The Benefits Of Homing In On Your Family's Favorite Holiday Destination

In many ways, discovering new sights, tastes, and experiences is the best thing about travel. This is why cruise excursions can be so great – they keep things interesting and pack a huge amount of new experiences into one trip! Even if you don’t fancy life at sea, the ability to head somewhere brand new on vacation every year is all part of the fun. At least, that how it has been for our family.

But, there is one vacation joy that doesn’t receive the attention it deserves, and that’s the simple pleasure of returning to a spot that you love. Think about it; we find these amazing countries and get a taste of what they have to offer, then we leave and never return because there are so many other countries out there.

In reality, though, while you might not want to give up this element of discovery-based travel, there’s a lot to be said for returning to a destination more than once. In fact, alternating those explorative trips with a go-to vacation spot could benefit you and the family for a few pressing reasons that we’re going to consider here.

# 1 - A Chance to Create a Home Away from Home

Even avid travelers often feel the sting of long trips abroad, with most of us glad to get back to our home comforts and familiar foods. This is somewhat inevitable given the in-flux nature of most trips, especially if we forever head to new destinations.

By instead making an effort to return to the same destination at least semi-regularly, you take a lot of the disruptive nature of travel out of the equation. Instead, you can work on creating a little home away from home, where you can all truly relax without having to worry about learning a load of new stuff. You can return to your favorite restaurants, visit shops you love, and enjoy knowing how to get around. We have returned to Oceanside, CA countless times and love the familiarity that we have as we pull into town.

If you find a particular favorite spot, you might even opt to look at property for rent or sale which will quite literally create a second home for your family. That way, you can not only travel in comfort for much less cost, but you can also ensure that your kids bring their kids in the future, creating a family tradition that’s guaranteed to stand the test of time.

# 2 - A True Lesson in Different Cultures

The chance to learn about different cultures is one of the main reasons to take your kids abroad or even travel close to home. As well as helping them to develop new language skills and try new foods, increasing awareness on a cultural level can be a huge help towards ensuring that they develop empathy, acceptance, and a greater understanding of how others live.

The trouble is that when you go from place to place, you’re only ever skimming the surface. This can, of course, still be beneficial (and fun!) Besides this, it’s incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to get a true feel for a culture in such brief periods.

By comparison, selecting a destination that you visit often can offer a much more deep-dive and beneficial cultural lesson. Far from just dabbling in the language, this could see your kids becoming truly bilingual as they learn more with every trip, and perhaps even make regular friends. Make this spot a regular feature in their lives growing up, and you can guarantee that that cuisine, language, and way of life becomes ingrained in a way that it never would from short trips to different places.

# 3 - Stress-free Travel at Last

As amazing as travel can be, it can also be somewhat stressful. Not only do you have to arrange transport to areas you don’t know, but you also need to juggle with maps and possible language barriers to get around. While it’s always worth the effort in the end, that can be pretty stressful, especially if you’re navigating buses or trying to reach far-flung attractions. You’ll certainly need that poolside massage by the end of the day!

By comparison, returning somewhere altogether more familiar can provide the stress-free experiences that you truly need to unwind at last. Forget maps, your knowledge of the area should be enough to get you to those must-see hotspots, and even to and from your accommodation with ease. On top of this, you won’t need to struggle with language dictionaries and the communication barriers they can pose. Instead, you should at least be able to speak key phrases within a few trips, meaning that you can do a food shop, order in a restaurant, and greet people in their language.

# 4 - A Chance to Head Off the Beaten Road

While mainstream tourist destinations are great as a novelty, they can be busy and not altogether representative of true life in a location. By comparison, heading to lesser-known attractions off the beaten track or even just eating at restaurants that aren’t on the main tourist strip can offer incredible and far more authentic experiences.

The trouble is that if you’re only in a place for a limited period, you typically only have a chance to see the most obvious of tourist hot-spots. Even if you do have spare time on your hands, it’s unlikely to be enough to truly explore and find these kinds of out-of-the-way places.

By comparison, heading to a spot over and over means that you have all the time in the world to explore and even become a regular in locations that many tourists could only dream of finding, meaning that every trip will be filled with little gems that you’ve struggled to find elsewhere.

#5 - Build a Sense of Tradition with Your Family

When you return to the same vacation spot on a regular basis, your family can bond over shared experiences you’ve had together over several years. It will be fun to reminisce about things that happened 2, 5, or even 10 years ago when your family was younger. It would be fun to pull out pictures from multiple years taken at the same vacation destination and watch the growth of your family and remember all of the good times you’ve had together in this location. Building these memories with your family really is one of the main reasons I believe that family travel is so valuable.

Conclusion

Traveling to new destinations is amazing, and there’s no way you should give that up. We certainly plan to keep exploring new places! But, it might well be worth dipping your toes into repeat trips and seeing how they suit you. You might just be surprised by how much doing so can enhance your vacation experiences moving forward.