When Everyone is Done with the Fun

In our travels as a family, we have faced many challenges. Some, like dealing with getting hangry, were easy to solve. Others were more stressful and even dangerous (Ellie physically holding a sliding van door closed while we drove to the nearest airport to exchange the faulty vehicle). We’ve battled major illnesses, injuries, and canceled plans. On our first “Big Trip” we faced a new challenge: Travel Fatigue. While we had several stops that were longer than one overnight, we spent significant time getting from one place to the next. Being away from home for over 3 weeks and spending several hours in a van getting to each new location took a toll on all of us as we entered the last few days of our adventure.

What is Travel Fatigue?

Travel fatigue was a concept we encountered for the first time on this 21-day journey. Most of our previous vacations lasted 10 days (or less) and were confined to just one or two destinations. It took us a while to realize what we were feeling was more complicated than simple exhaustion or irritation. It was more enduring than hanger and led to us feeling weighed down and detached. It was as though our excitement and joy were dwindling, despite still being on our much anticipated trip. When we realized that we were all experiencing it, we became determined to get home and settle into a known routine.

It wasn’t until we arrived back home, unpacked and settled in, that we were able to start putting into words exactly what we had been feeling. We started to examine what caused it. We knew it wasn’t jet lag since we hadn’t flown during our trip. We also knew that it wasn’t the natural let down of a trip coming to an end, which we had encountered many times before. This was something different… It was travel fatigue.

Travel fatigue is a unique challenge that can make even the most fun tasks feel like a chore simply due to the fact that you feel drained. Having to be on the move, dealing with planning, transportation, food acquisition, and more with no let down can really take its toll. Sometimes, too much fun and excitement can be a bad thing (go figure)!

Several weeks after this journey came to an end, we really thought about what we had experienced and how we could have managed it better. Since then, we’ve made some adjustments and implemented some strategies to help minimize the impact of travel fatigue (or even avoid it altogether). Next week, we’ll be sharing all of our tried and true tips. We’ll give you 10 Practical Remedies for Travel Fatigue to help you prepare for and deal with it on your future adventures.

How to Recognize Travel Fatigue

We found ourselves experiencing travel fatigue during the final days of our “Big Trip”. It started with an extremely late wake-up on our last day in Dallas. As we left Dallas to begin the eighteen hour journey back home, Rachel started to express how much she was missing her leopard gecko, Spots, who was at home being cared for by friends. She also started expressing her frustration that she wouldn’t be in the same classroom as her best friend for the upcoming school year.

When Rachel gets stressed, it usually presents as her being disengaged. We’ll find her talking less, staring into space, and getting easily distracted like her heart just isn’t in it. When we probe her to share her feelings, she’ll sometimes start to cry, and even laugh at the same time. We refer to it as Rachel’s “laugh/cry.” She had an episode of this after dinner on the evening we left Dallas. We tried to make it better by getting her best friend on the phone and letting them chat for a while. This helped a bit but was not a long-term solution.

At this point in our travels, it seemed like just knowing that we were on the final push to get home gave us all an intense feeling of being “DONE” with this trip. We were all frustrated by the number of miles and hours that stood between us and the comforts and routines of home. Instead of looking forward to these last few days, they seemed more like a barrier or an obstacle that we needed to overcome. We just wanted to get out of the rental car and back to the comforts of home. At this point, it became clear that all of us were suffering from travel fatigue.

I don’t want to imply that we didn’t enjoy every minute of this epic vacation. However, we were experiencing the sadness that it was over while still yearning for the familiarity of being home. What we really wanted was to sleep in our own beds, and relax without the relentless pace of travel. Instead, we were already stressing about what we would encounter when we arrived at home. Kevin was beginning to think about the work that awaited him at the office. The Littles were anticipating their first day of school (including Sophie’s first day of kindergarten) in just a few days. Ellie, who was working as a nanny, was already adding new families to her schedule. I was anticipating all the laundry, grocery shopping, carpooling, and organizing that would have to happen as soon as we got home.

