Planning/timing vacations - when school is out?

[simpsongal]

I feel a little behind on the topic (thanks Covid?) - but we're finally starting to look into family trips w/school-aged kids.  DS 10/DD7.  We took a little overnight after Christmas this year and did NYC last year.  Both were $$$$ and so busy.

Is travel just generally expensive and sort of insane during common school breaks?  e.g., summer, spring break, Christmas break?

Our school puts the calendar out for 3 years and there are some 4-5 day atypical breaks.  I told DH we need to prioritize travelling during those breaks b/c it'll be so much easier/cost effective.

Thoughts?? Any other advice? How far in advance do people book this stuff?  I don't want to swear off taking summer trips but it seems so much more painful travelling in August vs the first week of November? 

[Susie]

Unfortunately our school district doesn't release calendars that far in advance. They won't approve/finalize the 2024-25 school year calendar until spring 2024, which really limits our planning.  At most we can do about a year in advance.  

I grew up in NJ, where we always just had a 4 day weekend for Presidents' Day in Feb, but in NY we get the whole week for a winter break.  That's pretty predictable timing to the federal holiday.  We're using that break to meet friends in Costa Rica this year, because that was the time our breaks lined up.  I also hoped it would be a little less of a madhouse than Christmas or spring break.  We'll see if that works out.  Flying on the weekends was $$$$$ so we're doing Monday to Monday.  The kids will miss the first two days back after break because we'll still be traveling home, but I'm ok with that at younger ages for sure.  

This is our first real school break vacation.  DD is in 3rd grade, and DS is still in pre-k.  I didn't really even start thinking about traveling during DD's K-2nd breaks because DS is <5 and wasn't covid vaxxed until mid-2022.  Hard no before that.  

I'd like to figure out more options, because we do two ~10 day summer trips to my dad's shore house, and I'd like to space travel away from that to the extent possible.

[mrshandy]

We plan our vacations around school breaks. DS and DD are in 8th and 5th grade so skipping a whole day of school isn't an option especially for DS. The 4 day breaks can be good for travel but they are too short for me for any kind of travel beyond road trips. We do a summer break of a week and usually spring break and sometimes Christmas break as well. Summer works well because that's one more week of camp for DD I don't have to pay for so it's like money in my pocket for vacation. DS needs the break as well since he's a tween and insanely lazy during the summer.

Traveling midweek and buying far in advance helps with plane tickets. I did that for Puerto Rico last year and we got a great deal on flights. $1150 for 4 people to fly there at the end of June.

[mccallister84]

My kids are young - just K and 1 - but so far we just pull them out. We did a week in Disney in December and we did a week in Turks and Caicos last January. I am pushing for a Disney cruise next January. I plan on riding that as long as I can.

We have some random days off - a day in October for a teacher convention, that not even every county in our state gets off anymore and usually at least a Friday or a Monday (sometime both) in January for semester change, so when they get older I plan on prioritizing those for trips to minimize time lost.

[mrsGreeko]

We have only ever traveled over school breaks since our oldest started school 12 years ago. Our district puts the next school year calendar out in February every year. We fly solely with miles and have 5 people so we almost always book 330 days in advance when tickets open up on United or the day Southwest opens tickets depending on where we are going. We don’t usually travel in August, generally we prefer to take our summer trip as soon as school gets out. Used to be they got out the Thursday before Memorial Day so we often would fly out on that Thursday night or Friday. Now they get out the Thursday after Memorial Day and my kids are older and have strong opinions about immediately going on vacation so we are leaving 2 weeks later this year in mid June.

This year we are going to Turks and Caicos over February break. February break (booked those tix on Southwest not long after they released them and then rebooked when they drastically dropped in points) is new to our district this year. We also just got a fall break in October so we will utilize these breaks on occasion now. And we are going to Europe in June (booked those tickets last July. We are thinking we might try to go to the East coast for fall break this year, but Southwest hasn’t released tickets for October yet and our district hasn’t released the calendar yet, but I can probably assume it will be the same week it was this year.

