‘Once-in-a-lifetime’ family trips are overrated: how to avoid the pitfalls

Don’t let unrealistic expectations derail your dream family trip. Focusing too much on creating a ‘perfect once-in-a-lifetime’ experience can lead to disappointment. To help you make memories for all the right reasons, we’ve put together a list of common pitfalls to avoid.

Once you’ve decided to take the leap and book your dream family adventure, the next challenge is fitting everything in. When so much time and money is involved, it’s natural to feel the pressure to make it a trip you’ll remember forever.

But when you’re travelling as a family, with different interests and expectations to balance, there’s always a risk that your once-in-a-lifetime trip will be one you’ll never do again, but for all the wrong reasons.

We’ve had our fair share of successes and missteps over the years with big family trips. Let us take you through some tips and tricks to help you get the most out of your next big family adventure.

Trying to fit too much in

This is the main reason most trips fail. Throughout the planning and preparation stage, you’ll often hear the question ‘But when will be next be able to do it, if we don’t do it now?’. Treat this question as a warning sign.

If you let that logic take hold, you’ll suddenly be booking night-time safaris, hot-air balloon rides, cooking classes and scuba diving, all within the first two days of the trip. When the whole menu is laid out in front of you, take your time and choose the right dishes, not everything.

Packing too much in will leave you feeling jaded and rushed. There won’t be time to enjoy today’s activity because the next one starts at sunrise. Instead, choose the things you know you’ll love and be selective.

Searching for perfection is expensive

Once-in-a-lifetime trips are almost always expensive, perhaps because we instinctively (but incorrectly) associate price with quality. You might find yourself booking a five-star hotel with an infinity pool, not because you particularly want it, but because you assume the price tag will guarantee an amazing experience. In many parts of the world, the opposite can often be true.

Don’t let the pressure to have an dream trip push you into always going premium. Budget travel can still be memorable and often leaves you with the best stories.

Going where the other tourists say you should go

We’ve seen it so many times on people’s social media accounts. A photo or reel will appear at a well-known location that we just know the person taking the photo won’t be enjoying, but they’re ticking a box to say they’ve been there and got the Instagram likes.

After a few weeks, the Instagram grid looks great, but they haven’t experienced anything new or managed to find any places that would’ve suited them more.

It’s understandable. With so much online, there’s a sense that if you’re on a once-in-a-lifetime trip, you should be visiting certain places. But don’t fall into the trap of living someone else’s dream trip. Find your own pace and style.

Not slow travel

It’s very hard to travel slowly when you’re trying to fit everything into your itinerary. One of the great joys of family travel is stepping away from your usual busy routine and slowing down for a few days or weeks.

Otherwise, everyone gets tired, feeling the stress of constantly having to board the next flight, check into the next hotel, or navigate yet another border crossing. Instead, slow things down and get to know the place you’re in a bit better.

Doing what you think you should do rather than what you want to do

Once-in-a-lifetime trips are supposed to be epic, right? If you don’t visit all the famous places in a country, eat at the best restaurants, or see at least two of the wonders of the world, then what was the point?

Some families worry that if they’re spending this much time and money on a trip, they ought to have something to show for it. Happy memories aren’t enough, you also need to be seen to be enjoying it.

All of this is, of course, wrong. Particularly when you’re travelling with younger children, their idea of what’s memorable is likely to be very different from yours. They might prefer staying at the playground to heading off to the Eiffel Tower, or a day at the hotel pool might sound better than exploring Angkor Wat, however amazing the temples are.

You’re the only ones who can shape your trip, so don’t let other families dictate your itinerary.

Too much pressure for it to be perfect

Flights cancelled due to bad weather, a theme park unexpectedly closed for maintenance, an expensive night safari with no animal sightings. All of these can feel like the end of the world if you’ve planned them for months and they were a key part of your trip.

The bigger and more ambitious you try to make a trip, the more pressure there is for every stage to run like clockwork. But family travel isn’t meant to feel like a large-scale project at work. The joy of the best trips comes from the small successes, not the one-off extravaganzas that become make or break.

Travel works better when there’s room for imperfection.

Kids don’t always experience travel the same way adults do

Parents and children don’t always view travel in the same way. Adults might see a successful trip as a series of incredible experiences, one bucket-list moment after another, each one building towards that once-in-a-lifetime trip.

Kids also remember the small things, whether that’s sandcastles, chocolate ice creams, or laughing so hard your head hurts.

That’s not to say kids don’t remember and appreciate the big moments too. From experience, we know how much ours still talk about the Taj Mahal and Victoria Falls, for example. It’s a case of less is more, so try to mix in a few silly days alongside the big-ticket ones.

It sets unrealistic expectations for future trips

Adventurous travel can be a regular part of your family’s life, it doesn’t have to be a one-off experience. Be wary of putting all your eggs in one basket and making this the only ‘proper’ adventure you ever do together.

If you go all-in on this trip, what will be left next time? And will you have raised expectations for future trips? You might be asked why you’re not able to go diving again, or hear complaints about ‘only’ staying in a three-star hotel.

Instead, plan for lots of smaller adventures over the coming years. Spread your budget and excitement across multiple trips rather than one all-or-nothing holiday. If you want your kids to follow in your travelling footsteps later in life, help them understand that travel can be an ongoing adventure, not just something defined by expensive or dramatic experiences.

You miss the joy of discovering places more than once

We love returning to the same places regularly, whether that’s the medinas of Morocco, the rivers of Borneo, or the backpacker streets of Bangkok. Once-in-a-lifetime trips often include expensive destinations that you may only be able to visit once.

Every family needs their own special places where they feel at home and welcomed by the locals. By breaking a big trip into smaller adventures, you’ll start to find your own corners of the world and enjoy returning to them over the years, seeing how they, and you, have changed.

Final thoughts on once-in-a-lifetime trips

Any quality time spent together as a family is worthwhile and something to embrace. Combine that with a new country and culture, and you’re already halfway there to a dream trip. After all, the worst day travelling usually beats the best day at home.

So try not to add an extra layer of expectation onto your dream trip. You can’t force a once-in-a-lifetime family trip into existence, it needs to appear in its own time, the result of you all slowing down, choose the places you genuinely want to visit, and, above all, appreciating the fact that you’re all together making memories.