Posted on 09/26/2025

The festive season is no longer just about gathering ‘round the hearth and home; it’s increasingly becoming the perfect time to pack a bag and head somewhere new. More travelers are choosing to spend Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year’s, and other holidays on vacation, whether that means a European Christmas market river cruise, a beach escape in the Caribbean, a snowy celebration on the slopes, or an exotic cultural journey. 

And we have some good advice to make your trip during the festive season ring all the right bells. 

Why to Vacay During the Holidays

• Give Everyone a Break: Shopping, decorating, baking, cleaning, wrapping, hosting, and generally making everyone happy… It’s a LOT of time, mental energy and emotional energy. In many families, the biggest share of the holiday burden falls exhaustingly on just one person. Why not give everyone a holiday this season?
• Memories and Experiences, not Stuff: Priorities are shifting away from collecting more things to collecting treasured memories, spending time together where everyone can be relaxed, participating in shared new experiences, establishing new family traditions and building relationships; not stressing over the stove. Converting the holiday budget to travel can create more value for every member of the family, rather than purchasing gifts that the recipient may not even recall a year later.
• Maximize Time Off: Between school and work schedules, the holidays may be the easiest time for families and groups to coordinate longer vacations without using extra vacation days or having the kids miss school.
• Make Travel Count:  Lots of families have members who have to travel to get home for the holidays anyway – why not make that travel pay off with a trip everyone wants? Especially if several family members are already going to have to pack and fly, make it to a vacation destination, not slogging through snow to sleep on a sofa in an overcrowded house or share a room at a sad local hotel.
• Cultural Immersion: Traveling during the festive season can let you experience authentic holiday traditions – from European Christmas markets to Mexico’s Día de los Reyes celebrations, giving travelers deeper cultural connections to their own roots, or be enriched by new cultures. Many towns, resorts and even cruise ships are decorated and host special seasonal events and celebrations you’ll only experience once a year. 

As the holiday travel trend grows, it offers a joyful blend of festivity and discovery, giving you and yours the gift of time, experiences, and togetherness.

Holiday Travel Tips 

• Be a People Pleaser: whether it’s an intimate or multi-generational family holiday trip, make sure there’s something in your holiday trip for everyone. Whether it’s the destination, a special meal, a favorite pastime or even rare, one-on-one time, the holidays are about making everyone feel special. Make planning the trip a joint effort and use it to help everyone get excited.
• Decide how much of the holidays you want in your holiday: Do you want to travel somewhere you can attend a religious service? Does your cruise offer a festive dinner so you don’t miss your cherished traditions even while the responsibility is on someone else’s… plate? Do you want your holiday to connect you more to your traditions and roots?
• Book Well in Advance: The holidays represent some of the busiest travel days of the year. If you have flexibility with school and work schedules, take advantage of better and less expensive options. 

• Budget: It goes without saying that all travel should start with a budget. An expert travel advisor can help you spend it most wisely and get the biggest bang for your buck. For holiday trips, part of the budget decision-making includes considerations such as: does the trip replace gifts? Who contributes what? Where do we save, and what are we willing to splurge on? 

  And that brings me to one of the most important tips for planning any travel planning:  

• Communicate: Who’s paying for what? Are parents paying for the trip, but kids need to use their allowance to buy any souvenirs? Are grandparents covering the accommodations, but each family will take turns hosting and paying for evening dinners together? Will each member of the family be responsible for their own packing and on-site laundry? Who will have to share a room with whom? Are family members with young children expecting other family teens to babysit? Are the teens on board with that? 

Don’t let lack of communication and clear parameters spoil the festive spirit: manage expectations and assign tasks so the usual suspects aren’t ‘still’ stuck with all the work, everyone can budget properly, and everyone, young and old, can enjoy the best holiday ever! 

START YOUR FESTIVE TRIP! 

Image: Getty

By: Lynn Elmhirst, travel journalist and expert

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