Holidays To Look Forward To

As you may be aware, depending on how many posts of mine you’ve read, we love love love going on holiday. I’m very much of the opinion that you work to live, not live to work and for us going on holiday truly shows this most clearly.

As such we are often talking about where we would like to take N on holiday when he is older. I think when they’re a baby you go on holiday for yourself mostly because babies won’t pick up on what’s going on. However, there comes a point when a baby turns into a child and becomes much more aware of what’s happening around them and suddenly holidays become really beneficial for them too.

So where are we thinking…?

Florida

Harry Potter World in Orlando
Harry Potter World in Orlando

We’ve been to Florida a couple of times, more specifically Orlando. It’s very rare for me to go on holiday to somewhere twice, so I either must love it or there must be a lot to do. Luckily in Florida it’s both of those things.

If you’ve not been to Florida I’m pretty damn sure you’ll have heard of it and have a very good idea what’s there. Everyone immediately thinks of theme parks, and yes there’s loads, including Disney, Universal and Seaworld, amongst others. On top of this though there’s Kennedy Space Centre for the nerds like me, some amazing beaches, many other entertaining places like Gatorland, malls and great places to eat, including Cheesecake Factory!

On both holidays here we’ve rented a villa. We always want our own pool when we go, and having a villa feels like it gives us more freedom than being in a hotel. We choose to eat in or out when we want, play in the games room, go in the pool, go to the parks or do what we want without having to think about crowds or other people. We can also just chill in the lounge if we want, or do whatever we want.

With a child it’s hard to say what we would do next time, either in a Disney hotel to have breakfast with the Disney characters, or in a villa to have that flexibility and privacy. However, this is certainly somewhere we want to go with N!

Iceland

Northern Lights!!
Northern Lights!!

Iceland? Perhaps that’s a bit of an unusual place to go with a child, or perhaps not somewhere that immediately comes to mind, but it was one of the first places I thought of going with Clare and N.

But why is it one of the first places I thought of? Well, a few years ago Clare bought me a holiday there as an extra special treat to try and see the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights if you like. We went hunting the Northern Lights on our first night in a minibus. I do mean ‘hunting’ too. The driver was receiving calls and texts telling him where on the island he should go, and off we went. If you’ve seen the film Twister, then imagine that but chasing after the Northern Lights, it was basically that. We eventulally found them and it was one massive thing ticked off my bucket list. Simply due to that it was probably the best holiday in my life.

However, in addition to that we also did a Golden Circle tour which took us over the glaciers and all around Iceland. It was a fantastic tour.

Both of these things I’d love to show N in the future. I can’t see why he wouldn’t love it as much as me, I just can’t wait until he is old enough to enjoy it and remember it.

New York

New York New York!
New York New York!

If you’ve never been to New York you really should try to go. It’s like nowhere over been before really, there’s just something that makes it a bit different to other cities, that just makes it New York. Perhaps it’s Times Square, or the amazing Carnegie Deli (you must go here!), or the various sporting events, perhaps it’s the taxis that drive around, maybe it’s broadway, or a myriad of other things that just make it unique.

We went there for five nights quite a few years ago now and loved it. The views are amazing and there’s so much to see and do that we hardly stopped. I think we came home for a rest!

It’ll be great to take N there in the future though. We will have to make sure we watch Home Alone 2 before we go though so we can see the sights of the film! One of our favourite Christmas films!

Rome

We got engaged here!
We got engaged here!

We got engaged in Rome whilst sitting by the Trevi Fountain. I asked Clare to “do me a favour” by marrying me, and I don’t think she has agreed to anything so quickly and without question before or since! Then, before I had even put the ring on her finger, when I literally had it in my hand, someone came over to us and said “ah ring, you want a balloon?” and tried to sell us a balloon! No we don’t want a bloody balloon, we’ve just got engaged you moron!

That’s what I thought anyway, I actually did the British thing of being polite and saying “no thanks”!

Anyway, since then we’ve wanted to go back at some point. There’s so much history there it’s fantastic to see. Perhaps we could tie this in with a time that N is learning about Romans in school so it’s of extra benefit. I think there’s something special though in going back to the place where you got engaged and showing your child, and we will certainly do that.

Holy Island

Holy Island is beautiful!
Holy Island is beautiful!

This is a bit of a personal one for us really, especially me.

In 2012 my mum passed away after a very short battle with bowel cancer. It’s such a shame than N won’t get to meet his Grandma (and sadly not his Grandad either as my father-in-law has also passed away). I know, given what she was like with my nieces and nephew, that my Mum would have been simply overcome with joy to have another baby in the family. We wouldn’t have been able to keep her away!

However, as she is no longer physically with us we are keen that N should know as much about her as we can tell him. Things like her favourite colour was purple, tell him of the time she poured Buck’s Fizz over the Christmas turkey when she panicked as it started bubbling out after she opened it, and many other things, like her favourite places to visit.

There’s no doubt her favourite place was Holy Island. The amount of times she went here in a short space of time was unbelievable! It’s over three hours from where Mum and Dad lived to get there, but I remember once they just went for the day! The day! That’s how much they liked going there together. As such when N is older we will take him there to think about Grandma. We’ve been very recently on our holiday to Seahouses which was special in itself, but it’ll be different again when he is older and more aware.

Lapland

Let's meet Santa in Lapland!
Let’s meet Santa in Lapland!

We are mad about Christmas. We love it. The build up to it (though it starts too early nowadays even for me), the buying of presents, Christmas coffee in your local coffee shop, it’s all amazing. Even thinking about this now in the height of summer is getting me all wistful!

So imagine being giddy about Christmas and then having a baby and getting to relive even more excitement through their eyes! I’d go so far as to say that the thought of how excited N will be could make the futures Christmas years even more exciting than they ever have been!

As such, how exciting would it be to go to Lapland to see Santa?! Go sledging in the snow, be pulled along by dogs (though I’ve heard you shouldn’t sit at the front as their poo will fly out and hit you), drink hot chocolate outside at night with beautiful stars in the sky. Amazing. Give us a few years for when N knows more about it and we’ll be doing this one!

There You Have It

So there you go. Some of the main places that I (and Clare!) want to take N when he is older. We are so excited about the amazing things we can do with him and show him that we would take him now if we could but at six months old he won’t remember it. I guess we’ve just got to be patient!

What have been some of your best holidays with your children? Where would you like to take them? I’m always open to new ideas!

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