Family Vacation Planning Tips for Co-parents, Stepparents, and Blended Families

By Teresa Harlow

Family vacations play a key role in building strong family bonds. Vacations give family members an opportunity to relax, reconnect, and set aside distractions so they can enjoy being together. Whether it’s camping, going to the beach, visiting an amusement park, or dedicating a week to a staycation where you all just spend great quality time together, children look to family vacations as a time when the parents are free of work distractions and more focused on them.

While teenagers may complain about being away from friends, scowl at activities they don’t think they’ll enjoy, and bury themselves in their phones, don’t be fooled by their aloof demeanor. These are the times they will remember for the rest of their lives. And that’s to say they will remember them when they happen and when they didn’t happen.

When you are separated, divorced, or remarried, planning a family vacation can turn into a monumental effort. Let’s just say that if real estate is all about location, location, location, then co-parent vacation planning is all about schedules, schedules, schedules. 

There are the schedules of both parents to consider along with the kids sports and other social activities to work around. If you are remarried or recoupled, you must consider the schedules of stepparents, stepchildren, and the ex-spouses’. Of course, let’s not forget the legally binding parenting schedules laid out in your parenting plan.

Now if you vacation with extended family, friends, or groups, it continues to add to the complexity of arriving at acceptable dates. For the parents and older children who work, those schedules must be considered. Plus school calendars and any other classes anyone amongst this broad group is attending.

And we haven’t even thought about the destination, climate, and weather considerations, nor our travel arrangements to get where we want to go. When my current husband and I planned our annual family vacation with our blended brood of children, it’s a wonder we ever found any dates that worked. And to be honest, some years we didn’t.

Still, when you can make it happen, the family vacation is worth the effort as it provides both you and your children precious time together and memories that will last a lifetime.

So how do you pull it off?

The three keys to successful co-parent vacation planning are advanced planning, compromise, and flexibility.

1. Plan Family Vacations with Your Co-parent and Others Well in Advance

At least six months ahead of your anticipated vacation time, consult your parenting plan schedule and work to plan your family vacation within those constraints. While you’re at it, look to see what vacation allowances your child’s other parent has been granted and be sure to honor that agreement. After all, that’s what you’d expect of them.

Also six months in advance, talk to your co-parent. Ask their plans. Share your plans. Confirm that they will be sticking to the agreed schedule and if not or if you’re not, discuss deviations from the agreement.

Be careful not to dictate everything to your co-parent. For example, making proclamations such as “You need to take Joey during the month of July because that is the only month you get”, versus a more diplomatic approach like, “The parenting plan gives you the month of July to use for planning a family vacation with Joey. Is that your understanding and what you’re planning on?” Dictating to another adult, no matter who it is, breeds animosity.

At least get as far as blocking time out on everyone’s calendars to allow each parent to take uninterrupted time with the kids.

2. Compromise on the parenting and Vacation schedules when It Makes Sense

Don’t expect to get your way every time there are conflicting vacation plans. Be open to adjusting. But expect to share the burden of compromise and let your co-parent know this. Example: “I will adjust our schedule this year if next year, you’ll do the same. Does that work?”

Just because a parenting plan doesn’t give you or your co-parent explicit time during a particular month to enjoy a family vacation doesn’t mean it can’t happen. Remember all those other schedules to be considered. Remember, your co-parent may have just as many people or more to work around.

More important that sticking strictly to a predesignated calendar is making sure everyone has an opportunity to work something into the schedule.

On the other hand, if you’ve tried hard to nail down your co-parent’s plans and they fail to do so, that doesn’t mean you must accommodate a last-minute spontaneous vacation plan on their part if it will disrupt a plan you’ve worked hard to create with others in your orbit.

3. Allow for Flexibility When Planning Your Family Vacations

If you run up against conflicts with any of the one hundred people you are coordinating calendars with, don’t throw in the towel on your plan or adamantly shut down your co-parent’s desires straight out of the gate. There are workarounds.

Get creative with dates, travel arrangements, and even locations. Maybe two consecutive weeks uninterrupted is not feasible for both parents when you consider your child’s schedule. Maybe the two weeks needs to be divided up into two or more timeframes. If you’re flying somewhere, consider looking at other flight arrangements that may be more expensive but shorten layovers that will avoid overlap between parenting times. Or you may need to look at delaying the start of vacation or ending it early. Taking five or seven days together as a family versus ten is better than none, particularly if it means your child will have time available to join the other parent for at least some uninterrupted time.

If you are planning an international trip, plan even further in advance and don’t use the fact you’ve chosen a far-flung location to justify waving off your commitments to your co-parent. Plan accordingly.

I know I am suggesting that you may need to sacrifice your desires. But that is what parenting is about for all parents, isn’t it?

Don’t pass the buck off on family or friends. You and your co-parent are the ones responsible for working out your parenting schedule. Don’t let others dictate your co-parent vacation schedule just because a particular family member has always been the one to book the vacation rental for the group.

For the times you can get everything to align, toast yourself for a job well done. When it doesn’t work out that way, make keeping your co-parenting commitments your top priority. By doing this, you’re more likely to get the same consideration from your co-parent. But when you place commitments to other family above that of a co-parent, don’t be surprised when they do the same with you.

At the same time, work to consider everyone affected by your plan. Beyond your immediate household including your co-parent, stepparents, stepchildren, etc. Especially stepchildren! Put in the effort to make sure they are included if at all possible. Otherwise, you’ll provoke resentment and make them feel like outsiders.

Expect your co-parent to take your children on a vacation each year. Even if it’s just something close by or a staycation. The point is that while your co-parent may not be required to take the children on a family vacation, you should accommodate it, provided reasonable plans have been made and communicated.

Don’t block the opportunity for your co-parent to enjoy a family vacation with your kids by scheduling conflicting activities like summer camps, summer jobs you have arranged for them, etc. You wouldn’t want them to do that to you. And while you may try to pass off poor planning as an accident or maybe it genuinely wasn’t on purpose when it happened that one time, everyone can see through it if it becomes a pattern of behavior. I know I did.

Remember what you really want. If your co-parent has a unique vacation opportunity that you know your kids will enjoy and it just happens to fall during the week that you traditionally have them, decide if you really want your kids to miss out on special once-in-a-lifetime moments. Get creative and propose alternative arrangements everyone can live with.

Additionally, at the risk of contradicting myself, if your co-parent’s company is paying to fly the entire family to Disney for them to accompany your co-parent on a business trip, help him or her make that happen even if it is a last-minute thing. That doesn’t mean skuttling your plans. But you should be reasonable where you can be. On the other hand, if you are the recipient of such a thing, ask your co-parent for flexibility but don’t expect them to rearrange their entire life to make it happen for you. It’s okay to ask them to be reasonable, not to be your martyr.

Do you have other suggestions that you’ve seen work out well or another topic you’d like to see covered? Share your thoughts in the comments.

For more tips, check out other articles in NPO Shared Parenting News.

Teresa Harlow is the author of the bestselling book Combative to Collaborative: The Co-parenting Code, available on Amazon in paperback, ebook, or audio book.