a beach vacation with kids

Last year, we spent a four-day-three-night vacation in a cottage by the beach the last weekend of August. We had gorgeous weather and survived travel with a two year old and a baby. This year, we stayed at the same beach, but a different (and cheaper) cottage, during Labor Day weekend, and had less agreeable weather. Not only did we survive travel, but we still managed to have a lovely time. There are probably a thousand and one more helpful blog posts about travelling with kids, so I won't make this entirely into a "tips for travel" post, but rather a "this is what worked for us" post.

1. Being flexible
That's the #1 rule for doing anything with kids, I guess. We managed to finagle an earlier check-in time with the owner of the cottage (as long as we just dropped off our bags and headed to the beach so she could finish cleaning) which made it much easier for us to catch the day and a half of sunny weather we got at the beach. We knew the kids weren't going to be up for a full beach day so we took them over when they were ready and took them home when they were tired. When Monday looked like a wash for swimming, we took the kids for a walk on the beach in the morning and went to play with some cousins in the afternoon.

2. Time, place, and distance didn't have to be fancy.
We could have done a vacation earlier in the summer, farther away, at a popular beach destination like Cape Cod, but it would have been more crowded and expensive. Going in September worked for us because neither of our kids are in school (and in New England, the beach water doesn't even warm up until late July).  The beach we chose was close to a lot of Mr. Husband's siblings and his parents' houses, and not far from our home, so we had some local knowledge about where the good beaches were. It wasn't an overwhelming trip for the kids with so many familiar faces. Bonus: we could invite the family to join us on the beach for a little cottage party (impossible at our apartment) and my sister-in-law babysat one night so Mr. Husband and I could go out together.

3. Packing what we needed and no more.
We brought a little backpack with a few trucks, trains, and books for down time. Do you know what our kids played with? The wiffle balls, plastic cups, and brooms they found at the house. (They also watched a Little Einsteins DVD from the cottage about eight times. Hey, they're on vacation, too.) Fortunately, a lot of amenities (including a washer and dryer! Huzzah!) were provided at the cottage so we really only needed to cram clothes, toiletries, and groceries into our little hatchback. It was great to borrow beach equipment and towels and leave the sand at the house when we left. Since we could do laundry at the house, we could pack pretty light with clothing and not fuss when someone inevitably smeared ketchup all over their shirts.

4. Packing cubes were the bomb diggity.
Clothes stay sorted and folded. Getting unpacked and re-packed was a snap because we could neatly keep everything in the suitcase without clothes wandering too far around the cottage. Getting the kids dressed in the morning was faster at the cottage than at home. When we got home, all the clean clothes took three minutes to put back in drawers. Awesome.

5. Keeping expectations low different.
This sort of dovetails with #1 and #2, but I always have to remember that travel with two kids is different than when Mr. Husband and I used to travel before children. We aren't going to sleep in, and we aren't going to read for hours on the beach, and we aren't going to eat out a whole ton. We shared the beach with some groups of younger adults who were partying with drinks and music and fireworks at night. We were smearing little kids with sunscreen, digging holes in the surf, watching them bury our flip flops in sand, watching them run in and out of the waves with fistfuls of sand. We were up with the sun and could barely read a few pages of our books after bedtime before we ourselves were ready to crash. Dinner was simple bagged salads, boxed rice mixes, and grilled chicken or hot dogs.

And we had a marvelous time.