It was important to me that my kids not miss school to travel. We’ve been able to work it around school breaks and do it fairly cheaply by using miles. Never felt like it was a bad decision or that things were too expensive or crowded. That was our priority, other families have different priorities.

[niq]

The school district puts out a proposed calendar about 2 years in advance and finalizes it about 18 months in advance. So we'll know the 2025-26 calendar by March or April of this year.

All of our breaks are at vacation heavy times -- Thanksgiving, Christmas/New Year's, Presidents Day/Midwinter Break, and early April Spring Break. There's definitely a hotel premium when we travel during these breaks if we go somewhere in the US that's really touristy.

We tend to do our summer travel in July instead of August. I don't know if that makes it much cheaper. We do a lot of camping, and those campsites start filling up as soon as they open reservations (6 months before the travel date)

[simpsongal]

this is helpful....I'm hearing I really need to plan better and in advance! I was on the Costco travel website last night and so annoyed that everything they had was for 2024 and largely booked up during the breaks (!)

mrshandy you're right about 4 days being tight...esp w/air travel. Ugh...

[abs]

Traveling over school breaks is doubly expensive and doubly crowded but it is what it is. When DD was younger we would pull her for a day or two but never a week. It was just too hard on her and on the teachers! Now that she’s in junior high forget it. Catching up from a sick day is hard enough. A week vacation would just not be doable and she’d be penalized academically.

We do get February break and that is slightly cheaper but yeah mostly it’s just summer travel now. Even breaks can be consumed with school stuff.

[waverly]

Well I think it depends on where you go. NYC is generally going to be busy and expensive because it’s a city of 8 million. Staying in NJ was a bit cheaper but we went during PT conferences (no school) and it was still busy because European tourists had their fall break. You are better off targeting less touristy locations and while there avoiding high tourist areas like avoid Times Square stick to neighborhoods. But of course sometimes you want the tourist places. We typically don’t travel over Christmas but we did Hawaii one year and it was busy and expensive. Hawaii will be though in general. But we had free flights with points.

I’ve found going south for spring break to be expensive flights but we did drive one year from Chicago to SC. As the kids get older driving is more doable.

We don’t take the kids out of school anymore because they miss too much work since DS is in middle school.

We went to Milwaukee two nights and it was not busy or expensive but still cold lol. We find summer vacations to be more driving and reasonable. We’ve also done camping because we already had the gear and spent too much on other vacations. I need to book summer vacation and I definitely need to get on that.

[fortnightlily]

Our school district only publishes the calendars a year out and pretty much just give us the week between Christmas and New Years, the week before Easter, and then mid-June to late-August. So the most expensive and busiest times to travel, yes. SIGH. I find trying to plan travel very depressing because of the lack of flexibility and also feeling like if you don't have your act together a year in advance you're already screwed. Also, DH is chronically noncommittal so trying to make decisions far in advance is like pulling damned teeth.

[hbomdiggity]

Yes, traveling on traditional breaks is just more expensive.

Our school district doesn’t publish calendars until Feb/Mar for the following year. Spring break is a statewide thing and is always the last full week in March, so that’s a known period and it’s one we prioritize. We booked in September and flights were already $$$, but if you don’t plan early flights sell out (only one major airport for our area/state and everyone leaves).

In addition to school, we also have to plan around sports. Last year we waited until school ended to book a busy June, only to find out that DS would miss post-season, tryouts, and some other stuff. So for this summer, we are only planning travel July-early August.

We haven’t yet done it, but some families just skip a week of school to travel.

[meanie]

Yes, travel costs spike during school break - especially if you are flying.

We don't travel during school breaks unless it is driving distance, besides the cost it just seems like a lot of effort for one week. We sometimes do a weekend away local-ish, but honestly it feels like just as much effort as a longer trip to pack, unpack, do laundry, etc.

