What to look for in accommodations for a big traveling family
If you’re new here, we are a traveling homeschool family, also known as worldschoolers. Our family has a home base in the midwest, but we take trips that are often well over a month long at a time. Most of the time we are staying in a place only a few days at a time. Some people may call this quick travel. We like to keep a pace that keeps us moving and experiencing a lot in one go. If you’re going to buy the plane ticket you might as well see as much as you can.
When choosing a place for our family of 5 to stay the options can be limited because hotels might not allow 5 to stay in one room together. Some hotels do allow more than 4, and that’s why, as a travel agent I love helping people find the right fit for them.
Whether we are staying in a hotel or a rental there are several things that we personally look at when choosing which place to book.
Location is key, but not always the most important thing
We like to stay in the city, and the country. Location is one of the first things we look at when choosing a place to stay. We evaluate what our itinerary will be and whether there is public transportation or if we are willing to drive and find parking closer to the sites we want to see. Blog time
At the end, I’ll share 2 examples of recent place we stayed with reviews, ratings, and all the additional things we looked for. Make sure to check those places out.
We like to stay in a big city, near the sites, and sometimes outside of the city in a more quiet area. Both have their pros and cons. Staying in a big city can often mean being closer to certain sites that we want to visit. But the parking situation could get pricy. Staying outside the city can help us unwind in the evenings, but then we have to drive farther to get to places. Sometimes we’ll use public transportation to get us into the city and just stay farther out. I have used the app-SpotHero to help us find parking that is way more affordable than parking in a garage, or valet. Try this out and let me know if you find success using it.
We like to map out our itinerary to see what spots are must-do’s for our family. Then once we narrow that down we can figure out if we should stay in the city or outside. If there’s a huge price difference we’re often willing to stay outside the city and make the trek in a few days .
Although location for our stay is key, there are several more things we look into that helps us make the decision.
Room Set up
If I’m honest, I love spending time with my family, and we’ve made so many choices that help us to work together well as a unit. But, at times, we all need our space and quiet time. When planning our accommodations the room set up comes into play every step of the way. On a month long road trip we’ll be staying in many places, and we challenge ourselves to balance out the room situations. If we stay in a hotel, we look for a hotel that can fit 5 people without additional costs. This is really important to do before settling on a place. Looking for a hotel for 5 people can be a challenge, but we’ve found that staying in certain hotel brands make it much easier. For example when I search for a hotel, looking for one that has a kitchenette often means more space. The second thing we look for is if we can find a place that has 2 separate areas, a living area with a pull out couch, and a bedroom with a door. Trust me, this is much needed for everyone. If we’re able to pull that off we will spend the extra money on a hotel with separated areas.
If we’re not staying in a hotel, we will look for a rental that has 3 bedrooms if possible. Having 3 kids means that not everyone has a bed all to themselves at every stay. That is part of the sibling traveling experience. When we have the opportunity of having 3 beds we will switch up who gets to sleep alone for that particular stay. It works out pretty well to rotate, and setting the expectations ahead is even more helpful.
One other thing I look for in a rental is finding bunk beds. Bunk beds is a huge win for our family. We are able to stay in 2 bedroom houses and fit in all 5 of us usually. Plus it’s really fun and special for our kids because they don’t have bunk beds at home. There have been a lot of forts made in the past!
Activities and entertainment
Of course we look ahead at what sites we want to see, things we want to do and base the location off of that. But in addition some things we look for when renting a home, or staying in a hotel is the additional entertainment. We look for a pool and hot tub a sauna is a bonus for my husband. When in doubt take a swim. There were so many days we were exhausted from hiking, but our kids have endless energy and wanted to play. Hanging at the pool and ordering food nearby was a huge win.
Also, we look for the place to have board games or puzzles. Usually in a rental listing the owners will say if they have family friendly games at their place. TWe have stayed at so many condos that have a huge collection of games, and puzzles. When we are needing a down day, we have plenty to do at the house without having to pack a lot in our carry on bags. We have found new family favorite games just by going through someone's collection on a rainy day. If the rental has kids books that’s a huge bonus to us as we love reading! One time we stayed in a house in Europe that had an entire art desk for the kids to be creative at. That was definitely a huge bonus.
