Okay y'all a major caveat to the logistics of traveling with a large family includes: FOOD! Let's face it large families eat a lot and it cost a lot to feed a large family. That fact does not go away when you're on the road, that's for sure. If anything, it's magnified. I find that budgeting and planning for food on vacation takes more of my energy than any other aspect of traveling with a bigger than average sized family.
I have one major rule for vacationing: MAMA AIN'T COOKING! Well, let me rephrase that I'm not cooking anything that requires more than 15 minutes to prepare. Vacationing is hard enough for mothers, all the planning and doing required to make sure everyone has their stuff and we get where we're going, and on and on I could go. We should get some form of a break on vacation. Which is why I go to great lengths to menu plan and meal prep ahead of time. That way once we arrive at our vacationing destination I can actually focus on a little R & R, and not cooking.
I use my normal menu planning blackline worksheets to help me navigate our meals for vacation.
** If you make a menu, don't forget it as well as your shopping list when you head out for your travels . **
They will help to keep you on track for when and what to prepare which meals as well as what groceries you need to bring along on vacation, i.e. condiments and the like. Sometimes you can't bring all the groceries you'll need, so bringing along your vacation grocery list will insure you know what to purchase on your grocery store run.
Below is a picture of what our recent vacation menu looked like. We always plan for three meals eating out. Once for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Typically we eat out for breakfast on the day we're returning home. Our lunch and dinner outings are 'penciled' in as it's hard to pin point the exact day we'll eat out. It's normally dependent on what were out doing each day. Hence the reason I always do my menus by hand, in pencil, as opposed to on the computer. It's so much easier to adjust the menu as needed when you can erase.
Now I must add in a disclaimer here; I'm typically a very health-oriented mama, planning and preparing nutrient dense meals, but on vacation I am a little lax. I do my best to try to create a balance, but to be honest, my focus is simple, quick, and cheap food. I prepare as many meals as possible at home and freeze them. I make sure most of the lunches are picnic friendly so they are easy to take along when we're out having fun, exploring, on vacation.
For this particular vacation our menu looked like this:
Breakfast:
Sweet Muffins (made in advance) + apples sauce
Oatmeal Waffles (made in advance)
Granola Bars (made in advance) + yogurt
Breakfast Cookies (made in advanced) + canned fruit
Homemade Freezer Biscuits (made in advance) recipe here + scrambled eggs
Lunch:
Chicken Salad Sandwiches, chips, store-bought granola bars (travel day)
Homemade Pizza Muffins (made in advance)
Bagel + cream cheese, canned fruit
Ham & cheese sandwiches, pretzels
Bacon Chicken Ranch Wraps (Mix made in advance), chips, store-bought granola bars (travel day)
Dinner
Pulled Pork Sandwiches (pork make in advance), chips
hot dogs, tator tots,
Lentil Burritos (beans made in advance), nacho chips
Cheeseburger Sloppy Joes (mix made in advance), French fries
Frozen pizza planned for when we get home
Snack
Animal crackers
Wheat Crackers
Cheese Crackers
Vanilla Wafers
ritz + peanut butter
As you can see our meals are far from fancy or complicated, but they are budget friendly and fill the belly. Oh and most importantly for mama, take very little time to prepare once we're on vacation.
Yes, it is a lot of food to bring on a road trip, but I find it's well worth it on so many levels just to make room for the meals and groceries we need. Typically, food is NOT cheaper where we vacation ~ sigh. This trip we managed with just two medium coolers and then a few reusable grocery bags for non-perishables. We did make one trip to the grocery store to pick up a few things, but nothing much, and it was mostly fun junk food we splurged on, lol.
I also brought my prepared meals. Making sure I have food to eat is a must. So many foods make me sick, it's simply a necessity that I plan accordingly for what I'm going to eat when we're on vacation as well.
Oh and I guess I should add. We've long since outgrown staying in hotels/motels. We always stay in a place that has a kitchen. On our trip to the Smoky Mountains this year we stayed in a cabin. But, over the years we've stayed in condos, houses, and cabins. We're a huge fan of Vacation Rentals By Owner, VRBO. We've also used American Patriot Getaways. Most of the time folks find it hard to believe that with a big family it's actually cheaper to stay in a cabin, house, or condo verses a hotel. By law, only so many people can sleep in a hotel room, which means multiple rooms for our crew and trust me that gets pricey real quick!!
Thankfully my crew is fairly easy to please when it comes to food, so they don't mind our simple, easy vacation meals. Yes, it takes a little extra upfront work before going on vacation, but getting a week off from cooking is well worth it to me!
With Love & Hope,
Jennifer
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