A 3 or 4 day weekend is good for a Great Wolf Lodge type getaway, or whatever you have in a 1 - 2 hour radius. We have taken our kids to Foxwoods many times just to do the pool and arcade when we have a free room.

[jewel]

If we had extended time off outside of regular holidays, I’d definitely book then. My kids are 6 and 9 - so far, we’ve taken them out of school at least one week per year for a vacation. I’ll continue to do that until missing this kind of school becomes too disruptive for one of them.

[expectantsteelerfan]

Our school only puts out the calendar a year in advance, and the only long breaks we have are the week between Christmas and New Years and the week of spring break. So yeah, we travel during spring break if possible and just suck it up knowing it will be $$$ and crowded most places, and then save any other long travel for the summer. We do some small trips during the year during random days off, but this year we don't even have any 4 day weekends, just a bunch of Mondays off. So my kids are missing 1 day for a short trip where we leave Friday after school and come back Tues. (going to Universal) when they have a Monday off. But with my ds in high school, I really don't want him missing multiple days for travel.

[ssmjlm]

We've done some Thanksgiving travel since it's only 2 days, but I know that will stop once she's in middle next year.

I prefer to do more local-ish spring break trips where we can drive, bring the dog, and rent something.

Now that Santa is over, I'm seriously considering more holiday travel. I would love to get on a plane Christmas day to somewhere warm.

[186momx]

Wow we are lucky if the school calendar is released by August 1st for the coming school year. For the last 6 years we have had PTC the 2nd week of December so I've always scheduled DD dentist during that time. This year they moved it to the week of Thanksgiving so I pulled for dentist instead. I schedule appointments ahead of time and have just given up trying to do it on no school days.

We never travel during spring break because it is during my busy tax season and we tend to not travel winter break for the same reason.

I think it is easier for kids in elementary school to miss school for travel because they don't have as much work to make up. I know friends who kids begged them to stop traveling in January because of finals. This family always travelled the first two week of January and once the kids got to 8th grade it was too hard to make up all the work and be prepped for exams.

[Velar Fricative]

We just stick to school breaks. Last year was the first time our district sent out multiple school year calendars ahead of time. Even if we were okay with skipping school for vacations (we are not okay with that), DH is a teacher on the same schedule and doesn’t want to travel outside of breaks either.

We usually only have one flying vacation a year and save that for the last week of August when most of the rest of the country is back in school (we are in NYC). Otherwise, we’ve been able to get creative with driving/train vacations and staycations to get the most bang for our buck (I.e. nowhere warm during February break lol).

[nicolewi]

We pulled kids out here and there, including for a week once for Disney, and several times had a day or two extra at the end of a break to make flights a lot less. Every district is different about this and every family has their own rules. Our district is pretty much okay with pulling kids here and there, and personally I felt like family travel won out over a random normal school day, as long as we weren't pulling them out all the time.

We have very few school breaks. Pretty much just spring break available for travel since we like to be home for Christmas (and only have a week) and only have a couple days at Thanksgiving/Easter. Other than that it's pretty much a couple random 3 day weekends.

Now that my oldest is in high school, it's still allowed to pull kids out but much harder from a practical standpoint (i.e. amount of work to make up!). I wish we would have pulled them out more when it was easier to do, b/c now we'll have a kid in high school every year until they are in college/out of college. But we had Covid in there, too...so that messed up some prime travel years.

[fancynewbeesly]

We have to travel during the most expensive time. I am a teacher so I can't take days off easily. We are limited to Thanksgiving/Christmas/Spring Break and a 4 day weekend in November. (besides other random one days (like President's Day).

[quesyrah]

We homeschool so we exclusively travel “off season.”

Yes, it usually cheaper and crowds can be better.

[grover]

Jan 4, 2024 16:26:36 GMT -5 ssmjlm said:

We've done some Thanksgiving travel since it's only 2 days, but I know that will stop once she's in middle next year.

FWIW, I'm a middle school teacher and our district has attendance days on that Monday and Tuesday.  However, I don't plan much regular curriculum wise because of the high number of absent students. So my team generally does enrichment activities those two days.