As the day wore on and all three girls were sleeping in the back of the van, Kevin and I were weighing the possibility of just trying to drive straight through. However, we began feeling tired and even guilty that the girls would miss seeing some of the new states we would drive through. We made the decision to stop for the night in West Monroe, Louisiana. Thanks to his platinum level membership at IHG, we knew that we would be guaranteed a room at the local Holiday Inn Express. In fact, in this instance, we got the very last room available. Kevin got us checked in and we got out of the van to bring in the bare minimum necessary for the night. Even after dark, the heat and humidity were oppressive, which did nothing to improve our moods. We settled in for a good night’s sleep and left our worries to tomorrow.

Click on photo to enlarge and see descriptions.

The Final Stretch

In the morning, the alarm went off at 7:30am but we couldn’t drag ourselves out of bed for another half hour. I woke up with the tell-tale head and neck pain that usually indicates rainy weather. Sure enough, it was raining outside which just added to the nasty humidity of the deep south, making us feel even more irritated. We got everyone up and packed the van before heading back into the lobby for breakfast. Kevin and I had decided that we would try to drive straight through until we got home, without another overnight stay. This would involve a little more than 13  hours of drive time and over 900 miles. The payoff would be that we would have two full days to recover before the realities of work and school hit us all. We filled the car with gas and hit the road, with our GPS indicating that our earliest possible arrival home (without any stops or delays) would be midnight.

At around 11:30am, we stopped in Vicksburg, Mississippi (a new state for all 3 girls) to go to the restroom and switch drivers. Later in the day, as we neared Birmingham, Alabama (another new state), Kevin started searching for a Long John Silver’s restaurant to fulfill a craving for late lunch. With none of those to be found, he tried locating a Chick-fil-A. Again, no luck! We ended up at a McDonald’s with an outdoor play place. We knew that our girls desperately needed to stretch their legs after so many hours spent riding in the van. We were back on the road at a little after 4pm with a new ETA of 2:14am.

Just before crossing the Georgia state line, we stopped at a QuikTrip for gas and a bathroom break. A few hours later, around midnight, we stopped at a Pilot off of I-95 and filled the gas tank. Something about this location, or the time of night had us feeling a bit vulnerable. The girls and I made our way into the store to find the restroom. While we were gone, someone approached Kevin at the pump asking for money. He was approached again, a few minutes later, by a different person when he went in to use the restroom. Feeling a little unsafe, but needing to fill our bellies, we ordered some food from the attached Taco Bell. Food in hand, we loaded back into the van with our new ETA showing 3am. We couldn’t wait!!

We pulled into our driveway at a little after 3am and Sophie looked up and said “What? We’re home?” as though it all just ended too soon for her. We took the Littles in, got them into their PJs, and put them to bed. I had picked up a bag of powdered sugar donuts while at the Pilot, which I now placed on the kitchen counter. I gave Rachel strict orders to help themselves to donuts and watch Minecraft videos on my laptop when they woke up, but to let the grown-ups sleep!

We slept until well after noon, showered, cleaned out the van, and then loaded all of us up in two vehicles to return the van. We had put over 7,500 miles on it during our “Big Trip.” In addition to noting the ample miles, Kevin said the rental agent took one look at the front of it and said “that’s a lot of bugs!” (Driving through the Southwest, with all its cattle farms, will do that to you!) We all got back into the now cramped quarters of the car and ended up at Bahama Breeze for our 1st (and only) meal of the day. It was a good last meal of an epic vacation.

Was it Worth it?

Before we started this trip, we asked ourselves “could we actually enjoy 21 days packed into a minivan together and still love each other when it was over?” The answer is absolutely YES! We learned so much about ourselves on this trip. We learned that our Littles were more patient and grown up than we’d anticipated and that Kevin, Ellie, and I could work together as a team of adults to help ease the burden of responsibilities. Most of all, we learned that, despite some hangry moments or a bit of  travel fatigue, our souls yearned for more Uncommon Family Adventures to come!

As we’ve said before, this trip was the catalyst that triggered some major changes in our lives. We realized how much fun we had traveling and experiencing new places together. We also began to recognize that we are more comfortable with slow traveling. (We’ll talk more about that in the weeks ahead.) Just a few years later, we began homeschooling and working remotely to allow us the freedom to travel, at our own pace, anytime adventure calls us.