What type of vacation person/family are you? Do you go to the same place every year? Do you only go to visit family for vacation? Do you take full length vacations or only weekend trips? Do you like to go to a new place each vacation? Are your vacations centered around work or church events? Do you prefer to sleep and rest, or do you prefer to explore? Do your family vacations revolve around sporting events or tournaments?
Yosemite 2019
Growing up, my family did not take many vacations. We did, however, travel to “south Texas” to see family a couple of times a year. I remember a few trips to cities for church pastor conventions, and I remember one very quick trip to Arkansas to see the Passion Play. Darren’s family usually traveled to California with a family caravan to see extended family. They also took trips to other countries and were able to see some sites here in the United States as well.
Every family sees vacations differently, and that’s okay. Tight budgets and time constraint are real! The question I have for you is, “Are you intentional with your vacation time?”
A few years ago, Darren felt a strong nudge about our family taking regular family vacations. We realized that we had only a few years left with our kids before they left for college (It happened a lot sooner that we realized!), and we wanted to be intentional about vacations. We had always taken a couple of days here and there to visit family or visit sites around where we lived, but we had never taken a full week or more away from home and work.
Giant Sequoias in Yosemite National Park
Over the years since that decision, we’ve made trips to some amazing places in the United States – Acadia National Park in Maine, a beach in Florida, Walt Disney World, The Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, the beach in South Carolina, the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, the Pacific Northwest, Southern California and Disney Land, and most recently San Francisco and Yosemite National Park in California. We were also able to take a family trip in 2016 to Kenya with Mercy House Global, which was truly life-changing. We don’t take these trips for granted and realize that not everyone enjoys these types of trips (honestly – a lot of times not everyone in our family enjoys them either).
We’re intentional about our vacations because we value our time together as a family, and we enjoy seeing new places with each other. We choose to invest in these trips, realizing we will cut back in other areas in order to provide these times and experiences. Now that our oldest two are in college, we’ve talked about how our vacations may start to look differently. We will have to get creative so that we can still have quality time together, but we’re committed to doing so. Vacations vary in location, type, length, and time of year; but being intentional about being together with your family is what is important.
Got any vacation plans for spring break? Summer? We want to hear!
See more amazing photos by Darren from last year’s trip to California here.