I have to say, I have never been to a resort either, but I am finding myself tempted lately. We have been considering doing a European ski vacation now that the kids are old enough to ski for hours with us but not so old that they just want to go on terrifying expert stuff. One thing I know is: doing a ski vacation with kids even when I know every single slope on the mountain already, and never have to navigate a poorly translated informational web page, is a ton of work. Picking a country/region, picking a mountain to focus on, picking lodging near where I think we will want to ski the most, figuring out how we're all going to eat, figuring out what our transportation from the airport to the ski area could be - it feels daunting, especially when I am trying to navigate Trois Vallees and other trail maps in other languages, or figure out the differences between one Austrian kinderhotel's mountain access and another's. Club Med keeps coming up over and over again as a recommendation and I am just like....hmmmmmm. On the one hand, a Club Med Swiss Alps Ski Vacation just inherently makes me bristle. On the other hand, I'm in my 40s, I work full time, I'm the default parent, I'm in the sandwich-generation part of life. If there were ever a time to go for a resort, I feel like it's now.
Highly recommend the Austrian family ski resorts. They try hard to make it a good experience for all and it’s a good mix of it being chill but also family friendly. Food at many of them are delicious and healthy as well.
We just did a Club Med ski vacation in Quebec and I gotta say - I highly recommend! The food was really good, the skiing convenience could not be beat, ski lessons for everyone aged 4+ and my 3 year old was very happy in the kids’ club. I’m not a skier so being able to split up and take beginner lessons or more advanced lessons was so good. And did I mention the food was amazing? Like it’s all-inclusive, it had no right to be as good as it was. We’re already planning to book for next year.
I love this essay so much, I am grateful you are sharing this so others don't experience the same thing! I went to Tulum two years ago with a female friend as a moms getaway. There was some ridiculous traffic but no armed guards at the hotel zone prices weren't yet as high as you are describing. $50 a person in food and beverage spending to sit all day on the beach and eat ceviche and drink margaritas felt like a worth it splurge, but not if we had to pay per kid for that. I'm looking forward to hearing what others recommend instead.
I am not really a tropical vacay person or a resort person, but we spent a week in Samara, Costa Rica with our two young kiddos (after hunting for a destination that would satiate kids and adults somewhat equally) and it was great! So chill, a good selection of delicious and affordable restaurants and cafés, compact and walkable, and easy breezy beaches across the street from the main drag. Would recommend. Kids loved it, husband loved it, and I would have loved it if it has been 10 degrees cooler. 🥵
I went to Tulum, unfortunately, a few years ago with my husband before we had kids. It was an overpriced dump that smelled like sewage, literally. The restaurants were crappy and more expensive than NYC, where we lived at the time, and we saw at least 20 influencers in different photo shoots. It is so refreshing and real to see that someone else agrees - and to quote David Foster Wallace (read his essay on going on a luxury cruise, it was incredible) just made my day. Before kids, I traveled the world, on personal trips and many works trips as I worked in travel communications. Tulum was by far my least favorite spot in the world.
Now we have two kids and one on the way and I find myself googling luxury all-inclusives (that don't break the bank). If you find one, please let us know. I do keep hearing that Palmaia in Playa del Carmen is amazing for families and the food is superb - I'm not sure it qualifies as unspoiled with natural beauty though. I will say that Menorca is my most favorite place in the world, and totally under the radar - at least it was seven years ago!
Might be a bit far for you - I live in Western Australia - but the resorts in Thailand and Vietnam can be gorgeous, well priced and a lot to do culturally besides. Check out luxury escapes for some deals and feel free to message me for more info :)
Merida on the Yucatan Peninsula was really beautiful. When we went - Feb. 2023, we saw very few tourists. The people were friendly, and there seemed to be a deep sense of community - with community events happening every week (while we were there, the roads were closed down on Sunday so that everyone could bike in the streets).
Look into Uruguay. We loved it. It's still pretty unspoiled, beautiful with great food and culture. Avoid Punta Del Este, go to Jose Ignacio and La Paloma.
Ok, yes to the difference between a vacation and traveling!! With a baby and a toddler, our family (with cousins and grandparents) trip to Akumal next week (haha for the timing of this post for me) is a *vacation*, which was important for me to note when we made our plans. I’m looking forward to learning to travel with kids, though. Just not next week 😎 (And I’m glad yours had fun!!)
