At what age do kids remember vacations?

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nicolestevens84

New member
I would love to start taking my trips to bigger vacations, such as somewhere over seas or even just Disneyland. At what age is it worth it to splurge on a slightly expensive trip? They’re happy with play grounds and Chuck E Cheese, but it gets repetitive for my wife and I. A change of scenery will help us too. LoL

Updated response

So it looks like roughly starting at the age 5/6, core memories could be established. My 3 year old remembers some things a few months back, so looks like her memory is not too bad.

Yeah, regardless of them remembering the trips or not, they’ll remember being happy and us parents will remember, makes sense. Us parents need vacations too. LoL.

We’ve incorporated a lot of short weekend trips. Though part of me just want to stay home and relax. But, kids come first. I’ll relax when I die.
 
@helpingfamilies Infantile childhood amnesia - toddlers will remember toddlerhood but as they get older they will forget them. Like making more room in their brains for the next stage.
 
@helpingfamilies Not sure why you were downvoted. My son when he was almost 2 and we went to Disneyland Paris he equated it to Burning Man, which we went to earlier that summer when he was 1.5.

Now he is 6, he remembers places we went to when he was 5 or earlier. As he talked about his birthday at a place near our home when he was 4, he remembered the cake that we made in the little house on site.

Will he remember them for the rest of his life? Probably not. But when the daycare asked what his favourite things to do was. He said "to go on vacation with my family and friends"
 
@ckmervin To build on this: (full disclosure, PP is my spouse) the memories become part of a continuum, so things from when we wouldn't expect him to remember get anchored to newer memories, and the photos and stories we also have to share with him (plus from his cousins and our friends we travel with) help him carry the memories forward with him as he grows and makes new ones.
 
@emarketts His first year in 2019 it wasn't bad. We were worried about him not being able to communicate he needed water or whatnot but he did perfectly, the weather was mild. Basically have him drink when you drink. He was able to eat solid foods. Probably the worst part was we blew out a tire on the way so waited 4+ hours for roadside service to come put the spare on without AC. Fortunately, we have a camp that provides power enough to run our RV air conditioning so during the hottest part of the day we put him in the RV with the AC running for a nap and then we would go out in the evening, morning and night.

2022, he was 4 was hard because it was HOT that year. We had planned to have my parents come down and hang out with him but they got covid right before and cancelled their trip. Fortunately we had someone in Reno to take him. Unfortunately we also got Covid right before we went to pick him up, so we had to move our flights. Probably didn't actually need to but felt better, and allowed us to really take care of the RV before we left. It also meant we had to keep him at a friends house for an extra couple of days. Those friends did so much we definitely haven't been able to repay them.

2023, was an easy year all things considered. We got him out Wednesday before the rains to be with the grandparents. He was able to hang out with them a little longer, but we didn't have to move flights. We were able to go out during the day

Overall burning man was AMAZING with him. Seeing everything with him and through his eyes, the wonder an excitement. People there are excited to see kids and are very welcoming. He is great, hangs out with friends, looks at and plays on the art. There is random things like a Lego table in some shade where he just sat there and played for a couple of hours. Same thing with some art tables with coloring books, etc. Stickers his water bottles are covered with stickers.
 
@helpingfamilies I’m with you. My 3.5 yo still talks about our trips from when she was 2 ish and 2.5.

They remember. And it’s for us to, I have memories of me carrying my daughter around England. How cool is that.

Don’t skip travel ever
 
@charli
And it’s for us
Click to expand...

I have had to say this to a couple people. We just got back from a week in Panama with our 18 month girl. It was so much fun watching her experience everything. Playing on the beach, laughing as waves washed up her legs, taking in the sights and sounds of the city and jungle. My wife and I will carry those memories forever, even if our little one doesn't. But there's plenty of photos and video to show her in the future.
 
@charli Yeah.. that's a pretty callous question from your friend. I've had a lot of people accuse us of having an array of mental deficiencies for taking on such a seemingly insane adventure. But it was worth every penny and then some. Also, I actually appreciated the slower pace of vacation with a toddler. Taking breaks for naps and play time is such a departure from our typical travel adventures. It was really nice to just kick it in the park or wander around with no goal in mind.
 
@stampinlady My ex (probably now in her early 30s) told me that she can remember a lot from her 2-3 year old days. She’s a narcissist, but i don’t know any better to disprove that. So maybe it’s true that some people can remember stuff from that age. I remember bits here and there from my 6 year old days, but I’m on the same boat that my earliest lengthy memories are from my 8 year old days
 
@nicolestevens84 I had a similar mentality and then someone put it to me like this: just because they won't remember it doesn't mean you should just lock them up/bore them to death.

All of this builds, and their love for you is gonna be a cumulative thing. If you take them to Disney and they have fun, but don't remember it in a few years is it that big of a deal? Take the trip if you can afford it. You and your wife also deserve some fun.
 
@zbigniew Exactly. We decided to take our three year old to Disneyland when we found out we were having our second daughter. We did it because we wanted one more really great memory of just the three of us. Will she remember any of it? No probably not. But I will remember how excited she was and how magical it all felt for her. She had a blast. It was worth every penny.
 
@zbigniew Damn, we took our daughter to Disneyland for her 1y, I was actually kind of against it because she was so young but we used it as a way to not host a party with everyone and just stress her out for that day.
Damn I was surprised, she loved it despite not knowing any of the characters, she was in ecstasy ( she slept 17 hours in a 20 hours period when we came back) we found out her love for princesses and now she just found a new joy playing with her dolls and freaking buzz lightyear.

I don't care if she won't remember it, we will, and as we live 300kms from Disney it might even be a yearly tradition that although she won't remember going there so early, she'll remember the last year every time and just learn to enjoy that.

I don't remember the holidays with my parents, but I do remember yearning for them, so I probably did at the time.
 
@zbigniew This is how I feel. People sometimes get caught up on forming “core memories” but in my experience, I remember the weirdest non-events from my early childhood and don’t really have strong memories of what should’ve been objectively more fun and interesting stuff. So I don’t worry about what my kids will or won’t remember. If they enjoy it in the moment, that’s good enough for me.
 
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