In today’s fast paced world, extended families don’t get the opportunity to spend a lot of time together. In fact you probably haven’t seen some of your relatives for years, and odds are that your kids haven’t even met all of their cousins. A family reunion vacation is a great opportunity together with the whole family and reunite some old bonds in a beautiful setting. Your children will also love meeting their distant relatives that are their own age. However, a family reunion vacation also involves a lot of work and planning. Here are a few tips to make sure your family reunion vacation ends up being a huge success.

Start planning your vacation in advance. You can start planning your family reunion vacation a whole year in advance. Although you may not realize it, the planning is complicated, and it does take a lot of time. Everyone has to consider their schedule for the summer and find a date that is convenient for all of the family members to reunite.

Choose two coordinators. A coordinator is the person that handles the planning, makes phone-calls and books the lodging for the family reunion vacation. He/she needs to be a organized person that has enough time to handle all of the work that this job entails. It is a good idea to choose two coordinators so that they can share the responsibilities. In addition, if anything goes wrong (and something always does), the blame won’t fall on just one person.

Take into consideration everyone’s budget. For most families, choosing an exotic but very expensive holiday spot is a bad idea. Unless it is a very important occasion. You should consider everyone’s budget when you are planning your vacation, this way everyone will be able to afford to come.

Lodging options. When you choose the lodging, you will need to decide which is more important: privacy versus the cost. Usually if you want to keep the costs low you will have to give up some of your privacy. However, if you know that some family members aren’t going to get along, then you should put them in separate rooms. A house rental where everyone shares the living room but has a separate bedroom may be a good idea if you want to ensure that you have a successful family reunion vacation.

Assign the tasks in advance. There’s also a lot of work during the family vacation reunion. Someone has to buy supplies, cook, clean, wash the dishes, and watch the kids. If the tasks are distributed unevenly, some of your family members might feel deprived. When a grandmother comes along, her grown-up sons might expect her to do everything, without ever realizing that she is on vacation too. Assigning the tasks in advance is the best way to go. For example, each family could be responsible for cooking one meal and then cleaning up afterwards.

Although a family vacation involves some work, in most of the time it’s worth it. Meeting your family in a beautiful location is a great opportunity to reconnect with the whole family at least once a year. With some advanced planning, your family reunion vacation will turn out perfect.