Hi! I appreciate the honesty of your review. Wish there were more like them tbh! Agree with your sentiment that reviews always tend to skew positive and sales-y. People feel pressure to have *the best time!*
Anywhere else on the Yucatán peninsula! Try Merida or Campeche. Friendly, safe. Easy driving. Delicious food. Not as many large hotels to spoil it. Easy to take young kids with you as well! Only catch is that it’s less easy to fly to from NYC. Have to either drive from Cancun or take two flights to land in Merida.
This makes me sad - because I did love the Tulum of 2014! I have also heard that it has changed a lot. The hotel I stayed in in the "beach zone" which was so chill, has been torn down. My parents, brother and SIL have all loved Todos Santos, a beach town on the Pacific Ocean.
Can attest that staying in the hotel zone is not great these days either... based on what you're looking for, I can recommend San Pancho in Riviera Nayarit for a low-key, relaxed beach destination. Excellent food, reasonably priced accommodations, public beach, no pools with DJs, no resorts to be found, 1 hour from Puerto Vallarta airport. (Do avoid staying in Sayulita.)
We went to Tulum in 2021 on a split trip to Cancun to a resort and then to what I thought would be a more authentic experience in Tulum. I agree with so much of what you said. Over development everywhere. So much Sargassum seaweed we couldn’t swim in the sea and the beaches stank. For this reason alone the beach clubs were letting people in for free for their overpriced drinks but worse than all that my teenage daughter left our hotel room one night. We were staying in the town itself. In a small hotel and she ended up getting raped by two different men. One was a taxi driver who picked her up when she was crying after the first rape. They something so horrendous could happen twice in one night is horrendous. So that’s Tulum. That is the nasty caliber of people there and it 100% isn’t safe for women and especially teenagers. It basically ruined our lives and just hearing that you didn’t like it is somehow so validating to my very dark experience. So thank you for this.
As for reccomendations I try to only go to places where there is respect for basic morality beware of places where no one cares about each other, greed,poverty and corruption rule. Tourists are just collateral.
This! I was a travel writer before I had kids and think I’ve got decent instincts, but planning trips that also work for us as a family has really been a challenge. We’ve definitely had our own experiences like this one in Tulum!
I think there are a lot of us Millennial parents who came up reading David Foster Wallace’s travel writing and want to find a way to not be exploitative in our travel practices, and it feels like there are not enough media sources that provide good guidance on this. So much travel advice out there is geared toward child-free travelers or Disneyland parents — the kinds of people advertisers like, when what we really want is to have more non-monetizable moments.
To that end, our best trips have been domestic ones to visit other people with kids, and to let them show us around. Especially if they’re living in a place where they too were children. Its been so nice, heading to the locals’ beach with born-and-raised Californians, going to eat the best off-the-beaten-path BBQ with born and raised Texans, and picking blueberries in the Finger Lakes with born and raised upstate New Yorkers. It’s so much easier and more meaningful to experience that deep sense of place with people who have already lived it and just want to share, than to parachute into a place and hope to find it on our own. It vastly reduces my mental load as well, to be able to text ahead about what layers to bring, to borrow a bulky pack n play or a life jacket instead of bringing ours, and to know that if it rains, we can just go over to their place for kid movies and grownup drinks instead of panic googling overpriced indoor entertainments that are way too overstimulating and overpriced anyway.
ETA: we usually book our own modest lodgings vs. staying in the same dwelling as our friends with kids. At least for more than one night. That way lies madness.
I have to say, I have never been to a resort either, but I am finding myself tempted lately. We have been considering doing a European ski vacation now that the kids are old enough to ski for hours with us but not so old that they just want to go on terrifying expert stuff. One thing I know is: doing a ski vacation with kids even when I know every single slope on the mountain already, and never have to navigate a poorly translated informational web page, is a ton of work. Picking a country/region, picking a mountain to focus on, picking lodging near where I think we will want to ski the most, figuring out how we're all going to eat, figuring out what our transportation from the airport to the ski area could be - it feels daunting, especially when I am trying to navigate Trois Vallees and other trail maps in other languages, or figure out the differences between one Austrian kinderhotel's mountain access and another's. Club Med keeps coming up over and over again as a recommendation and I am just like....hmmmmmm. On the one hand, a Club Med Swiss Alps Ski Vacation just inherently makes me bristle. On the other hand, I'm in my 40s, I work full time, I'm the default parent, I'm in the sandwich-generation part of life. If there were ever a time to go for a resort, I feel like it's now.
