Best Single Parent Family Vacations EVER
Summer’s in full swing. Friends and family are taking trips, my kids are on vacation with their mom, making this single parent dad a lone wolf reminiscing back to my best family vacations ever.
1. Santa Barbara Beach Vacation – my younger brother and I rented a house in Santa Barbara last year for our two families to enjoy for a week. The backyard had two decks, a hot tub, ping-pong table, BBQ grill, and a magnificent view of the Pacific Ocean. My kids were great baby-sitters for their toddler cousins, my brother and I cooked, and his wife enjoyed 7 days of relaxation. Our dinners were based on a food pyramid featuring cocktails at the base. (Martinis tonight? Let’s have steak! Sangria? Let’s make paella.) Two days after we returned home, my sister-in-law called to ask where we’d be going in summer 2008. (I’ll blog the answer to that in a few weeks.) Single parent travel is great when extended family is involved. (And a beautiful Santa Barbara vacation home makes it that much nicer.)
2. Virginia Farm Vacation – my older brother and his wife lived on a 200 acre farm in Virginia horse country. Talk about summer camp! My kids rode horses, played with three dogs, swam and fished in a pond, drove the tractor, swung on giant rope swings, collected eggs from the chickens, picked corn, shoveled horse shit in the stable. My kids were in heaven! (Not for the horse shit, but for the collective experience.) We also stole time in Charlottesville, walking the mall, strolling UVA (Wahoo-Wa), wine tasting, visiting Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello home. My brother makes a mean mint julep, btw.
3. Maui – Hawaii is great, and Maui is extremely family friendly. We had a blast! A lot of my friends take their families to the Grand Wailea, but we prefer the condo approach. We had funning hitting beaches like Kaanapali, swimming with sea turtles, exploring the Hana coast including its waterfalls and sea caves, watching a sunset from the top of a Volcano. Couldn’t have done all that while sitting by a fancy pool. We also went to the Big Island and took ranger hikes around the volcano, with a night-time visit to the active lava flows. It was unreal! Fires everywhere, streams of lava heading to the sea. We literally stood 3 feet from hot lava. Amazing!
4. Camping in Sequoia National Park – my kids and I like to car camp. We drive into a site, pitch the tent, get out our beach chairs, and while I sit relaxing, reading a book, my kids chop wood for the fire. (Give a kid an axe and some wood, and he/she can happily chop for hours.) We didn’t just sit around, of course – we did a ton of hikes, saw the General Grant and General Sherman trees, and generally explored nature. Smores and a roaring campfire made every night good.
5. Boston – on an east coast visit where we toured from New England through Manhattan and Philly to Virginia, Boston was our favorite stop. The city is walkable, with tons of interesting sites, especially the Freedom Trail. We saw the Old North Church, ate in the Italian North End, strolled The Commons, hung out near Harvard, rode the T (the subway). A highlight, for us, was hanging out for two hours in a North End café, watching World Cup soccer. Forza azzurri!
Looking forward to my kids getting back for my vacation with them this summer!
- Road Trip Planning – Hotels.com Rocks!
- Single Parent Vacation Travel With Kids
- Greg Norman’s Yacht has Nothing on This
- The Kids and their Mom are skiing for Ski Week… how can I compete?
- Sexy Marisa Tomei and Scarlett Johansson are Just What This Lone Wolf Needs
- College Spring Break – Island Style
| 
Subscribe | © 2008-2010 David Mott, DadsHouseBlog.com. All rights reserved.
Comment by Shannon
| June 30th, 2008
I vacationed a family vacation in Hawaii too and it was great for the kids! Except for us it’s a reallllllly long flight from NY. No amusement parks, which we loved and lots of beach, which we all loved. Perfect weather, gorgeous scenery, submarine rides, and yes, sea turtles. It was so great, we decided to get married right there on the beach. Ooops, no more single mommy! I had been there once previously (honeymoon from my first marriage and swore it would be a great place to take a child), Now, I plan on heading there for at least a part time residence once B graduates in ten years.
And Boston, well hey, as a life long Red Sox fan, I can’t imagine a better place to take my girl.
Comment by Honey
| June 30th, 2008
Love Boston. Love. It’s on the list of places to live. The BF loves Hawaii, so it’s on our vacation list, as soon as we pay off some of the credit cards we ran up in grad school!
