We took our first family vacation this year.  All of our past vacations have been to visit family, but this year we decided to do an actual vacation.  We didn’t want to go all out in our spending, so we took a few precautions.

First, we stayed in state.  We live in Michigan, and have never been up north.  We decided to make the drive to Mackinaw city, which was a lovely place to visit.

Second, we rented a cabin.  It would have been cheaper to do a tent, but we decided with three children, we were going to stay in a cabin with its own bathroom and kitchenette.  This allowed us to cook almost all of our meals at the cabin, saving on eating out costs.

Third, we chose inexpensive activities while we were there.  This was helped by our children being so young – most museums and tours would have bored them.  Even Mackinaw Island would have be difficult with all the walking.  Instead, we visited local beaches and state parks.  We managed to all turn a glorious shade of lobster red at the beach, and saw quite a bit of the local wildlife!  Also, there were many small children at our campground that our kids loved playing with.

So our first vacation was a success!  We came in under $500 for the week, including gas, lodging, food, and activities.  Not too bad for a week long trip for five people!