Sometimes you can’t afford to get away. Sometimes you don’t really want to. Inflation is very real – but that doesn’t mean we can’t get creative.

We are fortunate to live in a beautiful area, and there’s a very small window every year where I feel the urge to leave and explore another place. That’s March through May. Like… who wants to leave those colors?!

And in case you didn’t know, flying with five people is totally cost prohibitive in the current economy. Don’t even get me started about hotels because the world is just not set up for families of five (or more). That’s a conversation for another day.

My personal feelings aside, my husband is entitled to a few weeks of paid vacation every year. I’m not going to let the costs of flights prevent us from using them wisely! In the past, we would always settle for a quiet week at home. Inevitably, we’d get to the end of the week and think “what did we even do with ourselves?” The answer was usually spiraling into a show hole of very trashy TV. That was not a proper staycation, and I’m happy to report that season of life is very far in our rear-view mirror.

But planning a staycation for a multi-generational family is anything from easy. Especially when the only thing they communicate is what they don’t want to do. Seriously – sometimes I wonder if I’m dealing with a herd of hormonal teens. (I’m not, in case you’re wondering) This year, I think I broke the code. Today, I’m here to share our secrets to creating an absolutely epic staycation for everyone in your family.

Let’s do this!

First up, get a notebook.

Grab a piece of paper and write the names of each person who will be participating in the staycation. You could do this in your phone, but for the sake of being old fashioned and living a screen-less life, grab the paper. If there is a screen-free road, take it.

I like to keep my thoughts organized on the page, so each person received their own “box.” A bubble graph would also work here, but I find those to be a nightmare in later planning stages. Make sure you leave 5-7 lines per person in your boxes. It’s good to come to your family meeting prepared.

Second, have a family meeting.

The next thing you’ll need to do is hold a family meeting. Maybe this is via Skype, or over a family dinner. It doesn’t matter, but I’m a big of face-to-face conversations, so make that your gold standard. For this specific situation, I like a group-brainstorm situation. Yes, it’s going to get a chaotic, that’s part of the adventure. I’m not big on formal family meetings, so I just whip out my handy-dandy-notebook when everyone is shoveling food into their face and ask each person to finish this sentence:

“My vacation wouldn’t be complete unless I went / saw / ate _____________.”

Then I record the answers. Yes, it’s really that simple. There’s no limit on the number of answers they can give – this is just the brainstorm phase.

PRO TIP: If you have really little kids, you might want to take a minute and adjust their expectations. Explain that we are just coming up with ideas for now, and we are not *for sure* going to be doing all these very fun things. This often does the trick in our house for managing potential meltdowns.

Make sure you take a picture and send it to everyone before you wrap up the “meeting.” This way, you can be sure there are multiple copies, and you do not have to repeat this exercise in the event chocolate milk is spilled or your husband purges your photos. <insert exasperated face>

Third: organize the responses in a way that makes sense for your crew (and the answers).

The answers received from my crew mostly had to do with food and activities. Keeping things in two separate pools allows me to mix and match the activities with the food that makes sense in step four. If multiple people selected the same activity, you don’t need it clogging up your airwaves.

Another benefit to this system is that if you have things that are near each other, you can match them up in step four. You know your area and family best, so there’s no right or wrong way to organize the answers.

Last, mixing and matching allows more people to have a say in each individual day. For example, Tommy may want ice cream, and Susie may want a day at the park. Maybe there’s an creepy awesome ice cream truck that visits a particular park on Tuesdays. Susie and Tommy can both have something they wanted on the same day, and then they can feel like their desires are being considered which means you won’t have continuous rolling meltdowns throughout your staycation.

Fourth: make a loose itinerary

Okay, so now you have your activities and your food. Sketch out what you can do on each day and try to piece it together so everyone can have their “Plan A” staycation. Fill in your “absolute musts” and things with hard time commitments first. Maybe there’s a play you want to see, and it only shows on Thursday at 7PM. Anything requiring tickets should be the first to go on your itinerary. Organize this however makes sense for your brain – even if it means using Excel when I just told you not to.

You want to leave enough room for flexibility yet have some outline of how the days / week will go. Nothing is worse than being on staycation and having to run to the grocery store six times on Sunday because you forgot something to make dinner. Think about how you (the organizer) would also like to spend your time. For me, I don’t want to spend all day hiking and then come home and tackle a lasagna and focaccia bread for seven people. Similarly, I don’t want to spend the day at the beach, and then go for dinner at a restaurant. Herding squirrels twice in a day is not my idea of a good time.

Five – vote (if necessary).

You may have a very large family, or a short amount of PTO (or both). You may also have conflicting entertainment options, or financial restrictions. In this case, it’s good to hold a vote. Depending on your time and financial constraints, you may have to ask each person to pick a certain number of activities.

Recently, we held a vote when discussing our holiday plans. Each person received a slip of paper with the options on it. Then they were called to the voting booth (aka bathroom) and they were allowed to select two choices. The votes were then tallied to give us our final selection of activities for the upcoming holidays. The kids had a blast with it, and there was no fighting because they all felt like it was decided in a fair way. Crazy how democracy works.

Now it’s time to do it!

Now you know. Take these five simple steps, use it with your family and you’ll have the staycation of your dreams in no time. No more show holes, wasted time or bored bickering. With a rough outline of your days, you can kick back and enjoy the ride. I’m enjoying the puns that come with this blog name a bit too much. You get the point. Now go for it!