Comment by dadshouse
| June 30th, 2008
Shannon – how cool that you got married right on the beach in Hawaii! I propsed to my wife (now ex) on Kaanapali beach at sunset. This was before kids, so I have to say Hawaii is pretty great for couples, too. It’s a quick flight from Cali, so I’ve been many times (including for a weekend concert with U2/Pjam. And tons of people from Cali, Oregon, and Alaska were doing the same)
Cathouse Teri – a night in the USO lounge. Were you entertaining the troops? Somehow I can picture it! (including the part about the troops going wild) I’ve never been to the Philipines, but I’ve been to Fiji. South Pacific is beautiful (as is the Caribbean – British Virgin Islands was my favorite non-kid vacation ever)
Honey – Boston rocks. I was in Providence for grad school, and we spent practically all our weekends in Boston. I was lucky enough to have friends there where we could crash. A favorite moment from my 80’s single life: cheering for Magic and Kareem and the Lakers in a Boston bar when they beat the Celtics on a late-game James Worthy layup, en route to a Laker championship.
My kids LOVED those user-interactive chimes in the MIT subway station.
Comment by Cathouse Teri
| June 30th, 2008
I’ve never been to Hawaii. Although I did spend a night in the USO lounge at the aiport there. With two small children. That was fun. Yep.
Surely, I’m not complaining. I’ve been many beautiful places. After all, I did live in the Philippines for three years. Now THAT is a beautiful place. The SCUBA diving is unbef*&kinglievable! In fact, I gave up diving after I left there. Just no comparison.
Perhaps I’ll get to Hawaii sometime and get certified again. Snorkeling just don’t do it for me.
Comment by Rebekah
| June 30th, 2008
All of those things sound like fun. What’s it going to be this year?
Comment by pajama momma
| June 30th, 2008
Maui is one of my favorite islands. In fact the first time I went there I was going to come home, pack my stuff up and move there in a 2 bedroom house with 10 other waitresses.
Good sense prevailed when I found out there were no universities there and I’d have to take island hopper flights to attend. (this was before online classes existed)
The first trip was with my surfer boyfriend. We did what one calls, couch surfing where you stay at friends houses and sleep on their couch. This was a fun inexpensive way to do it. Cept at one house I was kinda grossed out because the cot I was sleeping on had blood on it, prolly from a prior occupants surfing injury.
Couch surfing is big in the surf/snowboard community because it gets too expensive to stay in hotels everytime you get the itch to surf/snowboard in a new locale. Which is often if you’re into that kind of stuff.
The second time I went I won a “free” trip from a girlfriend who worked at a jazz radio station in San Francisco. If someone heard their name on the air, they were supposed to call in within a certain time frame you’d win a trip. Sometimes the winners never called so my girlfriend would give the trips to her friends.
I had airfare, hotel and car rental for 5 days to Maui, sweet huh?
Only problem was I brought a girlfriend who was a total dud who didn’t want to ever leave the hotel pool and that just pissed me off. There were so many things we could have done. grrrr! I still get irritated.
Um, but anyways, I think my point was when I started this comment was that I really dig Hawaii.
Camping kicks bootie too. I’d also like to go to one of those water parks that has a lazy river and just float all day.
Comment by pajama momma
| June 30th, 2008
Sorry for the complete and total lack of punctuation in my prior comment. I had a four year old gabbing to me the entire time I was trying to write it and it was a tad distracting.
Comment by dadshouse
| June 30th, 2008
PJ Momma – next time tell your 4 year old you need time to think and write, and he can darn well couch surf over at the neighbors.
Comment by Cathouse Teri
| June 30th, 2008
Oh, I wish I were entertaining troops! Was flying military “space a” with two little ones, age two and five. Had to sleep in the lounge and make a little fort in the corner with my body so that no one could steal them away from me while I was sleeping! (Which I didn’t anyway. How could I?)
It was HORRIBLE! :)
Comment by pajama momma
| June 30th, 2008
PJ Momma – next time tell your 4 year old you need time to think and write, and he can darn well couch surf over at the neighbors.
Oh yeah, it’s on. It’s on like Donkey Kong! That boy’s goin down.
Comment by What Men Think
| June 30th, 2008
Some truly amazing vacations! I will be looking forward to see where you go in 2008.
Comment by Shannon
| July 1st, 2008
A U2/PJ concert??? In Hawaii??? I may have died and gone to heaven. I’m still hoping to see either of them sometime soon.
Comment by The Exception
| July 3rd, 2008
Reading this, I find myself already planning the next exceptional family adventure! Boston is a great trip and at the top of our list as is NYC. My daughter and I need to hit CA at some point. There is great fun to be had in so many places. If only I didn’t have to work!
Comment by Bill
| September 5th, 2008
I am looking for a CHEAP Christmas trip for me and my son (10) I am in GA. Any great ideas???
Comment by dadshouse
| September 6th, 2008
Bill – I’ve been to Atlanta, and also Athens, GA (fun times), but I don’t know Georgia too well. For cheap, I’m a big fan of camping. My kids LOVE sleeping in a tent, chopping wood, drinking hot cocoa, hiking. Might not be the best on Xmas eve, but for a winter holiday in a warm state, it could be fun.