Saturday, June 2, 2012

Family Guides :Your Benefit of Vacation Success

By Linda Patterson


As a single parent, you're already doing double-duty as a matter of course. When you finally get the chance to go on vacation, you might feel despondent at the prospect of having even an ounce of fun for yourself, with all the planning, packing, double-checking, and kid-minding you just know is in store throughout your stay, whether it be in your home country or abroad. The good news is that you don't have to settle for the handicap of a single brain and pair of hands :a family guide can be the secret ingredient that turns a vacation with your kids from an ordeal for you into a rousing success for everyone involved.

Previously, we looked at methods and strategies for finding, choosing, and checking the background of a family guide, based on their work experience and qualifications. After you've chosen one, it's important to be informed about specifically how your guide can best be utilized to make sure everyone has a great time on vacation :and that includes you!

From the time you shake hands and sign a contract to the moment you say goodbye, your family guide will be an invaluable aid in planning and executing your vacation. Some of the tasks you can expect of your guide are:

1. Getting Organized and Packed Up. With any luck, you were able to find a family guide who is already familiar with the region you're about to travel to; the advice of your guide, like the words of a trusted friend who has seen and gone before you, are worth the collected postulations of a hundred guidebooks. Therefore, let your guide take the lead when planning your itinerary, scheduling departures and arrivals, and booking reservations and tickets, as they'll be able to tie everything together in the most efficient manner. They can also give valuable tips on things that you'll need to bring, but might not have though of, as well as discouraging you from over-packing or taking along things that might seem like necessities, but that your guide knows from experience won't even leave your suitcase during the trip.

2. Preserving Your Privacy. Your first priority is always your children :but that doesn't mean you can't have a good time on your own, at least for a night or two. Your family guide will be more than happy to take the kids off your hands for an occasional afternoon or evening, so you can catch a breather, visit a spa or nightclub, or just experience a little alone time, knowing that your family is in safe, responsible hands. What a nice feeling it'll be to not have to worry about getting their vegetables eaten, teeth brushed, and pajamas on while you're sipping a margarita or relaxing under the gentle pressure of an expert masseuse's 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. Personalize and Adjust. A good family guide will have their own style of leading, but should never be so rigid that they can't adjust themselves to suit the needs and desires of you and your kids. Whatever it is you want to do, whatever sights your kids want to see or fun activities they want to experience, the family guide should make it his or her priority to sculpt the itinerary, pace, and course of the vacation to meet your needs :not the other way around.

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.

We've listed above just a few of the many ways that family guide can spell the difference between a vacation ordeal and a truly memorable experience that will help your whole family bond together as a unit, giving you all memories to cherish for years to come. The next time you plan a vacation, why not consider taking along a family guide for everyone's benefit?




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