This summer, we had the amazing opportunity to visit Kauai, Hawaii with my WHOLE family. That’s 12 adults and 18 kids (ranging from 10 months to 15 years)! Here are all the details about how we make big family trips like this work, what we did, what we ate, and how sleep went while we were there!
(And if you happen to want details on Oahu, I did a post about that on my personal blog several years ago when Russ and I went!)
How We Make These Big Family Trips Work
Not all families plan trips like these, and the reasons for that vary, I’m sure. Money, time, family relationships, and even just all the details that go into planning a trip play a part! Here’s how my family handles these subjects.
Money
My dad is a hard worker and a successful entrepreneur, so my parents have done well financially. They always say that they don’t plan to leave us (their five kids) any inheritance when they die — instead they’ll give us inheritance while they’re still alive, in the form of funding family trips. Personally, I LOVE this! I love that they spend their money to get us all together to create memories and build strong family bonds. Since they cover all aspects of the trip (flights, accommodations, food, activities), finances are never something that hold any of us back from going. I hope to be able to do the same thing for my own family one day!
Time
I’m lucky enough to come from a family where family vacations and family time have been HUGE values, so we’ve always made it happen. My parents plan these big trips a year or more in advance so that we all have plenty of time to make accommodations for work or (when it’s an adults-only trip) childcare. So far, we’ve done trips every two or three years, rather than every year, so that we still have plenty of opportunities to take trips with our own smaller families.
Family Relationships
Again, I’m lucky in this department! We have very little family drama. There’s occasionally hurt feelings, misunderstandings, or personality clashes, but we forgive quickly and for the most part, we truly enjoy being together. It makes it easy to prioritize the trips when we like being together! Plus, we’re all scattered across a few different states, so it’s a treat to get to be together for a whole week.
Details
Another thing that could make such a big trip difficult is all the details that go into it. My mom is so good at thinking of everything ahead of time! She often books flights using points, she books accommodations using their timeshare, and she books activities ahead of time to make sure everything will work out. My parents usually also fly into town a day or two early to do any preparations, like grocery shopping! This is SO much work, and our trips would never happen so smoothly without her. (Although, I did tell her after this last trip that she needs to start delegating some of these responsibilities so she doesn’t have to carry all that weight on her own!)
Along with the planning details, there was also the trickier aspect this time about SO MANY PEOPLE. We definitely had to be willing to split up and watch each other’s kids sometimes to make different activities work.
What We Did
My parents started going to Kauai when I was young, and it quickly became a favorite travel location for them! We’ve been as a family on a few different occasions over the years, but this was the first time taking such a BIG group! Since I’ve been there before, my favorite activities this time were anything new, or anything that felt new because of the bigger group or because it was the first time we brought our kids. Here were some of my favorite activities from this trip!
Relax
Haha I know, I know, kind of a boring one to start with, but I truly did love that we had downtime on this trip! Due to a last-minute plane change, about half of us didn’t have our luggage for the first day and night of the trip, which meant we couldn’t do much — we didn’t have hiking shoes or swimsuits or anything else we might need to venture out, so instead we stayed close to the condo!
A few adults took a bunch of kids on a long walk, we borrowed swimsuits from each other and played in the pool, and we went to a farmers market. And since our family trips are usually pretty packed with fun and activities, it felt like a nice change of pace to have a little bit more time to just relax and be together with our family that we don’t see very often!
Boat Ride
The boat ride was the big event from this trip, and definitely my favorite. Not only was it new for me, but we got to bring Ada, and she LOVED it! The boat ride was supposed to be for ages 5 and up, but they allowed our four 4-year-olds to come, and we were so glad! Ada is kind of a scaredy-cat in many ways, so I was nervous she would be scared of this, too, but she just smiled SO big the whole time!
She loved the wind in her face, she loved seeing a pod of dolphins so close up (I did, too!), and she loved the cookies the captain passed out (haha she claimed that was her favorite part). Russ and I loved the beautiful Na Pali coast, the sea life we saw, and swimming in the ocean (Ada did not like this part, and quickly got back into the boat).
Family Luau
We’ve been to luaus on Hawaii trips before, but always commercial ones. When the idea of a luau was brought up, my brother who lived in Hawaii for two years (to serve a mission) liked the idea, but only if it was a family-style luau — one that was put on by regular Hawaiian people living their regular lives. So that’s what we did!
We got to see/hear/do all the typical luau things — fire dancing, Hawaiian music, poi balls, drums, headdress weaving — plus eat food that was cooked in an imu (underground oven)! It was so fun to do with just my family, and awesome to be able to ask questions and interact with the performers.
Questions
This one isn’t Hawaii-specific, but it’s a part of the trip that was really important to me! I wanted to make sure we had meaningful conversations while we were together, so I sent out an email ahead of time with four questions, and then spent the whole trip asking different people different questions and had a lot of great conversations as a result. The questions were:
What are three character traits you LOVE about yourself?
What is a favorite Petersen memory?
What’s a story you hope your kids and grandkids know about your life?
What’s something you really admire about your spouse?