[jeaniebueller]

I was fine pulling my kids out of school for vacations until they were in middle school

[brooklyn]

I don’t have a problem pulling elementary aged and younger kids out. Especially when it saves me money, haha. We’re pulling the kids (5th grade and pre-k) out the first week of March to go to Disney. This is probably the last year I’d be ok with my eldest missing school.

[dcrunnergirl52]

My four kids are in kinder, 5th, and 8th grades. I was fine pulling them out for full weeks in early elementary, but now we stick to school breaks, although we do pull them to miss a day or two at start or ends of breaks if it just works out better flight/travel wise. This year, they've missed 3 days for travel, but one was a half day and one was the day before winter break (so not much going on).

[sent]

Pre-COVID DD was in K and first. We did Disney both years during off weeks because I knew we could do it without repercussion.

Earlier this week I took DD out an hour early to get in a last minute fun day-trip before my passes expired to a local place. She still had a bunch of work to do when we got home including going over the lesson for the class she missed. She's in 5th grade this year. I won't be doing that again, I felt bad for her.

I don't have much else to add. All of our trips post-COVID have been $$$$$ - one during spring break, one over the summer. I'm thinking road trip to Boston and Philly this year so DD can see some historical sites and relate it back to what she's learning in school. Also a road trip to Canada. My wallet can hopefully get a break because there won't need to be any flights or expensive hotels or things with high admission prices.

[mainelyfoolish]

Fifth grade was the last year I felt comfortable taking a kid out of school for vacation. Since then, our non-summer school break vacations have been expensive and limited.

My district doesn't publish the next year's calendar until late spring, but our February and April vacation weeks are always the third week of the month, so I can plan ahead for those.

Our fixed vacation weeks benefit us in the years Easter is early because it means our spring break doesn't overlap with school districts who peg their breaks to Easter. Airfare is still crazy expensive but the hotel prices and crowds at popular destinations (i.e. Disney World) aren't as bad.

[SusanBAnthony]

We stick to the school calendar and don't pull out kids out. H was adamant about it when younger and now with high school classes it's just not an option IMO.

Yes it's very $$$. We work around it by trying to do a bit odd days for cheaper flights. Like over Xmas we flew the 23-28. Over Thanksgiving we came home Sat night. Or going on random long weekends like you said.

At this point with 8th and 10th graders I figure it'll only be a few short years before H and I can travel over a random week in Feb, so I don't get too worried about it. Now that obviously means we can't take as many trips as if flights were cheaper but that usually isn't an issue since we are limited by our own vacation time anyway!

[bdubs419]

My kids are in 3rd and 5th and they will miss probably about 8 days of school this school year for travel (a few days for sports tournaments, a few days at Thanksgiving and 4 extra days at spring break since we are traveling internationally). I do think maybe we will try to be more careful come middle school. But honestly, between my job, my husbands job and kids schedules, we travel when we can, and sometimes that means missing school.

[sdlaura]

Yes, my kids have a fall break in late October and we’ve been gone to Hawaii the last 3 years during thatbreak because it is SO much cheaper and less crowded that week vs our other breaks.

However, I have come to terms with the fact that we mostly need to travel when places are expensive and crowded. Not just so the kids don’t miss school, but also because DH and I are much more likely to be able to unplug from work when our clients and coworkers are too - during 4th of July week, or between Christmas and new years.

I would say not to worry too much both pulling elementary schoolers from school, within reason. DD goes to middle school next year and I know it will get harder for her to make up work when she has multiple teachers.

We don’t pull our kids out. I would if I had a big reason to - a family member getting married in another country or something. But not just to save money or go somewhere when it’s less crowded.

[sandandsea]

We just pay more to go during the summer when it’s convenient and plausible for us to get off work and the kids have fewer commitments. If you go the first week school is out or the last week before you’re back it’s often a little less crowded but still peak season prices.