Summer happens to be my favourite season. It also happens to coincide with cottage season. These are two of my favourite things! To say we live out of our suitcase during the summer months would be an understatement. Actually, it’s our reality since we head up north to the cottage every weekend (if we can). Sometimes it’s a pain, but it’s a small price to pay for beautiful sunsets, hours spent swimming in the lake, and spending lots of time outdoors in nature.
Over the past 10 plus years, I’ve developed a system to help me deal with this minor back and forth travel nuisance. I had to re-tweak and reassess my technique again five years ago when we had our oldest son, Kyle. Here are a few of my tips for helping stay somewhat sane and maintaining some order as you move back and forth between your cottage and home.
Packing
I used to love packing. Packing is a sign of an adventure, of travel, of good-times. Now packing is a chore since I have to pack for myself and my three kids (luckily my husband manages quite well on his own). When at all possible, I recommend that you complete packing for the weekend the night before you have to leave. There’s nothing more stressful than running around your house the morning when you’re about to leave for the cottage, trying to think or locate everything you need. It’s a measly two days, but when you have kids, everything is a necessity, and there is no such thing as over-packing. Being adequately prepared is every mom’s raison d’etre. Since we don’t have a washing machine at the cottage, I bring our clothes back after each stay, re-wash, and stick them right back in the bag so I don’t have to overthink my packing every week.
This is the backpack I used when traveling around Europe for 4 months. Now I use it to pack clothes for myself and my three boys for a weekend getaway
Duplicate Essentials
While I pack a bag weekly, there are a few essentials that I keep at the cottage. Those include towels, pajamas, clothes for colder days (i.e. long pants and sweatshirts), and swim wear. I also have a box of diapers, wipes, sunscreen, and toiletries stored at the cottage. While the costs do add up, I do a separate grocery shop for the cottage and home. Pre-kids, I would bring our food back and forth but it’s more of a hassle now and we manage to eat through most of it during our weekend stays anyway.
Preparing the House
Since we’re away every weekend, we worry about the state of our house. We don’t want to leave it a mess for our return and we don’t want to make it appealing for intruders. I shared some of my tips for properly preparing your home when leaving for a few days on Allstate’s GOOD HANDS® blog HERE.
Kids’ Entertainment
We want to make sure our kids are properly entertained on the ride so they don’t distract us while we’re driving the 200+km route. Typically, we like to leave after dinner when it’s the kids’ bed time. We’re lucky in the sense that our kids sleep well in the car and transfer well from their car seats to their beds. However, we know that’s not always a possibility for everyone. The other obvious choice would be to drive up during nap time (if they will nap in the car). If neither of those options are a possibility, make sure you’re adequately prepared to keep your kids busy in the car so you’re not distracted. I do this by packing snacks (lots and lots of snacks), a portable DVD player, a tablet preloaded with their favourite apps, and a few portable toys (my boys like their cars, hockey & Pokeman cards and some Fisher Price sound/music toys with lots of buttons to press). We also have some of my kids’ favourite music CDs that we put on for entertainment or to help them fall asleep.
Cottage Set-up
Since our cottage is our home away from home (on a much smaller scale), we have it set-up with some of our must-have items. This includes a toy chest full of toys for the kids, drawers with art supplies, board games, DVDs, a shelf stacked with books, and of course Internet access. Fortunately, we’re also a five minute drive from town so we can easily grab or stock up on anything we’re missing.
If you’re like my family and do the weekly commute up to the cottage in the summer, what additional tips would you add?
Disclosure: This post was written as part of the Allstate Canada Influencer Program and sponsored by Allstate Canada. All opinions are my own.
Great tips, Maya! I’m challenged when it comes to doing the weekend travel routine, so these should help. 🙂
This is really cool Maya. Was looking at your picture you posted on Twitter, and was thinking, “boy this looks a lot like the cottage country up near I live”. Then I read your bio, on your blog here, my thoughts were correct. (I live just north of Barrie)
This is fantastic, you have been doing this trip now for 10 years. Just amazing! What you shared about packing, comes from many years of experience. Looking back, when my children were small, it was so hard to pack for our annual 4 or 5 day camping trip.
Thanks for sharing! 🙂
~Carl~
I envy you having a cottage by a lake, that must be marvellous and worth the effort it takes to get there as often as possible. 🙂
I think having a stash of items you leave at the the cottage is a great idea. Garage sales can be a great way to pick up extra books and games for the cottage without breaking the bank.
For me it would be only two things for me to worry about:
Food and toys…I can’t forget any of those!
These are great tips! I agree packing ahead a day or two can help a lot!
Really practical tips! We don’t have a cottage to travel too, but we do go up island a few times a year!
Being organized is the key for everything, isn’t it? My favourite tip is the duplicate essentials. That means that you are never really stuck for something that you really need!
We don’t have a cottage ourselves but one day, we’re hoping to have one for our family getaways! I am all about setting the cottage up with fun toys and home-away-from-home activities and items. I also think this is the perfect place to catch up on reading and stuff to do that you haven’t been able to complete at home because of everyday life. But only the relaxing stuff – like working on scrapbooks and reading a book I’ve been dying to read. Love weekend getaways.
We also have a family cottage by a lake. The packing and prep is always tedious…but well worth it when we see how much fun the kids have up there.
We don’t have a cottage but the trunk of my car is kind of like this in the summer. Since I love summer and love making memories with me kids I always keep in the trunk things for the beach, towels, toys and bathing suits. I also keep our sweaters and pants incase we are out later than expected and it gets cool. I am also ready for a day at Canada’s Wonderland.
I love weekend cottage getaways, they are so much fun