Most family itineraries are written by one person, for an imagined version of the whole group. The result is usually a schedule that suits the planner and quietly wears everyone else down by the fourth day.
The fix is less glamorous than it sounds: ask each person, including the youngest who can answer, for one thing they want from the trip, and build those in first. Then fill the gaps. A grandparent's one slow morning at a market and a teenager's one active afternoon are both easier to protect when they're on the schedule from the start, not squeezed in afterwards.
Build in a day with nothing on it in the middle of the trip. Not as a luxury; as a buffer. Jet lag, a bad night's sleep or one under-the-weather child will take a day from you whether you plan for it or not, and it's far kinder to have chosen which day.
Where we steer families away from the default: long transfers on arrival day, and back-to-back changes of hotel. Fewer bases, longer stays and shorter drives beat a packed route almost every time.
If you tell us who's coming, their ages and what each of them dreads about travel, we'll build around that rather than around a template.
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If a place in this note is starting to sound like your next trip, let’s talk about it.
