For many years in a row we’ve done a big fall trip (often to Disneyworld) or two. That meant hauling all of the kids and all of their stuff and their car seats on planes trains and automobiles. This year, due to COVID we are opting out of air travel for leisure. We may have to fly in the event of an emergency, but our current plan is to avoid air travel until we have herd immunity. But we hadn’t taken a vacation since November of 19, unless you count moving (which I most certainly do not) and we just couldn’t see not having some getaways for another several months.

This spring someone at work shared photos from a family trip to South Dakota and I was smitten. Casual interest shifted to planning when I learned the Black Hills were only 6-7 hours away by car and that Magnus had two days off from e-learning.

We got some fantastic recommendations on lodging and activities from my colleague but unfortunately due to how long it took to get Aaron’s travel authorization approved we were scrambling to find a cabin the week of our trip. Fortune was on our side and we managed to snag a couple of nights at a charming little cabin in the Black Hills for about $125 a night. The place was tiny but very well-appointed and well suited for our needs and we didn’t have to interact with anyone which fit our COVID protocols nicely!

There was a main area with a queen bed and then a loft with another queen and a twin bed. It didn’t have a sofa, but we didn’t spend much time indoors other than sleeping, snacking or showering, and it had so much charm! We’d definitely recommend it for couples or families (just be aware of the steep tiny stairs for kiddos)

For lodging as our family has grown to include more kiddos, we’ve found it increasingly important to have at least a kitchenette. Ideally we also like to have at least one bedroom so that we can shut a door on a napping baby and have some noise separation, but we’ve compromised on both of those things when location or budget require. If the place we are staying has a kitchen or even a mini fridge, we make one of our first steps on arrival a grocery or convenience store to get the essentials (diet coke, milk, something for breakfast, something for bedtime snack).

Overall we’ve found that successful trips need a little more scheduling than they did pre-kids. We like to make a day by day plan that covers the basics (travel, lodging, meals, naps, key activities) and then flex as needed. I like to identify a restaurant or two in the areas we plan to be around meal times to avoid dragging hungry kids around trying to find something. It was even more important this trip as we were limiting our dining to restaurants with outdoor seating, this takes research and verification! For example, the breakfast spot we planned to stop at our first morning in Cheyenne had outdoor dining advertised and recent reviews that mentioned it, but when we pulled up all of the outdoor tables were stacked out of use. We almost never adhere strictly to a plan, but by laying it out we have better options for flexing and are less likely to forget important things like naps or pumping sessions.

We’ve found our kids can do about 3-4 hours tops in the car without a meaningful break, so if we’re traveling further than that we try to plan kid-friendly stops along the way where the kiddos can run off some energy. In non-COVID times this usually meant planning meal stops at restaurants with playgrounds, but this time it meant hikes along the way!

We use the website/app AllTrails to find and plan our hikes. For this trip I looked on the map to plan where we would likely need breaks on the road and then searched for trails in those areas on AllTrails and saved them to my list.

It was a great trip! We had to flex a little on some of our plans, one day we got up late, one segment Google maps tried to route us through a Reservation that was closed to outsiders due to COVID and that caused is to miss a hike, etc, but overall our plans served us really well. Trip highlights to come!