Traveling as a single parent with kids in tow can be a daunting challenge; just keeping your children happy and amused is enough of a problem, and enjoying yourself at the same time might see downright impossible! If you've never considered hiring a family guide, you should know that they could make the difference between your holiday becoming a hectic, tiring ordeal and it being a splendid experience that you and your kids will treasure for years to come.
We've examined the best strategies for choosing and vetting a qualified family guide, based on your particular needs and vacation destination. Now that you've done that, let's take a look at the many ways that your family guide can assist you in pulling off this vacation with all the bells and whistles.
Starting just after you've signed your contract, there are a multitude of ways your guide can be an invaluable aid, including before anyone's set foot on an airplane or even bought tickets. For example:
1. Planning and Packing. Family guides are most useful when they have some firsthand knowledge of the area you're traveling to, so with any luck, your guide is chock-full of good ideas regarding your locale. Give them some leeway in choosing embarkation and arrival times, schedules, reservations, and picking from the many sights and activities that you'll have available to you when you get there. They'll also be able to help you pack up, and choose what to take that you might otherwise have overlooked, and what you thought you might need but should really just leave behind.
2. Just Enough Privacy. Of course, you want to spend lots of time with your family, but as a single parent on holiday, you should take the opportunity to get out and live a little just for yourself! A family guide can be your surrogate kid-sitter for an evening when you just want a little you-time, and don't want to worry about making sure everyone is well-fed, teeth-brushed, and tucked-in at the end of the night. You don't get too many of these chances as it is, so let your trusted family guide handle the routine while you dip out to a spa or a night on the town, secure in the knowledge that your children are in good, safe, experienced hands.
Naturally, you'll want to be kept up to date about your kids' activities while you're out, so you can get the full report about their behavior from the family guide when you return. However, you'll want this information to remain expressly between the two of you, so be sure to get your guide to sign a confidentiality clause when you negotiate their employment contract. That way, you can be sure that you :and only you :will get the full disclosure about everyone's comings and goings if you decide to take a night away from the group, preserving both your family's privacy and your piece of mind.
3. Observe and Adjust. A good family guide will have their own way of getting around and leading the pack when necessary, but should never be so forthright that you feel you have to just go along with whatever they say. This is your vacation, after all, so feel free to let your family guide know the kinds of things you'd like to see and experience, and the sorts of activities you want to your kids to have, and those you'd like to keep them away from. The guide should have no problem picking up on your preferred vacation style and adjusting themselves accordingly :that's part of what being a guide is all about!
4. Setting Goals. Keeping up the enthusiasm and fun of the vacation is a primary responsibility of a family guide, and one of the biggest burdens they can lift from your shoulders. You spend plenty of your own time trying to make sure that your children not only do the things they ought to, but grow to like doing them even if they don't initially want to. Likewise, a family guide can allow you to relax and soak in the luxury of your own 'vacation mode' while coming up with ingenious ways to keep your kids focused and interested on all the amazing possibilities the vacation affords you, individually or as a group. New sights to see, foods to taste, things to explore :the trip should be presented like an adventure, a conquest that they can recount with pride at getting to touch, taste, and feel exotic things, rather than a chore that they have to endure.
These are just a few of the ways a family guide can help pull off a successful vacation with your family; more than just augment, they can transform a trip from a false-start into a magical time that you and your children will cherish forever. Be sure to consider hiring one the next time you have a family vacation in the works.
We've examined the best strategies for choosing and vetting a qualified family guide, based on your particular needs and vacation destination. Now that you've done that, let's take a look at the many ways that your family guide can assist you in pulling off this vacation with all the bells and whistles.
Starting just after you've signed your contract, there are a multitude of ways your guide can be an invaluable aid, including before anyone's set foot on an airplane or even bought tickets. For example:
1. Planning and Packing. Family guides are most useful when they have some firsthand knowledge of the area you're traveling to, so with any luck, your guide is chock-full of good ideas regarding your locale. Give them some leeway in choosing embarkation and arrival times, schedules, reservations, and picking from the many sights and activities that you'll have available to you when you get there. They'll also be able to help you pack up, and choose what to take that you might otherwise have overlooked, and what you thought you might need but should really just leave behind.
2. Just Enough Privacy. Of course, you want to spend lots of time with your family, but as a single parent on holiday, you should take the opportunity to get out and live a little just for yourself! A family guide can be your surrogate kid-sitter for an evening when you just want a little you-time, and don't want to worry about making sure everyone is well-fed, teeth-brushed, and tucked-in at the end of the night. You don't get too many of these chances as it is, so let your trusted family guide handle the routine while you dip out to a spa or a night on the town, secure in the knowledge that your children are in good, safe, experienced hands.
Naturally, you'll want to be kept up to date about your kids' activities while you're out, so you can get the full report about their behavior from the family guide when you return. However, you'll want this information to remain expressly between the two of you, so be sure to get your guide to sign a confidentiality clause when you negotiate their employment contract. That way, you can be sure that you :and only you :will get the full disclosure about everyone's comings and goings if you decide to take a night away from the group, preserving both your family's privacy and your piece of mind.
3. Observe and Adjust. A good family guide will have their own way of getting around and leading the pack when necessary, but should never be so forthright that you feel you have to just go along with whatever they say. This is your vacation, after all, so feel free to let your family guide know the kinds of things you'd like to see and experience, and the sorts of activities you want to your kids to have, and those you'd like to keep them away from. The guide should have no problem picking up on your preferred vacation style and adjusting themselves accordingly :that's part of what being a guide is all about!
4. Setting Goals. Keeping up the enthusiasm and fun of the vacation is a primary responsibility of a family guide, and one of the biggest burdens they can lift from your shoulders. You spend plenty of your own time trying to make sure that your children not only do the things they ought to, but grow to like doing them even if they don't initially want to. Likewise, a family guide can allow you to relax and soak in the luxury of your own 'vacation mode' while coming up with ingenious ways to keep your kids focused and interested on all the amazing possibilities the vacation affords you, individually or as a group. New sights to see, foods to taste, things to explore :the trip should be presented like an adventure, a conquest that they can recount with pride at getting to touch, taste, and feel exotic things, rather than a chore that they have to endure.
These are just a few of the ways a family guide can help pull off a successful vacation with your family; more than just augment, they can transform a trip from a false-start into a magical time that you and your children will cherish forever. Be sure to consider hiring one the next time you have a family vacation in the works.
About the Author:
Outdoor adventure tours in Guatemala are a special experience for anyone. Great tours can be found at Guatemala Adventure Tours and . The original article was posted here: Outdoor Adventure Tours in Guatemala.