Highly recommend the Austrian family ski resorts. They try hard to make it a good experience for all and it’s a good mix of it being chill but also family friendly. Food at many of them are delicious and healthy as well.
Is there any particular one you recommend?
Many! Naturhotel Forstofgut, Stanglwirt, the Familux brand of Austrian family resorts and many many more
Yeah, I hear such great things about them and it feels kind of like I should just throw a dart, pick one, and book it.
We just did a Club Med ski vacation in Quebec and I gotta say - I highly recommend! The food was really good, the skiing convenience could not be beat, ski lessons for everyone aged 4+ and my 3 year old was very happy in the kids’ club. I’m not a skier so being able to split up and take beginner lessons or more advanced lessons was so good. And did I mention the food was amazing? Like it’s all-inclusive, it had no right to be as good as it was. We’re already planning to book for next year.
I always think about resorts as beach things but tbh a condensed way to navigate ski lessons sounds v nice.
OK you are definitely selling me on it (even more than I've been sold already, hahaha)
I love this essay so much, I am grateful you are sharing this so others don't experience the same thing! I went to Tulum two years ago with a female friend as a moms getaway. There was some ridiculous traffic but no armed guards at the hotel zone prices weren't yet as high as you are describing. $50 a person in food and beverage spending to sit all day on the beach and eat ceviche and drink margaritas felt like a worth it splurge, but not if we had to pay per kid for that. I'm looking forward to hearing what others recommend instead.
I think if we were sans kids, only on beach in a boutique hotel it’d def have felt very different
This reminds me of one of my favorite essays I’ve written… and why I’m afraid to take my children anywhere https://thedoubleshift.substack.com/p/the-case-against-family-vacations
I am not really a tropical vacay person or a resort person, but we spent a week in Samara, Costa Rica with our two young kiddos (after hunting for a destination that would satiate kids and adults somewhat equally) and it was great! So chill, a good selection of delicious and affordable restaurants and cafés, compact and walkable, and easy breezy beaches across the street from the main drag. Would recommend. Kids loved it, husband loved it, and I would have loved it if it has been 10 degrees cooler. 🥵
I went to Tulum, unfortunately, a few years ago with my husband before we had kids. It was an overpriced dump that smelled like sewage, literally. The restaurants were crappy and more expensive than NYC, where we lived at the time, and we saw at least 20 influencers in different photo shoots. It is so refreshing and real to see that someone else agrees - and to quote David Foster Wallace (read his essay on going on a luxury cruise, it was incredible) just made my day. Before kids, I traveled the world, on personal trips and many works trips as I worked in travel communications. Tulum was by far my least favorite spot in the world.
Now we have two kids and one on the way and I find myself googling luxury all-inclusives (that don't break the bank). If you find one, please let us know. I do keep hearing that Palmaia in Playa del Carmen is amazing for families and the food is superb - I'm not sure it qualifies as unspoiled with natural beauty though. I will say that Menorca is my most favorite place in the world, and totally under the radar - at least it was seven years ago!
Might be a bit far for you - I live in Western Australia - but the resorts in Thailand and Vietnam can be gorgeous, well priced and a lot to do culturally besides. Check out luxury escapes for some deals and feel free to message me for more info :)
Merida on the Yucatan Peninsula was really beautiful. When we went - Feb. 2023, we saw very few tourists. The people were friendly, and there seemed to be a deep sense of community - with community events happening every week (while we were there, the roads were closed down on Sunday so that everyone could bike in the streets).
Look into Uruguay. We loved it. It's still pretty unspoiled, beautiful with great food and culture. Avoid Punta Del Este, go to Jose Ignacio and La Paloma.
Next time (if there is a next time to this region) -- try Merida!
Loved Merida! Have a great B&B there I can recommend too.
Sweden has plenty of natural beauty, excellent infrastructure, extremely child friendly. Could be warm,could be rainy,… lots of insects.