Other activities included: a kayak adventure & hike to Secret Falls (Russ and I skipped out on this one because we’d done it before and didn’t feel the need to do it again), family pictures (never fun but always worth it!), church, Waimea Canyon, beaching, fishing, swimming (at the pool), golfing, and hiking.
What We Ate
Food is a huge part of travel for most people, my family definitely included! As I mentioned earlier, my mom got groceries for the week for many of the meals, but we also ate quite a few delicious things out.
Sugar Loaf Pineapple
Seriously, it’s like candy. You can get it cut up at a farmer’s market, or you can even get it made into an ice cream (made from only pineapple) at certain farmer’s markets. It’s the best pineapple ever (and I’m not a huge pineapple fan), and it’s worth every penny.
Porky’s
At Porky’s you have 4 simple menu items: hot dogs, sausages, grilled cheese, or rice bowls. What makes them great is the pork-and-pineapple combo that goes on whichever menu item you choose. It’s super yummy, and definitely not your average grilled cheese (my personal choice :) )!
Jojo’s
Jojo’s shaved ice is a favorite of my family’s, and we go several times when in Kauai! Russ and I always choose the Tropical Breeze (guava, lilikoi, and mango flavors with macadamia nut ice cream and haupia cream topping). Yum!
Duke’s
Duke’s is definitely a splurge, but it’s so yummy! Russ and I actually got to go on a date there one night because we spent the day watching all the kids 4 and under (seven kids) while the rest of the group did the Secret Falls hike. I love the macadamia nut and herb crusted fresh fish and the hula pie :) Russ and I also got the salad bar addition, but decided it’s not really worth it. It’s a cheap add-on, which makes it tempting, but the salad offerings aren’t that great and the rest of the food filled us plenty well!
Lilikoi Bar and Grill
We just got burgers and fries, but they were really good :)
How Sleep Went
With me being in my line of work, I prioritize sleep more than most people, even when it’s inconvenient — usually. But since this trip was with my whole family, I knew I’d have to make some sacrifices when it came to sleep, and I made peace with that before leaving on the trip. However, that didn’t mean I wasn’t still nervous about it! I always teach that kids who are well-rested most of the time can handle having their schedules thrown off every now and then, but now it was time to put it to the test with my own kids!
And guess what?? Sleep actually went REALLY well on the trip.
Holly (19 months)
Some days on the trip, the littlest ones couldn’t join in the activity, so someone stayed back with them. Prioritizing sleep for Holly was easy on those days!
Some days, when we were going to the other side of the island and spending most of the day there, Holly took a one-cycle nap (30-40 minutes) on car rides or in arms. Luckily, there were only like 2 days like this on the trip.
Since we had a travel day leading into the trip and some missed sleep as a side effect, I found that Holly was willing to sleep basically anytime we laid her down. Even on days when she took a long afternoon nap, I still put her down at 7pm and she always conked out. She slept in until 7 or 8am most days on the trip, and even until 10:15 one morning!! She was on a 2-nap schedule prior to the trip, but we wound up doing one long nap most days on the trip because she kept sleeping in so late. Even after sleeping in the car one time, we put her down right when we got back to the condo, and she proceeded to take a long nap! I don’t know about your kids, but my kids almost never fall back asleep in their crib if they started the nap in their car seat.
Ada (4 years, 9 months)
During the trip, I let Ada stay up a little later than her usual bedtime (usually not more than an hour late) most days because she was having so much fun with cousins. As a result, she usually fell right to sleep and even slept in a little later than usual (not always the typical results of later bedtimes!). A couple nights she fought me a little bit on bedtime, but usually she was tired enough to want to go to bed.
We had a couple mornings where we had to wake her up early for an activity (~5:45am), and she did fine with the early wake-ups, but definitely fell asleep on car rides those days. Totally fine, and I didn’t adjust her bedtime at all for these car naps.
At home, Ada does one hour of quiet time first thing in the morning (“morning time”), and two hours of quiet time after lunch. On vacation, I was willing to let all of that go, but I did use it when I needed to. If she woke up before I was ready to get out of bed, I'd tell her to go back to her room for morning time, which she was usually happy to do because of new airplane toys and sometimes cousins in there with her. If we ever came back from an outing and Russ and I (and Holly) wanted a nap, we'd have Ada do some quiet time in her room or the common space of our condo room. If she was playing with cousins, that was fine, she just had to leave us alone to sleep :)
Kids are Adaptable
There’s no clear-cut formula for how to do sleep on vacation, but every time I do a trip with my kids, I’m reminded of how adaptable kids are — even if they miss sleep during the week, they can make up for it as long as you offer it! Try to offer a little more sleep where you can on vacation, and definitely offer more sleep when you return home. And remember, ENJOY your trip! Don't spend it stressing hardcore about sleep!
While we did lots of fun things on the trip, the best part was really being together :) There were still things that went wrong (like the lost luggage, super delayed meals, overtired kids, a trip to the hospital for a sprained ankle, and a bunch of kids who got sick on the last day or just following the trip), but it was still so good to spend that time together, building our sibling relationships, and the kids building their cousin relationships. I’m so grateful for this big family of mine!
Have any questions about the trip or anything related? Feel free to ask! :)