DO’s and DON’T’s for a European Family Vacation

We went to Europe – London, Paris and Strasbourg – in December 2025 and I am just now writing about it because I think it lends a certain je ne sais quoi to be 4-6 months late at everything. j/k I’m a hot mess. Anyway, I want to share some wisdom I’ve collected from our experience so you can learn from us and when this goes viral, we can become one of those families that gets paid to travel and blog about it. And don’t worry, we won’t be one of those annoyingly perfect families who you want to punch in the face because they’re so fake. You’re getting us farts, mistakes, bad French and all. You’re welcome. Here’s my advice to you…

DO plan your trip well in advance
If you want to see certain sights (the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Musée D’Orsay), eat at certain restaurants, or stay in the cutest neighborhoods at a fun hotel, you need to plan ahead. I know you’re busy with your full time job, two neurotic dogs, full kids’ sports schedules, and a new business pitch you’re working on, but fortunately you have a whole family of able-bodied, computer-savvy people to help you. Or do you?

DON’T rely on passive aggressive reminders to your family about how they really should add to the family vacation google doc to actually make your family members do anything.
They won’t and this will lead to a growing resentment that results in you yelling, “La sérénité maintenant!” on the streets of Paris, which is, of course, French for “Serenity now!” But DO keep repeating, “Guess you should have contributed to the google doc” anytime anyone in your family complains about anything on the itinerary because this is not passive aggressiveness, this is classic conditioning. I was a psych major, you know.

DO use a vacuum sealer to pack 10 days worth of clothes in a mofo carryon bag like a champ.

DON’T let your family shame you for said vacuum sealer.
It’s brilliant and you are a star.

DO encourage the whole family to embrace local culture
That includes yelling, “Wanker! Wanker!” at a Premier League game and practicing our French in Paris and Strasbourg. Some of our French-speaking examples: Hazel calling restaurants for us and asking if they could accommodate four people at 7 pm, me French Karen-ing an entitled French man who thought he could cut the line at the car rental place (au contraire, mon frere, I can cut a B in two languages), and George saying, “J’ai ripped one again” while walking the streets of Paris. Je suis so proud.

DON’T get on your high horse about your French and think you’re all fluent and nod along to the French train station lady (“Oui, oui.”) then end up with a special Parisian Metro card that requires a photo ID to be inserted into it.
And p.s. that photo ID can be a photocopy of your passport that you can make at the Gare du Nord (*foreshadowing alert*) for 35¢ if you actually have European currency which you don’t because you’ve been using your TJ Maxx credit card for everything and then your French isn’t good enough to ask at the nearby convenience store if they will give you some Euro change in exchange for buying a banana on your TJ Maxx credit card. Regardless, they will not.

DO use your TJ Maxx credit card in Europe.
You’ll get TJ TK Maxx rewards bucks Euros and they don’t charge an international fee.

DON’T make the mistake of thinking spending doesn’t count on vacation or get loosey-goosey with your Euro-to-dollar conversion to justify your overspending.
You don’t actually have to buy an actual gold macaron, you actual tête de merde.

DO see as many friends as you can on vacation.
They know their hometown better than you do, and they can give your kids perspective. Case in point, my beloved Nina got us into Dishoom for dinner, and our old friend James (752nd in line for the throne, according to him), after hearing our itinerary, said to the kids, “Do you have any idea how cool your parents are?” No, James, no they do not.

DON’T have those friends evaluate your British accent.
It will not go well. James said Hazel’s British accent was very posh while mine sounded like I worked “on the street level.” I am now reminded of this on a bloody daily basis.

DO embrace each family member’s passions
Hazel loves Jellycat stuffies, so we went to the Jellycat store in London (and Paris). George loves VR so we played a game together as a family at a Parisian VR lounge. I love cheese so we went to the greatest place on earth, Pick and Cheese, where individual cheese domes ride on conveyor belts and you pick and cheese choose the ones you want to eat (#allofthem). Matty loves art, but since NO ONE HELPED ME PLAN, we didn’t make it to the Louvre or the Musée D’Orsay, but we did make it to the Banksy Museum, which was awesome. Say it with me, “Guess you should have contributed to the google doc!”

