After months of quarantining my family decided it was time to hit the road. With our daughters school district implementing virtual school for the semester it was the perfect opportunity to take a flexcation, or schoolcation as some people call it. We had the most amazing time and think everyone should take one. We’re already planning our second school + vacation trip thanks to these 5 flexcation benefits we discovered.
Flexcations Can Save You Money
Flexcations can offer great savings by allowing you to travel in the off season. For example, in many places, the end of August through October can save you upwards of 20% off on flights, hotels and vacation homes. This is because school has started and the summer vacation rush has ended. We took our first flexcation mid September and were able to get a great deal on our Vrbo vacation home in comparison to their prices in busier months. Check out the vacation home we had the pleasure of staying in here, the home had 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, a huge den, and the most beautiful backyard.
On typical vacations lots of people eat out for every meal which can add up. However, we had a fully stocked kitchen at our Vrbo. This allowed us to save lots of money by cooking meals.
One downfall of having a big family vacation is even when you do want to eat out, getting a table more than four people can mean a long wait. When we didn’t feel like cooking we were able to order in and have a huge dinning room to fit us all.
Flexcations Allow You to Stay Longer without Missing School or Work
Sometimes it’s hard to justify going to a destination when you only have the weekend. You feel rushed to cross off every item on your bucket list and you often leave your vacation needing a vacation! However, with a flexcation you can stay longer mixing work and school with play if you work from home or have virtual school. Our Vrbo had plenty of space for us to spread out in different rooms so as not to disturb one another including a dedicated home office.
While certain hours during the week were dedicated to classes and work meetings as soon as school and work were finished we were able to enjoy our free time. We don’t have a pool at home so our kids especially loved being able to jump into our own private pool as soon as class was over.
Staying longer can also save you money as many vacation homes offer weekly and monthly discounts.
Flexcations Allow for Multiple Generations or Groups of Friends to Come Together
It is usually extremely hard to plan trips with other people outside of your immediate family. This is because everyone’s schedule is so different. Between school and work it can seem impossible. However, a flexcation solves that since everyone can work and attend classes on your trip. Even if someone has to miss an activity here or there they’ll still get valuable time with friends and family.
Renting a Vrbo vacation home for our flexcation meant my parents, brother and sister in law could join us all in the same home. We had plenty of game and movie nights, enjoying each other’s company. It’s usually hard for us all to get together especially since we don’t live in the same city so a flexcation in a vacation home was perfect, we could even retreat to our own rooms before we started to get on each others nerves!
Flexcations Allow You to Avoid Crowds
We’re taking our second flexcation late October, heading to the Great Smoky Mountains for some fall foliage adventures. October and November are the areas busiest time with vacation rentals for weekend dates booking up a year in advance. However, since we’re combining school, work and play we’re able to travel during the week when the crowds are minimal in comparison to the weekends. Oftentimes it’s hard to travel during the shoulder season with school aged kids but a flexcation makes it possible.
Flexcations may be the latest travel trend but I hope they’re here to stay. Did you find this article helpful? Please share it!
Disclaimer: This article was sponsored by Vrbo. Like always these opinions are 100% mine and true.
How do you typically split planning and cooking duties in a multi-gen trip like this? It sounds so appealing (we actually had one planned in May, but cancelled due to COVID), but on similar trips I have always been the one planning and cooking everything and it’s exhausting!
So I am the planner and kind of a control freak lol, so I always handle the planning but my mom usually helps or at least offers her opinion. In respect to the cooking my dad helps a lot with breakfast because no one trusts him to make anything else haha and my mom, hubby, brother and I will split everything else. We usually do a simple lunch or someone might buy something, like one day my brother just ordered pizza for lunch. For dinners we usually were each responsible for one part of the meal, my brother made the meet, hubby and mom each made a side and myself and the girls made dessert. Hope this helps!