TIPS & STORIES
Useful advice. Honest family stories.
Choose practical Travel Tips when you need a plan, or Stories when you want to know what the experience actually felt like for our family.
11 articles
How We Cruise: Do the Math and Skip What You Don’t Need
We usually skip dining, beverage, and Wi-Fi packages. Our approach is simple: calculate the real break-even point, buy only what improves the trip, and protect the chance to disconnect together.
A Trip vs. a Vacation
We've learned that there's a big difference between a trip and a vacation. For our family, Europe is a trip. A cruise is a vacation. We love both, but a trip means constantly figuring out where we're going, how we're getting there, where we're eating, and—when traveling with a picky kid—whether Ollie will actually eat anything once we get there. A cruise removes most of that stress. Once we're onboard, we unpack once, food is always nearby, entertainment is taken care of, and tomorrow's destination comes to us. Sometimes we want an adventure. Sometimes we just want a vacation. That's why we cruise.
Three Strikes and You’re Out? Our Complicated Relationship With Royal Caribbean
Two Royal Caribbean cruises left us with difficult memories and rules that still shape how our family cruises.
Why We Keep a Travel Journal
We started keeping travel journals simply because we wanted to remember our trips. Years later, they've become something much more valuable. The big moments are easy to remember, but the journals bring back the little things—the mistakes we made, what Ollie loved at different ages, what things cost, and the random moments that made each trip ours. Those little details are a big part of why The Family Departure exists today.
Build a practical family travel health kit
How to organize regular medicine, basic first aid, destination health planning, and the information you may need away from home.
Flying with children: the low-stress checklist
A practical sequence for family seating, airport security, carry-ons, delays, and the first hour after landing.
The 30-day family departure countdown
A week-by-week sequence for documents, reservations, health preparation, packing, home tasks, and a calmer final day.
The family travel document check
A calm, early review of passports, entry rules, child-travel documents, copies, and emergency information.
The family-trip costs people forget to budget
A full-trip worksheet for transportation, food, tips, activities, protection, and the costs that appear between the headline price and coming home.
What belongs in your cruise embarkation-day bag
The documents, medicine, clothing, and small essentials to keep with you until checked luggage reaches the cabin.
A calmer family packing system
An itinerary-first method for bringing what the trip requires without packing for every possible version of it.