A rec room with ping pong, pool, or other games is a bonus. We’ve stumbled upon some really great condos with this added bonus that provided us with a lot of entertainment.
A workout facility is another thing we’ll look for as a bonus. Since a lot of our trips are very high activity level (hiking, walking, swimming), it’s not a have to have, but we look at it more like a bonus. If we can get in some extra workouts on our off chill days that really helps.
Laundry
Most people don’t believe us when we tell them that we travel with mostly 1 personal item per person. You read that right. If we are able to, we’ll share bags and since my boys clothes are so small still we have space to spread out between the bags. We often hear ‘I couldn’t wear just the same clothes over and over for a month.” But we really don’t care as long as they are clean. We create small ‘capsule’ style wardrobes for each person so we can mix and match throughout the month. Carrying less is way more practical in my opinion, and if you have less stuff you have less to pack as you move around. Anyway I always look for laundry to be on property wherever we are. That means, checking ahead at hotels to make sure there is a place for the guests to do laundry. It’s not usually cheap ($5 per load), but totally worth it to us. A lot of rental homes have access to laundry machines but not all, so that’s one thing to look out for when choosing a place. Bonus tip: Run out of underwear? Just use your swimsuit ;)
Cost is always a factor
Cost is always a factor
I hope you didn’t think that I wasn’t going to mention the cost of the place you stay. This is of course always a factor. The way that we look at it is we have a set budget for ‘housing’ when we travel. We like to stay within that budget when possible, but sometimes we’re in big cities (like Los Angeles) that is just going to cost us more. So let’s talk about this practically. If our housing budget is around $200 per night we aim to find all of the things above around that price point. If we are staying in LA and the price for a hotel is $250 per night, we balance this out by spending less on our next place, maybe $150 per night at a condo. Staying in one place longer is helpful too. When we traveled to Guatemala in early 2026, staying in one home for 2 weeks was much more affordable than changing locations, or just staying there for 1 week as the hosts gave us a discount. You need to figure out what your ultimate budget for housing is and then make sure you are able to stay within that limit. For me this is super helpful because often accommodations are paid for before even traveling.
Examples of where we’ve stayed
Like I said we like to stay in a variety of home rentals and hotels depending on the travel plans.
Example of a hotel situation we stayed in Santa Monica, California
I was able to get this property for a discount using my travel agent perks & I also made commission on this, thus saving us more money!
Hilton Santa Monica
We wanted to be close enough to sites and within day trips for our week in LA, so we chose to stay at the Hilton Santa Monica
-Room separated with a door for privacy
-Pull out couch
-Large bathroom
-Table & chairs to eat snacks at
-Mini fridge & counter space with coffee machine
-Pool
-On property snack & medicine shop
-Restaurant
-Starbucks on property
-Bar on property
-Work out facility
-Laundry for guests
-Within walking distance to sites
-Parking across the street (saved us $125+ instead of using Valet)
Example of a home
We recently stayed near Zion National Park in a town called Hurricane, UT
The drive was about 45 mins to the national park, close enough to the park, but far enough that it was much more affordable than staying closer to the park. This did mean that we had to get to the park very early in order to get parking inside the park. Otherwise you can find parking sometimes in the city closer to the park, and take a shuttle in
We stayed at a condo that I found through using my perks as a travel agent. The house was 3 bedrooms with 2 separate bunk beds so we could have actually had many more people stay here with us and split the cost.
-Multiple bedrooms
-2 bathrooms
-6 chair dining table
-Large kitchen which was fully stocked with kitchen supplies
-Laundry in our unit
-Tons of games and puzzles
-3 pools, 2 outdoor and 1 indoor, with hot tubs, & a bonus lazy river
-Outdoor grilling area
-Kids books
-Dvd collection
-Workout facility
-Free parking
Let me know what you look for in accommodations and remember that I can book you hotels, homes, cruises, etc. for free! Let me help you take the guess work out of your travels by helping you dream up your next trip!
-Sarah