DON’T take on your family at VR
Because the last video game you were any good at was Super Mario and your teenage son has had an Oculus for about two years and will find you and kill you in any virtual world in .2 seconds, despite you shrieking, “I was about to shoot you!” and “But I hit the teleport button!”

DO take the train everywhere in Europe
I think it’s because one time I’m pretty sure a dude pooped himself next to me on the NYC subway and I’ve gotten shushed one time too many in the quiet car on Amtrak, but I haven’t really romanticized trains much. But trains in Europe are awesome. We got everywhere on the Tube in London and the Metro in Paris, and the kids had a certain sense of pride navigating their way through the cities. We also felt really fancy taking trains from London to Paris, Paris to Strasbourg, and Strasbourg right into Charles de Gaulle airport.

DON’T leave your husband’s passport in a copy machine at the Gard du Nord
This will lead to a sort of existential crisis where you’re like, “Oh no! Now we’ll never be able to leave Paris!” and then, “Wait, maybe we can just stay in Paris forever?” and you’re not sure how to feel. On the one hand, you feel bad because you were totally the one who left your husband’s passport in the 35¢ copy machine at Gare du Nord because you were too busy trying to scrounge for Euro change but on the other hand, you feel kind of angry because if literally anyone in the family had helped you plan, you wouldn’t feel so scatterbrained and overwhelmed and no, that’s not an excuse, but your knee-jerk reaction to messing up is trying to figure out in what world it isn’t actually your fault at all.

DO take every cheesy photo op.
Someday your kids will be too cool to take these photos and you’ll be glad you have them.

DON’T pull this guy’s finger though.

Do take as many “album cover photos” as you can.
BTW, these are different from cheesy photos; in fact, they’re quite the opposite. These are the photos that will make people want to attend your self-titled photo acting school (The Natasha O’Rourke School of Photo Acting), and at the very least, take your intro level classes, “Acting Cool in Photos 101” and “Photo Jumping for Beginners.”

DON’T forget to take some couples photos too.
I like to remind my kids that their parents are still into each other. Paris is the city of love, after all.

DO take advantage of European countries being close together.
Day trip to Baden Baden, Germany? Don’t mind if we do. Quick passport stamp in Portugal on the way back to Paris? Oui oui, mon ami!

DON’T sleep on Strasbourg
What/where is Strasbourg? It’s a city in France, in the Alsace region, and it’s known as the Christmas Capital of Europe. It’s all cobblestone streets, gorgeous architecture, and movie set Christmas decorations. It looks like it could be where they filmed The Christmas Prince or The Mistletoe Mistake or any other charmingly horrible Hallmark holiday movie, where the woman is a scrappy career woman and you know you’re supposed to find the man attractive but he’s so vanilla he’s about as appealing as a sponge that’s been sitting in the sink for too long. Note: this is the one place where we didn’t take public transportation, partly because we couldn’t figure out the bus system and partly because we could walk everywhere. Even though I only packed one pair of footwear (Chelsea boots) because I am an aforementioned star!

DO walk around with a baguette.
When in Rome Strasbourg and all. Bonus: you can eat your photo prop when times get desperate (i.e. you haven’t had cheese or a croissant in over an hour).

DON’T buy two giant beers on your way into a premier league game, telling your husband, “I’m going to give us the full experience.”
Unless you think the full experience is drinking two giant beers down in the stadium lobby, watching the game on the big screens, because beers aren’t allowed in the stands, which apparently, everyone knows except this bloody wanker. Burp.

DO karaoke with your family in a private room with a gorilla.
It’s nice to see that the mic hog gene does not skip a generation.

DON’T play karaoke roulette with said family.
Because they will pick your “favorite” song, All I Want for Christmas is You, and learn the hard way that you don’t have the octave range of Mariah Carey or even un-autotuned Britney Spears.

DO expose your kids to art, even if they don’t appreciate it right now.

Don’t shoot your eye out!

DO appreciate that you’re in Europe and you’re lucky to be experiencing it with your family.
Even if the kids fight sometimes and complain about how much walking you’re doing and keep trying to order pasta at every dinner. It’s pretty fantastic and there’s no one you’d rather be with in this beautiful place. You may not have la sérénité but you definitely have la joie.

Any tips I missed? Please share in the comments. Bon voyage!