Follow This Formula to Have the Perfect Family Vacation

Brittany Jones-Cooper
·Reporter
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To insure a perfect family vacation, your trip itinerary should include 70 percent quality family time. (Photo: Thinkstock)

Many believe that the perfect vacation is a result of amazing planning. But now one psychologist has devised a formula to insure that your family vacation goes off without a hitch.

After surveying 2,000 British families about their ideal vacation, the website Floridatix.com joined forces with psychologist Dr. David Holmes to devise the formula for the perfect trip.

Surprisingly, the data found that only 5 percent considered spending family time together as an important factor.

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“We understand families may not want to spend the whole holiday together,” Simon Applebaum, Consumer Marketing Director at FloridaTix.com told The Daily Mail. “But there needs to be a balance between creating amazing memories as a family and solo time.“

So how does a family create that balance? There are seven factors that determine how well the vacation goes. In the positive category, spending time together is important, followed by memorable experiences and good weather. Factors that can create a negative response include too much screen time or scrimping too much on the overall cost of the trip.

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(Photo: Floridatix.com)

Here are the seven formula factors:

1. The “Lifetime Experience” Factor (LE)

This represents a trip that your family will always remember. Do something you know the whole family can’t wait to do. Create memories you’ll look back on in years to come.

2. Quality Family Interaction (QI)

This factor takes into account how much of the waking day will be spent with members of the family enjoying themselves together. This must include at least one adult and one child.

3. Quality Activities (A)

How much any available activities will engage your whole family?

4. Quality of Accommodation (AQ)

The type of accommodation you expect to be staying in on your holiday.

5. Expected Weather (W)

The kind of weather you would hope for on your family holiday, given the destination. This may seem like an obvious one, but you would be surprised what works best in practice!

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Limiting screen time will insure a happier family vacation. (Photo: Thinkstock)

6. Your “Screen Freedom” (S)

This could take the form of mobile phones, tablets, games consoles, DVD players, laptops, and even watching TV when you could be spending time together connecting as a family. Psychologist Dr. David Holmes added: “A perfect holiday interacting between the generations will not be possible if kids are gaming and everyone has to check texts and Facebook updates every minute or so.

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7. Overall Cost ©

What is the price of perfection? You don’t necessarily want to break the bank, but scrimp too much and it could cost you a lot of family enjoyment.

Following the formula will not only help your family have a perfect vacation…it could have a lasting effect for generations to come. “If you can score well in the formula, you may very well have the experience of a lifetime,” said Dr. Holmes. “Then as your children get older, and look towards their own families, they will have a good model of a family holiday to pass to following generations.”

Want to see how you score? Take a quiz with this “perfect family holiday calculator.”

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