I didn’t invent this rule. I stole it.
A friend of mine has four kids and an almost suspiciously calm way of traveling with them. Years ago, while I was packing tiny socks at midnight and trying to build a minute-by-minute itinerary that would keep three children under seven occupied, fed, and meltdown-free, he shrugged and said, “We only do slow, no-itinerary weekends.”
Then he explained it in a way that sounded like magic: “We pick a base, choose two gentle anchors, and let the rest be air.”
I tried it once. Then again. Now it’s the only way we travel without losing our minds.
I’m sharing it here not as a manifesto, but as a survival tool that’s saved more Saturdays than I can count. If your trips feel like a relay race with snacks, you might find some peace in the empty space.
Where the rule came from
Like a lot of parents, I believed the solution to chaos was control.
Book more. Plan more. Reserve more. See more.
The result?
We arrived at “restful” weekends more exhausted than we left, with a camera roll full of proof that we’d been everywhere and a family who needed another day off to recover.
The slow, no-itinerary rule flips the script. It assumes kids are humans (novel, I know) with limited fuel—emotional, cognitive, physical—and that travel drains that fuel faster than home life does.
Novelty, crowds, heat, new beds, different smells, the constant “where are we going next?”—each one is a withdrawal. The rule just stops pretending we can out-schedule biology.
The rule, in one sentence
Pick a walkable home base, choose two soft anchors for the entire weekend, and leave everything else unplanned, optional, and within a short radius.
That’s it. Not “two anchors per day.” Not “anchors plus five bonus activities if everyone behaves.” Two anchors for the whole weekend. The rest is margin.
Here’s how that looks for us.
What “slow” means with three kids under seven
We define slow as fewer transitions, shorter distances, and longer dwells. Children burn energy at the seams: getting out the door, getting into a car, queuing, navigating crowds, being told “almost there” for the tenth time. So we cut seams.
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Fewer transitions: We cap the day at one outbound transition and one return. If we leave the base in the morning, we aim not to hop between five attractions. We go somewhere good, stay longer than we think, and come back.
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Shorter distances: Nothing that requires forty minutes of “are we there yet?” on a two-day trip. We look for trains, trams, or our feet. If something fantastic is across town, it becomes a future trip, not a must-do.
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Longer dwells: Once the kids settle into a place—splash pad, lawn, museum corner—we resist the adult itch to “see the rest.” The point is not to collect rooms; the point is to enjoy this one.
“Slow” also means we protect sleep. Not with rigid nap windows that ruin everyone’s mood if they slip, but with a bias toward resting. Someone always naps. Someone always wakes up nicer. The world keeps spinning.
The anchors that keep us sane
When my friend said “two gentle anchors,” I pictured events with tickets and lines. That’s not it. Anchors are feelings we want the weekend to have that we can trigger easily. For example:
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A big morning play. A park with water, a beach with buckets, a playground with room to sprint. The goal is to let their bodies do the regulatory work so their brains don’t have to.
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A little afternoon treat. A gelato run, a bakery picnic, a bookstore browse. Something that cues “this is special,” not because we queued for it, but because we shared it.
Two anchors. If the weekend only includes those and a lot of wandering, it’s still a success. Some trips our “big play” is chasing pigeons in a square, and the treat is croissants on a curb. That counts.
The psychology behind leaving space
You don’t need a research paper to know kids unravel when they’re tired and hungry, but it helps to understand why empty hours beat packed schedules.
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Decision fatigue is real. Every “what next?” costs energy. For adults, too. Fewer choices means less friction and fewer negotiations. Our weekends have fewer “almosts” and more “this.”
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Predictability reduces anxiety. Kids handle novelty best when there’s a familiar rhythm under it. Knowing that we always return for midday quiet—and that adults won’t keep moving the target—settles them.
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Regulation happens in the body. Running, climbing, splashing. The more we let their nervous systems downshift through movement, the less we rely on words like “calm down,” which never work when kids are dysregulated anyway.
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Shared attention beats constant stimulation. Some of our best travel memories are a stick, a puddle, and twenty minutes of everyone noticing the same silly thing. You can’t schedule that. You can only make room for it to happen.
What we actually do when we arrive
We drop bags. We find the nearest green space. The first hour is always a release valve—no attractions, no rules beyond safety. That hour often determines the tone of the whole trip. If they’ve run, we’re all kinder.
Back at base, we have a “ten-minute huddle.” It’s not formal. It’s sandwiches and a map. We pick our big morning play and the tiny treat window for the entire weekend. Then we stop planning.
If a museum is close and the weather turns, we might wander through. If a street musician pulls our kids into a dance, we stay. The anchors are more guardrails than goals.
Meals are simple. We eat early to avoid lines. We carry fruit and crackers, because hungry kids will declare mutiny three steps from a table. We don’t force restaurant experiences; some weekends, the treat is that we didn’t fight through one.
Handling the curveballs
Travel with small kids invites chaos. Someone will spill. Someone will trip. Someone will need a bathroom now. The rule helps because empty space is the best shock absorber there is.
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Rain: Our base is near something covered. Not necessarily the “best” museum—just a dry place where small people can exist without shushing. A train station with a wide hall has saved us twice.
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Overstimulation: We retreat early. “No itinerary” means we’re never negotiating sunk costs (“But we bought tickets!”). Rest doesn’t ruin the weekend; pushing through does.
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Sibling friction: We separate by tasks. One adult does a “special mission” (bread, bananas, nap set-up) with one child. The other stays in the space with the rest. Small doses of one-on-one time are magic for morale.
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Nap strikes: We move quiet time to the morning play area—shade, audiobook, stroller roll. It’s not perfect, but it breaks the spiral.
The small, specific rituals that help
We have a few micro-habits that make the no-itinerary weekend feel held instead of aimless.
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The “one bag” rule. We take a single day bag with water, wipes, a tiny first-aid pouch, and a change of clothes rolled tight. If it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t come. Fewer things, fewer arguments.
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The “when in doubt, sit down” rule. If the adults feel frayed, we find a bench and stop moving. Snacks come out. Eye contact returns. Most “behavior problems” are just “need to sit” problems.
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The “photo pause.” We take a few pictures at the beginning, then put phones away for long stretches. It’s amazing how much nicer everyone is when we’re not directing a family documentary.
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The “two-minute tidy” back at base. Before bedtime chaos, we set a timer and everyone resets the space. Little people love timers. Morning us is always grateful.
“But what about seeing more?”
We do see more — just over more weekends.
The truth is, very little of what makes a place memorable to kids lives on a checklist. They remember the fountain we splashed our hands in, the dog that trotted beside us, the busker who let them try a drum. They remember the feeling of the family around them being unhurried enough to notice.
Does this mean we never do the big thing? Of course not.
We just give it a whole day. The zoo is the day. The beach is the day. We don’t stack it with a market, a cathedral, and a “quick” stop at a crowded square. We refuse to turn joy into endurance.
“Seeing more” is sometimes code for “proving to myself the trip was worth it.” If I’m honest, I was more anxious when I needed proof. The slow rule gave me something better than proof: presence.
The invitation
If your version of family travel is working, don’t change it because I had an epiphany in a playground. But if you’re arriving home defeated, try the slow, no-itinerary weekend once.
Pick the base. Choose two soft anchors. Make everything else optional, walkable, and close. When in doubt, sit down.
You might feel like you’re doing less. You are. And that may be exactly why everyone loves it more.
