a practical family approach to travel

Plan Family Escapes is a family travel planning resource created to help parents make thoughtful, confident decisions about travelling with children — especially during the school‑age years. We believe family travel isn’t about visiting the greatest number of destinations, but about choosing trips that are genuinely meaningful, practical, and suited to the family you’re travelling with.

We’re a UK‑based family of three — Clare, Mark and Joshua — and we’ve built our travel style around experiences that balance adventure, comfort, cost and child wellbeing. Travel changes when you have children, but it doesn’t have to become complicated. With the right planning, it can become even more rewarding.

What you’ll find here

Plan Family Escapes is built around practical insight, not glossy travel storytelling. You’ll find:

• Real itineraries (and exactly how we structured them)

• How we book internal flights, trains and tours abroad

• The real costs of trips and what drove the budget

• The best season to go, and the weather we actually experienced

• What children tend to enjoy (and what’s more likely to feel tiring), particularly for school‑aged travel

We’re also honest about our style: we’re not a hardcore “outdoorsy” family. We prioritise a comfortable base and best overall value — great location, space, breakfast, parking (where it matters), and the details that make family travel feel smooth.

our focus: school aged family travel

We write primarily for parents who want travel to remain part of family life rather than something that has to be paused after having children. Our strongest focus is school‑age travel, because it often brings the best balance: children are more independent, more curious, and more capable of engaging with culture, history and nature — while still benefiting from a trip paced and planned around family needs.

About the author

I’m Clare, and I write everything on Plan Family Escapes. Travel has been part of my life since I was young — my first independent long‑haul trip was flying to Australia at thirteen to visit a school friend, and it shaped how I view travel as a way of learning about the world.

When Mark and I began travelling together, skiing became a shared passion. When our son Joshua joined our family, travel became something we planned around rather than paused. Joshua took his first long‑haul trip at three, and travel has continued to be part of our family life ever since.

Like many parents, we were often told travel would become harder after having children. Our experience has been that it requires more planning and consideration — but it can also become more meaningful. This site exists to share what we’ve learned so other families can plan trips with clarity, realism and confidence.

TRANSPARENCY

Some links on this site are affiliate links. If you book through them, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. It helps support Plan Family Escapes, and we only ever recommend places, products and services we’d genuinely use for our own family.

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