It is start of yet another year, when families often get into serious planning mode for travel - especially for long summer breaks those of us with school age kids plan for.
If you need some travel inspiration this time of year, I thought it would be helpful to share a recap of my family's last year of travel and also let you in on what I'm already planning for 2025. I know that it often helps to get travel ideas and recommendations from fellow family travelers with similar interests and in the same stage of life.
If you follow me on social media, particularly on Instagram, you've likely seen more of what our family is doing in real time. But the blog is far from real time given how long it takes to write a post of several thousand words. There are so many trips that we take that I'm not able to cover promptly - or necessarily at all - here on the blog. So hopefully this post helps with the catch up!
Related: Tips for Getting Organized for Travel in the New Year
Trips We Took in 2024
Yosemite National Park (January)
There are only a very few places our family visits time and time again, and Yosemite National Park is one of them. My husband used to work at the park when he was in college, and we've been back more times than I can count.
But until this past year, we had never been into the park during winter. We usually tend to spend our time during snowy months in nearby Lake Tahoe.
We found that winter is an absolutely magical time to visit Yosemite. It is completely different from experiencing the park other times of year. Crowds are nonexistent, everything feels peaceful, and the activities offered are unique to the season.
Planning for the winter weather is of course necessary. If you can get over that hump, take this trip as soon as you can, particularly if you are located within driving distance. We liked it so much in 2024 that we already have a weekend in late January 2025 planned.
Thankfully, this is one trip that I have had the chance to write up comprehensively already, so check out my blog post about visiting Yosemite in winter for all of the tips and details.
San Miguel de Allende, Mexico (March)
Last year brought a new member into our family, as my brother-in-law got married to a wonderful woman from San Miguel de Allende in Guanajuato, Mexico. They held the wedding celebration in her hometown. My family of 4 went down for an all-too-quick weekend to attend the festivities, as we had to minimize the kids' time off of school.
San Miguel de Allende is a colorful and culturally vibrant town with a lot of history and amazing food. It has become an incredibly popular destination for both American tourists and expats as a result. San Miguel also is exceptionally safe and highly walkable in the downtown area.
It's more expensive than a lot of destinations in Mexico, but it's still a relative bargain much of the year for American travelers. We flew Mexican discount airline Volaris down to the nearby BJX airport and stayed at a very nice Airbnb for a reasonable price, so you can definitely find deals on multiple aspects of this trip.
Tokyo, Japan (March/April)
By far the biggest trip of the year for the whole family was our spring break visit to Tokyo, Japan. This was an epic bucket list trip for everyone many years in the making.
We had only a week to fit it all in, so we decided to limit ourselves to exploring only Tokyo. That decision ended up being a very smart call. The city is so expansive which meant we didn't come close to doing it all, particularly because we chose to spend two days and two nights of that time at Tokyo Disney.
Related: Must-Do Tokyo Disney Rides U.S. Visitors Shouldn’t Miss
Tokyo Disney was of course a major highlight, but we found another number of other family-friendly activities that turned out to be incredibly memorable. Some of those included attending a Japanese baseball game, seeing the cherry blossoms in bloom, shopping-until-we-dropped along Takeshita Street, and biking all around the city our first day to get oriented (only recommended for tweens & teens - there are hills!).
Japan is an ideal destination for family travelers, even those without a lot of international travel experience. The safety of the country and the convenient transportation infrastructure (with English signage) makes it decipherable. Bonus that it also has a very favorable exchange rate for Americans with the Japanese yen right now.
Reno, NV (April) and Sacramento, CA (May)
I almost didn't include these two destinations on this list as they weren't really full scale family trips. For both of them, the reason we traveled was for my daughter to play in club volleyball tournaments.
I ultimately decided to include them because I think there is a lesson here for other families. Sometimes travel isn't to destinations you really would plan or prioritize, but you can make the most of these kinds of obligatory trips and turn them into mini-vacations. And sometimes not-so-obvious destinations close to home can work well for a low key getaway.
