As I pack for our family vacation today, I am once again overwhelmed. I have faint memories of what it was once like to pack for a trip and only be concerned about what I needed for myself. Now I must consider the needs of my kids as well. My boys are many things, but being careful packers is not one of them.
Based on my experience as a mom and as the daughter of a boy scout, I always feel the need to be prepared for the unexpected. I have the vomit kit for my two carsick-prone kids, the on-the-go medical kit for the accidents that always seem to happen away from home, and the back-up plan of activities in case we get rain for several days like last year.
I looked at my lists and all the tiny piles adding up around the house today, and I began to get discouraged. That’s when it hit me:
I would love it if we were down to a single backpack each, but we’re not at that point. Every trip we take, we manage to take a little bit less and that’s what I’m going to focus on today. We have been making awesome progress! Going on an eight day trip is both awesome and a tad overwhelming to me at the same time. Sure, I could go with just a couple outfits and nothing more and just buy what we might need while on vacation. But that’s also expensive and I cannot afford to do that right now.
Simplicity is Not One-Size-Fits-All
Don’t compare your efforts to simplify to anyone else. I was falling into that trap before I snapped myself out of it. I’ve always said that I’ll never be a backpack wearing minimalist with only 47 things to my name. It just brings a smile to my face whenever I think about how far we’ve come and all that we’ve broken free from.
You get to define what minimalism and simplicity mean to you and that’s why I love it so much!
Our Simple Vacation
Thank you to everyone who weighed in on ideas for low-cost, low-maintenance family vacations. I loved all the ideas and I’m sure I’ll be referring to them in the future. Although I love camping, with temperatures near 100 here in Georgia, I can’t stand the thought of it right now. I also don’t know how far away we’d have to drive to find cooler temperatures.
In the end, we decided to go back to the beach. We have a very generous family friend who is letting us use their gorgeous beach condo for free. The drive is farther than I’d like (see reference to car-sick kids above) but we just couldn’t think of an alternative that made sense for us.
