Recently my family and I went on our first “real” vacation. I say REAL because it wasn’t just a few days. It wasn’t close. It was to the BEACH. A BUSY beach that took over a 10 hour drive (which took us over 14)! Over the past few years we have been really busy growing our family so we haven’t traveled but this year we decided to take a chance that our kids might enjoy the beach.
I took to my personal Facebook page with a few questions for my friends and family. I was initially asking about whether we should take beach chairs and umbrellas or if we should just rent from our resort. The results were mixed on my post but then one of my dear friends reached out and gave me some uber helpful advice that I’d like to pass on to you!
In case you were wondering, we decided that we should rent chairs and an umbrella from our resort. THIS WAS THE RIGHT MOVE! Have you ever taken your family to the beach?! Little kids require A LOT of BEACH THINGS so not having to haul around an umbrella and chairs would have been quite difficult! An umbrella and chairs would have also taken up precious space in our van!!
Back to the tip from my lovely friend..
When you are traveling do you have a lot of stuff? Clothes, toys, bathroom stuff, food, drinks, strollers, etc. When you pack all of that in there is little room for people (at least that has been our experience)! What percentage of that stuff would you say is clothing? If you are packing for 5 people like we are, I’d say 50%. Maybe 25% food and 25% for the other miscellaneous stuff? What if I told you that I could make your life easier by reducing your STUFF by 25%?!?!
The most wonderful, life saving, helpful tip that was shared with me is GROCERY DELIVERY!!!! Guys, this is life changing!
Early in the week before we left, I set up a delivery time and put together the list of things we would like. Then, I placed the order. The beauty of it all is that I could change my order up until about 18 hours before the time of delivery! Over the course of the week I revised the list several times.
When we finally arrived at the beach, we unloaded our car and waited for our groceries to be delivered to our hotel. The store gave me email and text updates so I was able to wait downstairs for the driver with our wagon. When the groceries arrived, the driver helped me load them up and then we unpacked them!!
In our car we traveled with enough food and snacks to get us to our destination. We ordered everything else! Our plan was to eat breakfast and lunch at our hotel and then eat dinner out daily. I imagined that we would pack a picnic and eat it at the beach each day so with that in mind, I ordered picnic type foods. Instead, we ended up eating lunch in our room daily.
Here is a list of things we had delivered that might help you when ordering for vacation…
-Milk
-Cereal
-Donut Holes
-Muffins
-Gogurt (16 Pack)- My kids devoured these!
-Cheese cubes
-Cheese slices
-Buns
-Hot Dogs
-Lunchables
-Lunchmeat
-Chips
-Cheese Crackers
-Ketchup
-Snacks
-Fresh Fruit
-CASE OF WATER
-Case of pop
-Frozen Pizza
-Pack of applesauce pouches
-Baby food pouches
-Baby snacks
We ate A LOT of this food and didn’t have to bring much home. It seems as though my kids grew a second stomach while we were on vacation!
As for our original plan of eating dinner out daily…That DID NOT happen. After our first day on the beach, we realized that it was too much work to haul our kids out into the heat yet again. The hubs and I decided that we would have food DELIVERED for us and we would feed our kids their “regular” meals. THIS WAS WONDERFUL! Why you ask? Well, we DID NOT waste the food that our children would probably have refused at a restaurant AND we still got to enjoy a few good meals that we didn’t have to make!
Your biggest take away from this…GROCERY DELIVERY for vacation! I didn’t have to drag my 3 tired kids into a busy grocery store after a 10 hour drive! BEST THING EVER! Totally worth the $10 fee! And if you search around you can usually find a code that gets you your first few deliveries free!! GAME CHANGER! Do it. Just do it…
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That’s such a great idea to get food delivered while on vacation! This way you can have more time focusing on fun activities too!
Thanks for this, I’m planning a “real” vacation for my family soon and I need to prepare myself. Great tips, I will be packing snacks for sure.
OMG! I think of the vacations we have gone on with the kids where we’ve driven for hours, then had to stop at a grocery store before finally checking in. Of course, NO ONE feels like stopping at a store and shopping at that point. I MUST remember this for our next driving vacation. I’m not typically a fan of having groceries delivered (because I love running into people at the store and chatting, lol!) but see the need for it here!
I have my groceries delivered most of the time to my home, but I never ever thought of ordering while on vacay. So smart! We’re going on a trip soon so I’ll definitely be doing this!
Grocery delivery has changed the mom game for sure!!!!!
This is genius! Talk about saving space for when you travel and having less to pack up when you leave. Thank you for sharing such helpful tips.
Great tips! Thanks for this. We try to book rooms with kitchens and cook meals instead of going out.
Great tips for traveling with a large family, we love the idea you can have groceries delivered direct, thanks
Heck yes! With 6 in my family having groceries delivered would make all the difference! Love that idea, i am definitely going to try that.