How to Travel With Kids When You Both Work Full-Time
If you are waiting for the magical time when both parents have unlimited PTO, the kids have no activities, nobody gets sick, and your bank account suddenly has an extra $10,000 sitting around, I have some bad news.
That time probably isn't coming. And yet, we travel. We have full-time jobs. We have kids. We have school schedules, sports, activities, work deadlines, laundry that apparently reproduces overnight, and approximately 47 things happening at any given moment.
So how do you actually travel with kids when you both work full-time?
You stop waiting for the perfect time. Instead, you figure out how to make travel fit into the life you already have. Because family travel doesn't have to mean taking three months off work and homeschooling from a beach in Bali.
Sometimes it means taking a Friday off.
Sometimes it means using a school break strategically.
Sometimes it means leaving Thursday night and coming home Sunday.
And sometimes it means realizing that a four-day trip can create memories your kids will talk about for years.
You Don't Need More Vacation Time. You Need to Use It Differently.
One of the biggest mistakes working parents make is thinking: "We don't have enough PTO to travel."
Maybe you don't have enough PTO for a three-week European vacation every year. But you might have enough for several long weekends, a week during spring break, and one bigger trip. The trick is to stop thinking about vacation as one giant event. Instead, look at your entire year.
Try the "Travel Year" Method
At the beginning of the year, sit down with:
Your work calendars
Your partner's work calendar
Your kids' school calendar
School holidays
Sports and activity schedules
Important family events
Your PTO balances
Then look for the pockets. Maybe you have a three-day weekend in January. A school holiday in February. Spring break in March or April. A summer week when things are slower. Thanksgiving. Winter break.
And suddenly that "we never have time to travel" situation looks a little different.
You don't need every trip to be a week long. A three-night trip is still a trip.
Put Travel on the Calendar First
Here's a working-parent travel secret: If you don't schedule the trip, life will schedule something else.
A birthday party will always come up. Another work project. Another soccer tournament. Another appointment. Another reason to wait. So once you know your family's major commitments, start putting trips on the calendar even if you don't know exactly where you're going yet.
Put: FAMILY TRIP on the calendar. That gives you something to plan around instead of trying to squeeze travel into whatever random days happen to be left. And yes, I know this sounds ridiculously obvious. But sometimes the most obvious things are the things we aren't doing.
Use Your PTO Like a Travel Strategist
If you have limited PTO, don't automatically use it Monday through Friday. Look at holidays and weekends.
For example: Take Friday off before a three-day weekend. Now you have four days. Take Monday and Tuesday off around a holiday. Now you've created another four-day trip. You can also consider taking an evening flight after work. Yes, your children may be feral by the time you reach the airport. But you'll wake up at your destination.
And personally, I would rather deal with one questionable airport dinner than spend an entire vacation day sitting at home because I didn't want to travel after work. Sometimes you have to decide which version of tired you're willing to be.
Stop Trying to Make Every Vacation Seven Days
This one took me a while to embrace. We tend to think a "real vacation" needs to be at least a week. It doesn't.
A two-night getaway can be amazing.
A three-night city trip can be amazing.
A long weekend at a nearby resort can be amazing.
A road trip within driving distance can be amazing.
You don't need to fly across the country every time you want to make memories. In fact, shorter trips can be much easier for working families because you don't need to rearrange your entire life to make them happen.
Think in Three Categories:
Mini trips: 1 to 3 nights
Big trips: 4 to 7 nights
Bucket-list trips: 7+ nights
You don't need five bucket-list trips every year. You might have one big family adventure and then fill the rest of the year with shorter trips. That is still traveling.
Work Backward From Your Kids' School Calendar
If your kids are school-aged, the school calendar is basically your family travel calendar. And yes, school breaks are often more expensive. But that doesn't mean every school break has to involve airfare and a five-night hotel stay.
Use some breaks for:
Local getaways
Road trips
National parks
Theme parks
Visiting family
Beach weekends
Nearby cities
Hotel stays with pools
Camping or glamping
"We just need to get out of the house" trips
Then save your bigger travel budget for the trips that really matter to your family.
And if you are comfortable having your kids miss a day or two of school for travel, that's a personal decision you'll need to make based on your school, your children, and your family's circumstances. There isn't a universal answer.
Don't Overpack Your Itinerary
This is where working parents can really get themselves into trouble. You finally get time off. You spend months planning. You arrive. And suddenly you're trying to visit 14 attractions, eat at six restaurants, see three neighborhoods, take 400 photos, and make sure everyone is having the "best vacation ever."
Meanwhile, your kids are crying because you won't let them swim in the hotel pool.
Been there. Sometimes the best family travel days are the least ambitious ones.
Pick one or two must-do activities per day.
Leave room for:
Pool time
Ice cream
Hotel naps
Random playgrounds
Sleeping in
Sitting on a beach
Doing absolutely nothing
Your kids don't know that you spent six months planning the itinerary. They just know whether they had fun.
