First (Beach) Vacation As A Family of Four

First and foremost, we survived!

All jokes aside, I’m glad Vishnu and I decided to bite the bullet, pack up the car, and take the kids to the beach. It was memorable and a lot easier than I anticipated. Although, I still hold to my claim that a vacation with kids is just a fun location change!

I’m going to try and make this post as helpful as possible by breaking everything down. I know how overwhelming it can be to even think about going on a road trip with kids, but it is possible!

Let me know if you have any questions.

Because age matters when it comes to road trips and vacations in general, note that Kaiden is almost 5 and Mila was almost 7 months old when we went on this trip.

Where we went and why

We went to 30A area and stayed in Inlet Beach. A lot of our friends vacation there regularly, so we knew it was kid-friendly with clean beaches (honestly some of the best I’ve ever seen in the US). We also took trip duration into account. Without kids, it would’ve taken 5.5 hours from where we live (outside of Atlanta). It took us about 7 hours both ways, accounting for all stops and breaks.

Where we stayed

I would highly recommend the house (and area) we stayed in. It’s absolutely perfect for a family of four with plenty of space and a newly renovated kitchen and bathrooms.

And the BEST part is that it’s literally right on the beach.

I’m glad we decided to go this route because otherwise we probably wouldn’t have made it out to the water that often. It was so nice to take Kaiden out while Mila napped. It was also nice to wake up to such a beautiful view every day!

What we ate

We ate out/ordered in four times. We also brought some food with us and also made a trip to Publix while there. I will say that I probably overpacked a lot of food because most of it came back with us. But it was nice to have options…and lots of snacks!

Restaurants we tried:

Big Bad Breakfast – a must try place! The food was so good.

Bubba’s Pizza – surprisingly, Kaiden loved this pizza. In fact, he’s now a pizza loving convert! Vishnu also liked it a lot. I thought it was ok.

Amici – highly recommend this place! Super family friendly and the food (and service!) was good! We had enough food leftover for lunch the next day.

And of course, Publix subs were had by all! So good!

Other tidbits of info!

Something we didn’t do but should’ve is plan out our stops more. The drive from Atlanta to this part of Florida can be super deserted with no rest stops or restaurants for MILES! We needed to feed Mila on our way down and ended up stopping at a marina that just so happened to have a little store where we could heat up her milk. On our way back, we were more mindful and made more strategic stops.
Speaking of feeding Mila, we took our mini fridge and bottle warmer with us. I would say you don’t necessarily need the fridge (we’re just extra), but a bottle warmer would be a good thing to have.
Mila slept in her pack n’play and we used this cover to darken her space. And we used a sound machine to block out any noise.
Kaiden watched PJ Masks on the iPad pretty much the entire way down and up. And guess what…I had zero guilt about it!
We took our Baby Bjorn bouncer for Mila to be in around the house as well as on the beach. That was a good idea!
We purchased this travel ‘high chair’ for Mila but didn’t really use it much. I do, however, think this is a great thing for when we eat out or go to someone’s house.
We also purchased this beach tent. Didn’t get as much use out of it as I hoped, but I definitely see more beach trips in our future so will definitely use again.
A note for those traveling with small babies – check to see what the bathrooms are like in the house you’re renting. Both of the ones in this house had standing showers. I’m so glad we brought Mila’s bathtub because we were able to give her a bath (in a really awkward way but we made it work!).