Five family-friendly travel tips for your next beach vacation

Travel tips and advice to help you make the most of your next family trip

Advice to help you enjoy your beach vacation

A friend is leaving for Cuba on a trip with her family. She asked me for any advice I have for her. Our daughters are the same age, six and four, and they are headed to a beach resort just like we did. I thought I would share some ideas here for you, in case you have some mid-winter/March break travel plans coming up!

Enjoy your family vacation with some travel advice for your next trip. #beachvacation #traveltips #familytravel

Here are 5 family-friendly pieces of advice I gleaned from our recent trip to Mexico.

1. People had beach towel clamps to hold their towels on to the backs of their loungers. I never would have thought of this, but it would come in very handy. I honestly didn’t know towel clamps were a thing! But I did notice my pool towel often slipping off the back of my chair. The breeze on the beach would slip the towel off the chair too. I know, it’s a hard-knock life. I feel like this is the kind of item you may luck out on finding at a Dollar Store, but they have lots of them on Amazon too.

2. Bring your insulated thermos to keep your coffee hot and drinks cold. I didn’t end up using mine for drinks (margaritas/daiquiris/pinacoladas/beer/) because:

A) The resort we stayed at, Catalonia Playa Maroma, was super environmentally-friendly. This made me very happy. I didn’t even notice the garbage bins on the beach for a few days and realized I had no need for one! (Cue: The top ten ways we’re fighting climate change at our house) They had reusable cups, and not a plastic straw in sight! So we just drank out of those cups. *I’m going to call myself out here and acknowledge that we went through a ton of plastic water bottles. We couldn’t drink the tap water and I knew this would be the case, but it made me cringe to line up all those empty, plastic water bottles we went through.

and

B) Let’s be real, the cold drinks were consumed long before I had to worry about keeping them cold! I did use my insulated thermos for coffee, both hot and iced. The coffee cups at the resort were small. I’d need to sit and have three cups to equal my morning intake at home! I also had dreams of sipping coffee by the pool and guess what, my dreams came true. The resort had a full proper coffee shop and every morning I got a frappu-coco to go! I don’t have a yeti tumbler yet, but my Cath Kidston bamboo travel cup sure is pretty!

*We also brought a cup with a lid for each kid to avoid spills and make it easy to bring drinks back to our room.

i quickly learned the coffee cups were much too small and started using my own thermos to fuel up by the pool on our family vacation. #poollatte #morningcoffee #familytraveltips

3. I completely blanked on our first morning and did not leave a tip for the cleaner. The second morning I left $5USD and suddenly we went from 2 bottles of water to about 10 and extra beer in the fridge. Take care of others and they will take care of you. Bring small bills for waitstaff, bartenders, drivers, etc. It also doesn’t hurt to get to know the staff who are working hard to make sure your vacation is a great one. At the very least say thank you and be polite. We witnessed guests being really rude to staff and it had us shaking our heads. Of course Anna made friends with Ana working at the pool bar and they had some great chats!

4. Being in a sun, surf, and sand frame of mind before we left I didn’t think to pack much in the way of warmer clothing. I packed summer pjs, but the room was actually really cold from the AC, as were some of the restaurants. It also cooled down a bit after dark, being only January. I had a scarf and one cardigan from the travel day down. By the end of the week they were feeling pretty gritty, plus I had to keep sharing them with the girls! Be sure to bring a few long-sleeved shirts or sweaters and maybe a scarf, even when you are headed to a hot and tropical destination.

Girl stole my scarf! #familytravel #traveltips #Mexico

5. Bring so much sunscreen. I brought a bottle for each of us and thought it might be overkill. We used almost all of it. You don’t want to get caught without any left because then you will have to spend a fortune in the gift shop for more. Also bring your own sand toys, another expensive purchase from the gift shop. I know the entire resort is a breeding ground for germs but last time we went south, a well-meaning family left there sand toys for us and to this day I swear that’s where we encountered hand foot mouth (more on that saga another day!) A couple of buckets and shovels will go a long way in keeping kids busy on the beach.

brng your own sand toys to aoivd an expensive purchase from the gift shop #beachvacation #tipsfortravelling#familytravel #sandtoys

Bonus: I asked the girls for their best piece of vacation advice.

Anna, age 6, says ask for extra whipped cream on your chocolate crepes.

more chocolate please and other advice to help you enjoy your famil vacation #morechocolate #familyvacation #traveltips

Rosie, age 4, says bring a sweater because in some spots it’s cold. See? I told you!

(Anna also adds to make yourself feel at home, like putting your stuffies where they usually go, maybe on the bed, which is too adorable not to share.)