Divide the Travel Planning
If one person is responsible for:
Researching flights
Booking hotels
Finding restaurants
Planning activities
Packing everyone
Managing passports
Checking weather
Arranging transportation
Creating the itinerary
Keeping track of reservations
...that person is going to need a vacation from the vacation. Travel planning should not automatically become another item on Mom's never-ending to-do list. Divide the jobs. Maybe one person handles flights and hotels. The other handles activities and restaurants.
Kids can help too!
Give them a choice between two activities.
Let them pick a restaurant.
Have them help pack their own entertainment bag.
Travel becomes much more fun when everyone feels like they're part of it.
Take the iPad
I'm just going to say it.
Take the iPad.
Take the headphones.
Download the movies.
Bring the snacks.
I am not interested in winning a parenting award at 35,000 feet. Sometimes screens are entertainment. Sometimes they are survival. Sometimes you have been traveling for eight hours, and your child has watched Frozen three times, and everyone is still alive. That's called a successful travel day.
You can have boundaries around screen time at home and still use technology strategically while traveling.
Choose Convenience Sometimes
Working parents don't always need to choose the absolute cheapest option. Sometimes spending a little more saves you hours of stress.
That could mean:
Staying closer to the attractions
Booking a direct flight
Choosing a hotel with breakfast
Staying somewhere with a kitchen
Paying for airport parking instead of taking multiple rideshares
Booking a shuttle
Choosing a hotel with a pool
Staying somewhere walkable
Your vacation budget isn't just paying for the room. Sometimes you're paying for time and sanity. And those are both valuable.
Don't Try to Do Everything
This is probably my biggest family travel rule. You don't need to see everything.
Repeat after me. You don't need to do everything. You don't need to eat at every restaurant TikTok told you about. You don't need to hit every attraction.
And your kids don't need to have a perfectly curated childhood. They need experiences. They need time together. They need stories. They need to see you step away from your laptop and actually be there.
That is the point.
Travel During the "Off" Seasons When You Can
If your work and school schedules allow it, look for shoulder-season opportunities.
Traveling just outside peak periods can sometimes mean:
Lower hotel rates
Better availability
Smaller crowds
More flexibility
Better flight options
Obviously, this isn't always possible when you're tied to school calendars. But even shifting a trip by a few days can sometimes make a difference. Do your research before assuming the only option is the most expensive week of the year.
Use Weekends to Your Advantage
You don't always need PTO for a trip. A Friday night to Sunday night getaway gives you two full days without taking a single vacation day. And if you can add Friday or Monday? Even better.
Think about destinations within a few hours of home. You may be surprised by how much you can see without getting on a plane. Sometimes the best family travel memories are closer than you think.
Build a Family Travel Fund
Travel gets a lot easier when you're not constantly asking: "Where is this money going to come from?"
Create a dedicated travel fund. Even a small automatic transfer every payday adds up.
You can also create separate categories for:
Flights
Hotels
Food
Activities
Transportation
Travel insurance
Souvenirs
And here's another thing I highly recommend: Budget for the fun stuff. Your kids are going to want ice cream. They are going to want souvenirs. They are going to want the ridiculously overpriced stuffed animal. You might as well plan for it.
Use Points and Travel Rewards Strategically
If you use travel rewards, don't just collect points because they look pretty sitting in your account. Have a goal.
Maybe you're saving for:
Flights
A hotel
A rental car
An upgraded room
A special experience
Just make sure you're paying off your cards and not spending money you wouldn't otherwise spend simply to earn points. The goal is to make travel more affordable, not turn your vacation into a financial hangover.
Give Yourself Permission to Travel Imperfectly
This might be the most important tip of all.
Your kids will have meltdowns.
Someone will forget their shoes.
Someone will get carsick.
Someone will complain about being hungry five minutes after eating.
You will probably forget something.
The flight may be delayed.
The hotel room may not look exactly like the pictures.
Someone will say: "I'm bored." While standing in front of an actual waterfall.
It's fine. Family travel isn't supposed to be perfect. It's supposed to be yours. The goal isn't to create a vacation that looks amazing on Instagram. The goal is to create a childhood your kids remember.
You Can Work Full-Time and Still Travel With Your Kids
You don't need to quit your job. You don't need unlimited PTO. You don't need to wait until the kids are older. And you definitely don't need to wait until life is less busy. Because let's be honest. When exactly is that supposed to happen?
Instead, figure out what works for your family. Maybe that's one big trip a year. Maybe it's four long weekends. Maybe it's a combination of both. Maybe it's a road trip because airfare for four people made you briefly consider selling a kidney.
Whatever it looks like, make travel work for your actual life. Because someday, the kids won't be asking to come with you. And when that day comes, I don't think we're going to wish we'd spent more weekends answering emails.
We're going to remember the airport chaos. The terrible hotel breakfast. The road-trip singalongs. The beach days. The meltdowns. The "are we there yet?" The random ice cream stops. And all the moments when we said: "Life is busy, but we're going anyway."
That's the kind of family travel I'm here for.
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