Taking your family on the road? That’s a big leap of faith! With tight living spaces and lots of quality time in your future, there is a lot of room for a rocky beginning to your road trip adventure. To avoid that, here are a few questions to ask your family before hitting the open road.

Is This Actually What Everyone Wants?

Know everyone’s honest feelings about hitting the road. If someone is uneasy about the adventure, talk about their fears with them. If someone is super against going, reconsider your options as a family. No one should get left behind in the decision making process and no one should be forced to do anything they don’t want to do.

Will Everyone Get Alone Time?

Privacy is an important part to life. As much as we all love to think we can spend an infinite amount of time with our families without getting annoyed or frustrated, it’s impossible. We all need a little alone time – so, how will everyone get it? While on the road, it’s important to take note of this. If everyone starts becoming fussy and annoyed, maybe it’s time to rent out an Airbnb for the night and let everyone have his or her space! Take note of grumpy moods and try to stay ahead of them. If you are feeling like you need some alone time, make the initiative to make it happen. Personal space will not be an issue on the road if you make alone time a priority.

Will We Stay Comfortable on the Road?

If you are living on the road or flying with your family, it is likely you’ll be living in a pretty small space. So you’ll need to learn to get comfortable on economy flights and find your way through layovers. Is everyone okay with that? Does everyone have what he or she needs to be living comfortably? Before going on the road full time or flying overseas, do a practice trip or two. Get everyone in the van and figure out what it is you are missing or need to leave behind. This is a great way to be sure you are only taking the essentials, as well as testing whether or not your family would feel comfortable on the road.

Do We Have Steady Income Streams?

This question may only be for the adults, but it is still important to include. Taking your family on the road can come with a lot of risk and unexpected expenses. It’s a chaotic life that you want to approach as responsibly as possible to avoid taking the wrong turn. So, validating steady income is important. It’s also important to be sure the timing is right. You don’t want to hit the road at a chaotic time in your life. For example, you may not want to hit the road if someone in your family is ill or if you just started a new business. You want living on the road to be a magic adventure, not a stressful financial disaster!

Do We Have Family Issues That Need to Be Resolved?

It’s best to get out frustrations and solve issues before you hit the road. Why? Because you are going to be spending a lot more time together than you may think, and are going to be living closer together than you may think. People will get annoyed with each other eventually and all the issues, frustrations and grudges will come out all at once. Avoid the mess and start your adventure on the road with a clean slate. You don’t have to figure everything out, because you’ll learn out a lot of new things about love and life on the road. But, just make sure everyone is in an honest, good place in his or her heads and in their role in the family. Especially between spouses. This is a great opportunity for you and your spouse to begin a new relationship. You’ve been friends, boyfriend and girlfriend, husband and wife, wife and wife, husband and husband, but now you are travelers. A new start to leave what happened in the past behind and to create your own future ahead.

Where Do We Want to Travel?

A fun question to ask! Where does everyone want to go? Don’t just pick one place. Make a bucket list and try to get to all of them, or don’t make a plan at all. Perhaps you just want to go where the wind takes you. Either way, talking together as a family about the places you will go is a great way to get excited for the adventure.

Are We Ready for the Greatest Adventure of our Lifetime?

Last but not least, is everyone excited? They should be! This will be an amazing adventure to share as a family that you and your kids will treasure for the rest of your life, but keep in mind that with great adventure also comes great setbacks and hard work. Be prepared for anything to happen and have the willingness to fix things when they go wrong! Have the right attitude. Being on the road, you always hope nothing goes wrong, but be mentally and physically prepared for when they do. Stay optimistic if things do go wrong and never give up if this is your true dream.

Taking the leap of faith to take your family on the road is challenging, but if you do it right, you’re sure to make memories that will last a lifetime. While on the road, it’s important to prioritize alone time, comfort, and genuine, personal feelings each person has. This way, you can spend less time arguing and more time adventuring while on your vacation.