Welcome to Tips for Family Trips!
I'm Allison Laypath. I started Tips for Family Trips because I want to help you plan debt-free dream vacations.
I live near Salt Lake City, Utah with my husband and two young adult children. We have been traveling with our kids since they were newborns… which adds up to 20+ years of family travel experience! We are a typical middle-class family who knows ALL about never having enough money or time, backseat tantrums (and sometimes front-seat tantrums), and many other common family vacation challenges.
But I love to travel – anywhere! – and I love spending time with my family. So the rewards of family travel outweigh the challenges every time.
A dream trip can mean a lot of things, and if you're like me, you have more than one dream. Many of my dream trips have been close to home and relatively inexpensive.
But for years, my BIG dream trip to Europe – anywhere in Europe – was stuck in the “Someday Zone”. There was never enough money or time. And it was intimidating because we had never traveled outside North America.
Flying across the ocean to an unfamiliar place with our kids… What could go wrong?
It pushed all my anxiety buttons. And it was expensive. And we could only go during summer vacation – the most expensive and crowded time of year. “Someday” started to feel like “never.”
Then my sister took her kids to Europe and she shared some of her tips for finding affordable flights. If she could do it, I could do it!
Six weeks later, we found cheap flights to Paris, and six months later, we traveled to London and Paris with our kids. The trip was all we hoped it would be and we made so many great family memories.
The great thing about planning a successful dream trip is that it makes your comfort zone bigger. We took an amazing family trip to Japan in 2023. And just a few months later, we took a Christmas trip to Austria! Next up… Argentina and Brazil in 2025!
Now that my kids (ages 18 and 21) are old enough to travel on their own, they are taking all my travel tips and planning trips of their own – debt-free, on student budgets.
My daughter studied abroad in Austria for six months and developed some crazy travel skills while she was there. She recently took a 10-day trip from Salt Lake City to Europe that included Dublin, Berlin, Salzburg, and Amsterdam for around $1,000 TOTAL.
My son planned a Jeep trip to Moab, Utah with friends for his senior trip. He and his friends (and one Jeep dad) successfully planned the budget, hotel, meals, transportation, and activities for an epic vacation.
On Tips for Family Trips, I've been sharing all my best travel tips, trip itineraries, favorite destinations, and more since 2012. I can't wait to share it all with you!