In Sacramento in particular, I took my son along for the weekend since my husband was traveling for work at the same time. My son and I were able to visit family-friendly attractions in Old Sacramento like the California Railroad Museum after dropping my daughter at her tournament nearby.
Germany, Belgium, & the Netherlands (June)
After school let out for the year, my husband and I were able to take a very rare kind of trip: one without kids. We celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary in 2024, and my husband had to be in Milan for work around that date, so I flew in to join him in Europe.
The trip started in Frankfurt because that was a central and convenient airport to meet up. From there, we spent a very quick 48 hours in Western Germany, taking trains and ferries along through the Romantic Rhine, spending an overnight in Cologne, and attending a Euro Football match in nearby Gelsenkirchen. Then we headed to Belgium (Brussels & Bruges) and the Netherlands (Amsterdam). We moved pretty seamlessly between cities on trains the whole time.
(While we didn't do this trip with kids, it would have been quite a doable itinerary with our kids as well.)
This trip could have been a very expensive one given that it was high season in some very expensive countries. We were thankfully able to do it incredibly economically thanks to miles and points. Every hotel that we stayed in was covered by hotel loyalty points and rewards!
Related: Getting Started with Hotel Points
We redeemed at two Marriotts, one Hilton, and one Hyatt, so diversifying our points program earnings gave us a lot of options that paid off in the aggregate. Some of the hotels we stayed in were simply utilitarian options in convenient locations, but we did splurge on one well-located luxury hotel in Amsterdam I'd highly recommend: the Andaz Amsterdam Prinsengracht.
One lesson for other family travelers: it's really hard to find hotels in Europe that will sleep families of four, so an adults-only couples trip is a smart time to redeem hotel points in Europe when you will have more plentiful hotel options staying two to a room.
This vacation would not have been possible without the help of my parents and my sister and brother-in-law, who hosted my son while we were away (big sister was at summer sleepaway camp). We are grateful they let us get some time to celebrate a major anniversary, and I highly recommend that other parents take these kinds of opportunities if they are available - especially as your kids get older and are easier houseguests!
Yellowstone National Park & Jackson, WY (July/August)
Later in the summer, it was finally time for our whole family to travel together again. But we didn't just travel as a family of four. Instead, we traveled with 10 people on a multi-generational vacation to Wyoming to visit Yellowstone national park and the city of Jackson. Our fellow travelers included my parents as well as my sister, brother-in-law, and their two kids.
This trip was another bucket list destination, as no one on the trip other than my mother had ever visited Yellowstone. She worked at Yellowstone as a summer job when she was in college and always dreamed of taking the whole family back. This trip was truly many decades in the making!
We splurged by staying at Old Faithful Inn during our time at Yellowstone, an historic national park lodge with modest rooms but a majestic lobby and unforgettable location steps from the geyser itself. We found that four nights was just about right to get a solid overview of the enormous national park.
We then moved on to the city of Jackson for three additional nights (my family-friendly hotel recommendation: The Lodge at Jackson Hole). We used Jackson as a home base for adventures exploring Grand Teton National Park and Jackson Hole Resort nearby.
Disney World (September)
In the fall once the kids were back in school, work brought me to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. I try to visit the Florida Disney parks at least once a year and was long overdue for a visit, as my last one was over a 18 months prior in January of 2023!
First on the agenda was testing the new Lightning Lane system. I promise a post on that is coming very soon, but in the meantime you can watch or listen to this Disney Deciphered podcast episode on the topic for all the advanced tips. And be sure to check out my stories from that trip published so far:
- 33 Brilliant Ideas That Will Save You Money at Disney World
- Cashing in Disney World’s Old No-Expiration Tickets Today
Disneyland (November)
A few weeks later, I packed up for another solo work trip to a Disney destination. This trip was the media event for the West Coast opening of Tiana's Bayou Adventure and the launch of the Disneyland Holidays season.
