The Travel Gift I’m Putting Under the Tree This Year

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For Christmas, I’m more than happy to put any gift under the tree that doesn’t involve a million plastic pieces that will be lost and scattered all over our house. Thankfully, as my kids get older, we have fewer annoying plastic toys to deal with. But still, I’d rather gift experiences than fill our house with more “stuff”.

In the past, we’ve wrapped all sorts of travel and non-travel experiences and put them under the tree. Our list includes:

• Tickets to at Sea World
• Dinner at Medieval Times
• Night at Great Wolf Lodge
• Disney Cruise
• Zoo membership
• Museum membership

Since we already have two big trips planned for 2022, I looked around for something a bit smaller to enjoy together as a family.

Kalahari Resort

I decided to surprise our kids with a trip to Kalahari Resort in Round Rock, Texas. If you’re not familiar with the brand, it’s a water park hotel with several locations around the U.S. It’s about three hours from our house, but we will be traveling by it during a visit to family.

We are only staying one night, but we can enjoy the water park on the day we arrive and the day we leave.

In addition to the water park, the resort has an indoor amusement park, Tom Foolery’s Adventure Park. With rides, rope courses, laser tag, an escape room and more, I don’t think we’ll have time to do it all.

I printed out some photos of the resort and made a flyer that reveals the surprise. I wrapped it up in a box for the kids to open on Christmas.

With my oldest son already touring colleges, I feel like time is moving at warp speed now. We don’t have too many more years left with kids and teens in our house. Kalahari Resort isn’t a place I see us going to when they are all grown up, so I’m squeezing it in now.

Are you wrapping up any experiences or travel this year?

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