Your Stress- Free planning of your family vacation

 

Family trip, takes a day at the beach.

 

How to take the stress, out of distressingly planning your family vacation.

 

Looking to book the best vacation on a budget? Have no idea how to get everyone to agree on the same place? Tired of the lack of input, help, or harmony surrounding this topic? Dreading planning the annual family trip? Since it may take a few tries before finding the rhythm that works for you; here are a few tips to help ease the process of figuring it out. All while fostering a sense of unity and inclusion.

Have all members that are traveling together make a list of all the places they want to go. Encourage them to leave no stone unturned. Every city, town, and country are eligible to make their lists. Then review and read the lists aloud to see if there are any commonalities. Every place that is mentioned repeatedly, circle them and write those down on a separate list. Those places will advance to the next step. The ones that didn't make it past the preliminaries, use those as ideas for the next year.

Family trip strolling through a field

 

Take the new list, with all of the places everyone had in common, and write the pros and cons of each place, next to each of the options that you have to choose from. Depending on the size of your family and the age of everyone involved, this will determine what will be the best choice for everyone. If traveling with young children, you will need to determine if the place is kid-friendly and family-oriented, as opposed to older children you might just need the place to speak your native language fluently, be safe, and have lots of excursions to choose from. This variable also affects which excursions you can book and how you plan on spending your time while on vacation. 

 

 

Then look at each option and determine their relative geographical location to each other. If you notice a trend where everyone is favoring visiting the Caribbean or the islands/ countries that are neighboring each other, decide if you can visit multiple destinations by way of a cruise, or other forms of "country-hopping". For example, if everyone wants to visit Aruba, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Mexico, it might be easier to accomplish that on a cruise as opposed to going to each place separately. If primarily European countries make the list, see if you can plan a backpack excursion and take the Eurail train that spans 33 different European countries. This is the best way to get a taste of each country and, if you fancy a particular place, you can always go back and spend more time there.

 

 

Family Trip through the desert on horseback.

If none of the places are within the same region, then you can further narrow down the options in a creative way. This is the fun part, as you are in total control of this. You can do anything from playing games to having little family competitions, where the winner gets to pick the place. Playing team games like charades, taboo and dominoes will build and strengthen familial bonds while individual games like UNO, crazy eights, and monopoly will allow the winner to take all and pick the place. My friend and I couldn’t decide between Puerto Rico and the Bahamas and we played an old-fashioned game of rock-paper-scissors. I won, by the way, and we ended up going to Puerto Rico that year. I eventually visited the Bahamas later on that year with my family. 

Implementing this will not only make family trip planning, more fun, creative and inclusive; It also makes the process of planning trips much easier; less daunting and more exciting to look forward to. Try some of these techniques and any you come up with and let me know how they work for you in the comments below.

 

How to handle racism, while traveling to work

 Racism is often a hotly debated topic. However, due to the historical context, prevalence, and cognitive dissonance often associated with it and the level of discomfort it brings everyone. While I have grown up with the privilege of learning all of the nuances and scenarios where Race will inevitably play a role, It never ceases to amaze me when a situation arises. All that you've learned is now put to the test. 

 

Since this societal issue will never go away on its own, I found it best to discuss my latest encounter with this and present some actionable tips you can take should you ever find yourself in a similar situation. Therefore, this post will detail my latest meeting with handling racism on my way to work and what I did as a result. 

While traveling on my way to work, it was a rainy day, and I took a different bus towards the hub train station. While getting on the bus, a gentleman and I entered and displayed our passes to the bus driver. After I walked past him and made it to my seat, I was summoned to return to the bus driver. He then proceeded to embarrass me by asking me about the bus pass I showed him. When I questioned what he was asking me and why he doubled down and played dumb. The interaction went as follows: 

 

Bus Driver: Hey, what's that, that you showed me?

Me: My Rail pass. (Proceeds to show him the same pass, again)

Bus Driver: What is that? I don't know what that is.....

Me: *Sweeping look of confusion crosses my face* Ummm, it's my Train pass; I use it all the time. It's always cross-honored.

Bus Driver: How many bus zones are it? 

Me: It says Two (points to the number) 

Bus Driver: I've never seen that before. I don't know anything about that. 

Me: *Still confused* Ummm, I don't know what to tell you. No one else has complained. Your colleagues haven't told me anything.

Bus Driver: Waves me off. 

 

While I walk to my seat, I see two caucasian male passengers in front of me laughing hysterically. They were both elderly, above 70, and the one who wore the red "maga" hat and had the yellowest teeth I've ever seen. I never knew teeth could turn that color. 

 

I then noticed that the guy who got on the bus behind me was still being grilled by the bus driver before letting him on the bus. The two front passengers were still giggling like school girls. I then noticed that the next woman who got on the bus received the same treatment as me, and another Hispanic man who requested a stop missed it as the bus driver kept driving. When he finally did stop, He berated the man saying, "I don't stop there; this isn't the twenty-one" He then proceeded to drive the bus like he resented his job. Meanwhile, the two front passengers laughed as if they were in on it. 

I took pictures of the bus, the men, and any other identifying information. I then called the transit authority number, filed a complaint, and provided the photos. Despite being met with kindness and understanding, being provided with the complaint number, and a secondary call with an apology, no further action was taken regarding my complaint. The gentleman mentioned that this driver was a union worker, and it's usually a process to get rid of them. While appreciating the apologetic phone call, I was saddened at the thought that this man had gotten away with his disrespectful behavior. 

 

 This is where I want to discuss the importance of taking action each time a situation arises, regardless of the outcome. Cultivating this habit and mindset will remind you that you don't have to tolerate being insulted, but it will better prepare you to take the correct course of action as you will know the proper channels to pursue.