I boarded a plane and took off for a week in sunny Orlando, Florida, during which we threw large wads of cash at various reprepsentatives of The Walt Disney Company, in exchange for which they provided us with highly fun and memorable experiences.

It was a good trade.

We had such a nice time on that vacation. It was great for the seven of us to spend a week together, though having only two hotel rooms (in the name of cost savings) was at times a bit challenging.

Then we came home to Cleveland and there was snow on the ground. It was awful. And it was cold. Also awful.

And now that we've reached the one-year anniversary of that vacation, my thoughts aren't, "What a great memory!" They're more along the lines of, "I want to be in Florida again. Right now. My existence is horrible."

Any time you travel, you have fun while you're actually there. But after you get back, all you have are (with apologies to Jim Croce) photographs and memories. Both are nice. But neither matches the experience of actually being there.

Which is a terrible attitude to take toward anything, I realize. There you have it, though.

If only I could escape your judgment and condemnation by escaping to Disney World...

Vacation planning as rocket science

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Before we start, just a quick shoutout to the Wickliffe High School Class of 2012 and in particular class member Scott Britton, whom I had the privilege of seeing yesterday at Senior Awards Night. Scott is going to Cleveland State University in the fall and is a huge friend of the blog. Oh, and Elissa came away with an additional few thousand dollars in scholarships, which is a very, very good thing. Anyway, let's get on with it...)

We're trying to plan a family "mini-vacation" for the end of June. And by "mini-vacation," I'm talking about a quick three-day getaway before all heck breaks loose and everyone goes their separate ways in a myriad of school and sports activities.

On the surface, this doesn't sound like an overly difficult thing to do. Just pick a destination, make a few reservations, hop in the minivan, and there you go.

But the reality is much more complicated than you might think. As you veteran family vacation planners know, putting together even a 72-hour junket is only slightly less complex than building a scale model of the space shuttle.

Here are just a few of the issues we're facing:

• Five kids ranging in age from 6 to 18. As you would imagine, each one has a unique vision of what constitutes "fun" and "exciting."
• The fact that there are seven of us and a relatively tight budget. This limits our choice of hotels, meals, etc.
• Finding some place to go that isn't too far away so that we don't spend half of our three-day vacation driving on an interstate.

Fortunately, I have Terry on my side here. Terry is undaunted in the face of these sorts of challenges. And I haven't even mentioned the fact that she's trying to plan a graduation party for Elissa just a day or two before our little getaway.

It's going to be a busy month for my poor wife.

First, of course, we need to pick a place to go. Possibilities include Washington DC, someplace in Southern Michigan (we haven't been very specific there), yet another Tennant Family Pennsylvania trip, and even the wonderful city of Akron.

Akron may seem like a surprise choice, given that it's only about 45 minutes from our house. But that's the genius of it, you see. It's not a long drive, there are actually some fun things to do, and best of all from Terry's point of view, she doesn't have to cook. Depending on what kind of itinerary we can put together, I wouldn't mind an Akron trip at all.

We've been wanting to take a Michigan trip for awhile, since most of our family vacations have been to Pennsylvania. I feel like we've exhausted the fair Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as a vacation spot, having skipped only Pittsburgh and the parts of the state even the locals don't really like. But I'm sure we've missed something worthwhile there.

As for Washington, I realize we're stretching our self-imposed limits. It's a minimum 6-hour drive, and it's not exactly the most cost-effective destination in the world. But the kids haven't been there and I think they would enjoy it, or at least enjoy it as much as a three- or possibly four-day trip will allow.

Anyway, once we pick a place to visit, we also need to select a hotel. Given our numbers, we prefer those extended-stay places like Residence Inn or Staybridge Suites. Not only do you get multiple bedrooms and a living room, there's also a kitchen where we can prepare meals on the cheap and literally save hundreds of dollars.

Fortunately, those types of places are everywhere and usually aren't too difficult to find. They also generally have free breakfasts that are filling and fast, two qualities we like in a vacation meal.

Once we actually hit the road, wherever we're going, I turn into Stereotypical Vacation Dad. My job, as minivan pilot, is to get us to our destination as quickly as possible. No unnecessary stops. Just go, go, GO, GO, GO! "What do you mean you have to pee? You just peed eight hours ago! Just hold it for another 100 miles."

I am, by my own admission, relentless. Vacations for me are about speed and survival. I should probably try to include "fun" in there somewhere, too.

In any event, I'll have to let you know once we pick a vacation spot, just in case you guys have any tips/hints/suggestions on things to do, places to visit, etc. People are never shy about offering up this sort of advice, which is fine with me. It saves me the trouble of going to the library and checking out the Fodor's guide to whichever city we're visiting.

I'll also have to let you know whether Terry actually survives this whole process. It will truly be a miracle if she does.