A well-designed family journey is, if anything, more demanding than a private couple’s honeymoon. The brief is longer. The ages are wider. The patience required of the planning team is deeper. And the week — when it goes right — is remembered by the family for the rest of their lives.
We have arranged a great many family weeks. Some rules have emerged.
Plan for more than one kind of pace in a single day
Children require rest, adults require activity, and neither can sustain the other’s rhythm for a full day. We design mornings that mean one thing and afternoons that mean another. A private guide for the museum at nine; a pool at two; a quiet dinner at eight.
Choose accommodation with real space
Two adjoining doubles is not a family room. A suite with a second door to a children’s bedroom is. Better still, a villa or apartment with a kitchen and a garden and the particular small privacies that a week with children requires.
Guides who enjoy children
It is a specific skill to hold the attention of a ten-year-old through a temple or a museum. Not every excellent private guide has it. We keep, in our regular rotation, a small group of guides in each city who do — and when a family journey is booked, these are the ones we call first.
Protect one non-negotiable per traveller
Every family member, from the youngest to the eldest, gets a non-negotiable item on the week’s schedule — a meal they wanted, a place they wanted to see, an afternoon they wanted to themselves. We build around these.
Cook in, at least twice
A week of restaurants, even excellent ones, tires a family. A private chef, at the villa or apartment, is among the most restorative things we can arrange — and it returns the evening meal to the family, which is where, on a holiday, it should usually live.
A family week done properly is not the longest item on our calendar, but it is often the most carefully drawn. Because families remember, we plan as if a great deal is at stake. Generally, a great deal is.
