Vacation Mode with a Back-up Plan

Before we take any trip, I start with research. And not casual, “Let’s see what looks fun” research.

Hi, my name is Susan, and I’m the Type A-est of all the Type A’s out there. Let’s be friends!

I mean opening seventeen tabs, reading reviews, studying maps, checking hours, looking at menus, and trying to figure out which places might work for our entire family—but especially for Eli.

I’ve learned that planning a trip for our family has to start long before anyone pulls the suitcases out of the attic.

For our Fourth of July trip to Charlotte, I started with animals. Eli is obsessed with them and could happily spend hours wandering through a new zoo or aquarium, reading every sign, watching every habitat, and sharing facts the rest of us did not know we needed.

Last summer, we went to Charleston and spent a day at the aquarium. Eli entered a darkened area a little ahead of me, and before I was fully in the room, I heard:

“Those are puffer fish. That’s the mommy one. That’s the daddy.”

I asked him how he could tell, and without looking up or pausing for a beat, he simply said, “He’s darker.”

I walked over to the center of this massive tank to read the plaque, and sure as shit, he was correct.

Just asked for one picture at dinner…. 🙃

So, I started planning Charlotte by looking at zoos. Aquariums. Animal encounters. Anything that might
give him the chance to explore something he already loves in a new place.

He is also a video game lover and a somewhat closeted science geek, so I searched for arcades, escape rooms, discovery museums, and interactive experiences.

We spent hours at the City Museum on a rainy day in St. Louis a few summers ago. It had a little bit of everything, from a bug exhibit to two-story giant slides and mural-sized puzzles.

He loved it all.

For this trip, I was not trying to build a minute-by-minute itinerary. Actually, that probably would have been the fastest way to ruin the trip.

I was just building options.

Our vacation vibe is less “follow the schedule” and more “have several plans and remain emotionally prepared to abandon all of them.”

Eli might talk about an activity for weeks. He might watch videos on YouTube, ask a hundred questions, and be practically vibrating with excitement on the drive there.

And then we arrive, and…
The parking lot is crowded.
The building is louder than expected.
There is a line he did not know would be there.
Something smells weird.
The room feels too small, too bright, too busy, or simply not the way he imagined it.
And suddenly, he ain’t havin’ it.

So, we pivot.

Sometimes we pivot before we ever get out of the car.
Other times, we make it through twenty minutes before realizing the experience has run its course.
And sometimes, we skip the big attraction and spend an hour in a quiet ice cream shop, relaxing at the hotel pool, or driving around looking for something that feels manageable.

That does not mean Eli gets to dictate our every move.

There are four people in our family, and everyone deserves to do things they enjoy. We do not automatically cancel every plan the second he is uncomfortable, and we do not expect the entire vacation to revolve around him.

But we also do not force him to remain in distress after he has clearly reached his limit just because we bought tickets or drove thirty minutes to get there.

That is the balance we have learned to strike.
We encourage him to try.
We help him work through the discomfort he can handle.
We ask him to compromise.

But we also pay attention when his discomfort turns into genuine anxiety or overload.

Those things are not always easy to tell apart.

Sometimes we get it right.
Sometimes we push too long.
Sometimes we leave too quickly.
Sometimes one of us is disappointed.
Sometimes all of us are.

There is no perfect formula.

There is only knowing your child, watching closely, and being willing to change the plan without treating the change like a failure.

I used to think a successful vacation meant doing everything we intended to do.

Now, I think it means everyone comes home with at least a few good memories and nobody spends the entire trip barely holding it together.

It means having a plan, a backup plan, and absolutely no emotional attachment to either one.
It means remembering that flexibility is not the absence of structure.

For us, flexibility is the structure.

It is how we make room for Eli’s needs without making him the center of every decision.

It is how we let the rest of the family enjoy the trip without asking him to suffer through it.

And it is how we keep going when the carefully researched, highly anticipated, absolutely perfect activity turns out to be a hard no before we even find the entrance.

For this trip, Eli was able to choose a couple of activities that we all participated in. The compromise was that Aiden also had the opportunity to choose, and Eli would have to respect Aiden’s pick in the same way Aiden respected his.

Eli chose the arcade and go-kart racing.

He was so pumped that he was finally big enough to drive a kart all by himself—and he came in second place!

Then he played arcade games until he had enough tickets to leave the prize stand with an armful of candy.

Aiden’s pick was a water park, where we all enjoyed most of the slides at least once. Then Eli proceeded to float around the lazy river more times than I could count.

We often pivot.

And somehow, somewhere between Plan A and whatever letter of the alphabet we eventually land on, we still manage to have a vacation.

.05¢ from the jar: Sometimes the best family memories happen somewhere between Plan A and Plan Absolutely Not.