Ok, yes to the difference between a vacation and traveling!! With a baby and a toddler, our family (with cousins and grandparents) trip to Akumal next week (haha for the timing of this post for me) is a *vacation*, which was important for me to note when we made our plans. I’m looking forward to learning to travel with kids, though. Just not next week 😎 (And I’m glad yours had fun!!)
Hi! I appreciate the honesty of your review. Wish there were more like them tbh! Agree with your sentiment that reviews always tend to skew positive and sales-y. People feel pressure to have *the best time!*
Anywhere else on the Yucatán peninsula! Try Merida or Campeche. Friendly, safe. Easy driving. Delicious food. Not as many large hotels to spoil it. Easy to take young kids with you as well! Only catch is that it’s less easy to fly to from NYC. Have to either drive from Cancun or take two flights to land in Merida.
This makes me sad - because I did love the Tulum of 2014! I have also heard that it has changed a lot. The hotel I stayed in in the "beach zone" which was so chill, has been torn down. My parents, brother and SIL have all loved Todos Santos, a beach town on the Pacific Ocean.
I’ve heard good things about todos santos
Costa Rica worked for our family of 5- amazing nature, fun adventures and not crazy expensive.
Recs for where to stay? Trying to make this happen this summer and I’m overwhelmed.
We stayed in Manuel Antonio for 6 days. Plenty to do and didn’t want the hassle of moving locations
Can attest that staying in the hotel zone is not great these days either... based on what you're looking for, I can recommend San Pancho in Riviera Nayarit for a low-key, relaxed beach destination. Excellent food, reasonably priced accommodations, public beach, no pools with DJs, no resorts to be found, 1 hour from Puerto Vallarta airport. (Do avoid staying in Sayulita.)
We went to Tulum in 2021 on a split trip to Cancun to a resort and then to what I thought would be a more authentic experience in Tulum. I agree with so much of what you said. Over development everywhere. So much Sargassum seaweed we couldn’t swim in the sea and the beaches stank. For this reason alone the beach clubs were letting people in for free for their overpriced drinks but worse than all that my teenage daughter left our hotel room one night. We were staying in the town itself. In a small hotel and she ended up getting raped by two different men. One was a taxi driver who picked her up when she was crying after the first rape. They something so horrendous could happen twice in one night is horrendous. So that’s Tulum. That is the nasty caliber of people there and it 100% isn’t safe for women and especially teenagers. It basically ruined our lives and just hearing that you didn’t like it is somehow so validating to my very dark experience. So thank you for this.
As for reccomendations I try to only go to places where there is respect for basic morality beware of places where no one cares about each other, greed,poverty and corruption rule. Tourists are just collateral.
Oh my god. I am so so sorry this happened to your daughter, to you, and to your entire family. That is truly a damning indication of a place.
This! I was a travel writer before I had kids and think I’ve got decent instincts, but planning trips that also work for us as a family has really been a challenge. We’ve definitely had our own experiences like this one in Tulum!
I think there are a lot of us Millennial parents who came up reading David Foster Wallace’s travel writing and want to find a way to not be exploitative in our travel practices, and it feels like there are not enough media sources that provide good guidance on this. So much travel advice out there is geared toward child-free travelers or Disneyland parents — the kinds of people advertisers like, when what we really want is to have more non-monetizable moments.
To that end, our best trips have been domestic ones to visit other people with kids, and to let them show us around. Especially if they’re living in a place where they too were children. Its been so nice, heading to the locals’ beach with born-and-raised Californians, going to eat the best off-the-beaten-path BBQ with born and raised Texans, and picking blueberries in the Finger Lakes with born and raised upstate New Yorkers. It’s so much easier and more meaningful to experience that deep sense of place with people who have already lived it and just want to share, than to parachute into a place and hope to find it on our own. It vastly reduces my mental load as well, to be able to text ahead about what layers to bring, to borrow a bulky pack n play or a life jacket instead of bringing ours, and to know that if it rains, we can just go over to their place for kid movies and grownup drinks instead of panic googling overpriced indoor entertainments that are way too overstimulating and overpriced anyway.
ETA: we usually book our own modest lodgings vs. staying in the same dwelling as our friends with kids. At least for more than one night. That way lies madness.