Subscribe Feed (RSS)My husband had the chance to stay at Holiday Inns this summer for a number of nights for work. This summer they are running a , for every two night stay you and get a third night free before December 26th. The beauty of this promotion is that you can stay at any IC Hotel Group Hotel for free, not just a Holiday Inn or Holiday Inn Express. You can even stay internationally! As a consequence we have spent too much time thinking about travel at our house.
Should we take a local road trip to Tahoe or San Francisco? Should we get away somewhere warm and exotic? Should we take the leap into international travel with our three young children? The possiblilities are endless as are the opportunities to spend money. We need to be careful, that our “free hotel rooms” don’t lead to a trip that breaks the budget.
We toyed with the idea of Costa Rica (definately my first choice!) or perhaps a fun island like, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, or Puerto Rico. So far it looks like we may be settling on Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. They have a Presidente Resort there. We won’t be spending to0 much time in a plane, and I’ll get to practice my Spanish 
. Now comes the hard part: finding affordable plane tickets, researching fun things to do, not going too crazy with expensive activities, and of course making sure that our trip doesn’t trigger any hotel black out dates.
If all goes well, we may be swimming with the dolphins and boogie boarding at the beach on Turkey Day. Funny, my kids have told me that they would rather be skiing. Still, I have no doubt they will enjoy our Mexican adventure.
Has anyone been to Puerto Vallarta with kids? I would love to hear about it!
Happy Trails,
Bridget
Tags: Holiday Inn, IC Hotel Group, Mondays are for Dreaming, Puerto Vallarta
Oh! The dreaming, the planning, the anticipation of trip… How fun!
We are heading to your neck of the wood in Nov. 
I love your fuego in this post! Yes, Mexico was our first destination with both kids. Zihuatanejo, on the Pacific Coast near Ixtapa. Lovely, and no major probs except that the kids were young so we didn’t get much sleep. I also love your idea of the Dominican Republic. I’ve got a good local contact who does a ton of family travel and has been to Mexico (ssshhhh…this is my secret, I dont’ always plan my own trips, I use a travel agent who specializes in family destinations. Here is her link on Mexico/PV: ) Good luck, keep me posted!
Love your blog. I was recently browsing AAA travels and saw that they had some awesome deals to Puerto Vallarta. It was a package deal with beach front resort, flight etc. The deal was too good to be true, but since we already had Europe plans, we could not take this one. Maybe next year.
Your plans sound amazing, but you know if the kids would rather try skiing, there’s a place in MT for you!LOL miss you.
Hi there,
We spent Thanksgiving in PV four years ago – with our two boys then aged 5 and 9. We had a great time. We stayed out a Mismaloya just to be away from the downtown-cruise-ship-touristy area. We really enjoyed exploring the old town and the markets.
If I were to go again, I’d probably stay away from the resort hotels and rent a house/condo/apt out at Sayulita or some similar smaller town nearby.
This year we’ll be in Sydney for Thanksgiving. Quantas had a fare sale earlier this year which meant our flights were quite cheap (~$600 each).
Happy planning!