Being able to ride both versions of Tiana's in such a short time window was interesting (TLDR: Disneyland's version is better but also will get you much wetter!). It was also helpful to see the contrast between the two resorts in such a compact span of time. If you are short on time or prioritize riding rides until you drop, Disneyland is still the place to go in my opinion. Disney World offers a more comprehensive overall vacation experience with better food and much more non-ride entertainment, but isn't as efficient of a vacation.
Related: 2025 Disneyland Trip Planning Guide
Disney Cruise from Galveston, TX (November)
As you can see, it turned out to be a very Disney-filled fall for me. Next up was a Disney cruise in late November. This time, the whole family finally got to come along as we booked a cruise to coincide with my kids' Thanksgiving week school break.
We picked a cruise out of Galveston, Texas aboard the Disney Magic primarily because the dates worked best and it was the closest cruise this time of year to our Northern California home (Disney's San Diego cruises only sail part of the year right now and we had recently done that one anyway). Bonus that we could use my Southwest Companion Pass to save on airfare to fly to the closest airport at Houston-Hobby.
The cruise was a 6 night trip with two stops in the Western Caribbean at Grand Cayman and Cozumel, with three sea days. We don't care as much about the ports when we sail Disney because there is so much on offer on the ship, but both of those ports had low-stakes shore excursions we enjoyed (the highlight was definitely swimming with sting rays in Grand Cayman!).
As my kids are now fully in the tween and teen stages, Disney cruises have been working really well for us (more so than Disney Aulani which visited often when they were younger).
Related: Disney Cruise vs. Disney Aulani: Which Vacation is Right For Your Family?
We are able to give them so much independence and free rein while on the ship. My husband and I get some adult time while they are busy at the teen and tween clubs, and then we have lots of time making family memories as well. If you have older kids or teens and need an alternative to the parks, I highly recommend a Disney cruise.
2025 Travel We Are Planning
I've been deep in travel planning and booking mode the last couple of weeks, particularly for our summer travel plans. This year will be a bit different as my kids don't have the same spring break this year, so we won't be able to take a major vacation in March or April. I'm eyeing weekend getaways within a short drive or a short flight instead.
We are also looking at taking more trips where only part of the family can get away. With the kids so much busier with their individual activities and unable to skip school much for travel as they get older, dividing and conquering to squeeze in a little travel can be a smart strategy.
My daughter, for example, just returned from New York City with her grandmother since she had a longer holiday break that extended into mid-January. We may take my son to Yosemite or Tahoe solo without his sister to ski at some point. My daughter is also lobbying for a girls trip with a friend to Disneyland in the spring for her big 16th birthday.
We haven't looked ahead to the fall yet, but we are hoping the kids will again have a full week off for Thanksgiving so we can use some or all of that week for a family getaway.
We also have the following more epic trips planned for summer:
Germany & Austria (June)
My husband has his usual work trip to Milan in June so we are using it as a jumping off point for another European adventure this summer - this time with the kids!
The plan this summer is to head to Bavaria and visit Munich, Germany and Salzburg, Austria and thereabouts. We plan a combination of outdoor adventures and cultural and historical sites. My 11 year old would subsist entirely on giant pretzels if we let him, so we think he will really enjoy this year's European destination pick.
Hawaii's Big Island (July)
We love traveling with extended family, and this summer it will be my husband's family's turn for a multigenerational trip. We're returning to a place that we have traditionally visited often but that my family hasn't been back to since the pandemic: Hawaii's Big Island.
Hawaii doesn't have large home rentals for big multigen groups the way some beach destinations do, at least not if you are looking for anything remotely affordable within view of the beach. We finally found a sweet spot (albeit still expensive) on the larger grounds of the Mauna Kea Beach Resort, which is finishing up a major renovation.
The trip is likely to involve a lot of R&R and beach time, but I'm hoping we can get to a couple of nooks and crannies on the island we haven't yet visited. I'm dreaming of a waterfall or a zipline adventure, or maybe both!
Happy 2025 travel planning! If you have any destinations you enjoyed in 2024 or are looking forward to in 2025, share them in the comments for additional inspiration.
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