We love to plan all of our road trips from scratch then book them ourselves on websites like Booking.com instead of using a travel agent. Reasons for this are that we have total control over the itinerary and also the cost. With 3 kids in tow it takes an extra bit of thinking ahead and planning to make sure the trip is tailored to all our needs. Therefore this does mean more research up front to find out all the cool places to visit and some insider tips on keeping the kids & adults alike happy. This is where I find blog posts from those people who've actually done it super useful. I am always out there finding other families that have travelling to the destination that we want to visit, we then get all of the top tips for free!
Having recently come back from an AMAZING family road trip to Eastern Canada I wanted to share all the places we visited and the route we took to help you plan your own amazing big family adventure!
Here is our Route -
Montreal
Quebec City
Mont Treblant
Ottawa
Coburg
Niagara Falls
Toronto
We flew into Montreal from the UK and out of Toronto back to the UK. The cost different was minimal vs in and out of the same city, so definitely something worth costing up if you want to see as much as possible and not double back on yourselves.
We stopped for a different number of nights in each location depending upon what we had to see. But we did have to be quite strict with ourselves on prioritising what we wanted to do as the maximum we time we had in any one place was 3 nights. You cant do everything you want in every place, so being really clear before you go on your top must see attractions is really important.
We also paced the driving throughout the trip. We only had 2 'long' driving days where we were in the car for 5-6 hours, although we also broke these driving days up with stops at the beach or with other attractions to see on the route. There are SO MANY Lakes in Eastern canada that you can very often find a fabulous picnic spot for a well earned stop and allow the kids to run around and stretch their legs.
We took a picnic hamper rucksack with us, this was a genius move. With 3 kids you really dont want to be searching for restaurants for meals 3 times a day, not only would it cost you a fortune it is also very tiresome and most kids really aren't that into sitting in a restaurant multiple times a day. We took the Osprey Farpoint 40L Travel Backpack, check it our on AMAZON. We were able to use it as a normal rucksack on the plane flying out then after a trip to the supermarket it comes into its own as a cool bag. We also purchased a couple of small ice packs from the first supermarket we visited then in the hotel we had a fridge with a small freezer compartment that we could chill them in over night...Highly recommend this as one of mys top travelling hacks.
My final top tip for this blog (look out for more blog posts on our Canada trip) is the types of hotels we stayed in. Here is a list of the hotel chains we stayed in -
Springhill Suites by Marriott
Quality Inn
Hampton Inn Suites
Holiday Inn
Homewood Suites
We also stayed slightly out of the city centre of a couple of occasions. We arent party animals (even without the kids in tow) so we know we will be back at the hotel and settling down to bed at a decent hour so there is really no need to have a hotel in the thick of the action. This massively keeps the cost of hotels down and because you have the car you can drive into the city whenever you want.
Top 3 reasons why we love these brands of hotel -
The rooms are big enough for a family larger than 4 people! This is HUGE. Being from Europe it is extremely difficult to find a hotel that can accomodate a family of 5 which is why we LOVE coming to North America so much!
They have PARKING and very often its FREE! You do need to double check because its not always free, especially if you stay closer to the city centre.
BREAKFAST - again this is very often FREE or included in the price I should say! Our kids absolutely LOVE hotel breakfast, OK its not always of the highest quality and it can lack variety from an adults perspective, but our kids love the freedom of helping themselves and it fills them up for the busy day ahead.
I hope you find these tips useful and it gives you more confidence in booking a road trip by yourselves. For any more advice or top tips please feel free to drop us a line at infobigfamilyadventures@gmail.com
We'd love to hear from you!
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