30A Family Vacation
This trip was provided by Vrbo in exchange for social media / blog coverage. However, all opinions are my own. Thank you so much Vrbo for this opportunity and thank YOU for reading!
If you’re wanting to look into booking the exact house we stayed in CLICK HERE!
Fifteen years ago when I was in college, hold up how has it been that long?!?!… Any way, a long time ago 30A was barely heard of. Skot and I would drive down for a day to get away from our little college town of Troy, Alabama.
There wouldn’t be a wait at Bud and Alley’s, the now iconic airstream food trucks may or may not be opened, and the beaches were deserted compared to the ones over in Destin or Panama City.
Fast forward to 2021, everyone and their momma has a blue 30A sticker on the back of their SUV… no shame I know I do!
Needless to say, the word has spread about how wonderful this little slice of heaven along highway 30A is. Now days, you have to plan ahead and be smart if you’re traveling there, especially with little kids!
So that’s what I decided to focus this blog post on, doing a 30A family vacation the smart way!
First and foremost, book a single family home through Vrbo preferably with a golf cart! Don’t mess around with hauling a beach wagon, 47 sand toys, 4 bottles of sunscreen, towels, chairs, swim diapers… should I go on?… up and down stairs or an elevator.
The amount of Vrbo homes in this area is insane! There’s one out there to fit almost every family’s rental needs and budget. We’ve even stayed in larger ones and split it with two other families.
For this particular trip, we stayed in the town of Blue Mountain. It’s one of the eastern most towns along 30A. Its less busy than some of its sister towns like Rosemary or Watercolor. There’s a couple of little shops, a gas station, a coffee shop, and an ice cream store… what more could you want when traveling with little ones? You can always take a “Moms only” half day down to the busier towns for a little shopping if you want!
Okay now that we’ve talked about where to stay, let’s move on to how to do the beach. If you stroll out to the white sandy beaches at noon with your tent,chairs,floats etc, you MIGHT find a spot on the very back row 50 yards from the ocean.
If your kids are like mine on vacation, they are waking up at the crack of dawn busting with excitement, then go on and eat a little breakfast and then head to the beach… or better yet stop and get donuts on the way to the beach!
We had our tent set up, sunscreen on, and maybe even a mimosa in hand on the beach by 8:00 am each day! And let me tell ya, we had the best spot on the beach!
Since our youngest son still takes a solid nap after lunch, we went back to the Vrbo house for lunch instead of packing one for the beach. While he napped, one of us would take Cedar to the resort style pool that was literally steps away from our house!
It’s so much better to split up the day between the beach and pool for little ones. So when I was searching for our Vrbo home, I added a pool filter to my search.
I loved this home’s big front porch. It was nice to sit out there while Smith napped too.
Okay next piece of wisdom that we’ve learned the hard way over the years… don’t eat dinner when everyone else at the beach will be going to eat dinner!!!! Tell me one toddler who wants to wait three hours just to eat some popcorn shrimp!
The Bay is one of my most favorite restaurants ever! I’ve spent two birthday dinners here in the past few years. The food is just as amazing as the atmosphere which is super important for us. They have so many things for the kids to do out back like trucks and games. They have a dock you can walk on too.
They have happy hour everyday until 6:00 pm … just another reason to dine early!
The next spot that is a must for dinner is The Hub. It’s like a big backyard with different restaurants, bars, and stores all around. They have nightly entertainment from movies to music too! Everyone there pretty much has kids so you don’t feel weird when your toddler does flips across the stage!
They have a wide variety of restaurants so there will surely be something for everyone in your group. Mama got a bucket cocktail drink from the Hub Bar, we all ate seafood at Hooked and the boys got snow-cones and picked out a small toy from the toy shop. Overall this was one of the best family dinners ever… everyone was happy happy!
Both nights after dinner, we had enough time to go back to the pool or beach! That’s just another perk of joining the early dinner crowd.
Another great thing about Vrbo homes is that once the kiddos are asleep, you have the whole house to enjoy. Skot and I sat on the deck one night and watched Netflix another.
Thanks so much for reading guys! I hope this was helpful. If you have any questions about the Vrbo home, Blue Mountain, or anything else please shoot me an email!
I’ll leave you will a few other tips I’ve stored away over the years of traveling with my babes.
Bring as much as you can from home to make bedtime routine as normal as possible … noisemakers, favorite books, night light etc
Bring plastic grocery bags to the beach with you! There’s always trash, a nasty swim diaper, something to put in them.
Be like Santa and make a list and check it twice before you go! I seriously start a week before jotting down things that pop into my head that we need.
If your house has a washer and dryer, I like to bring a little detergent so I can do a couple loads before we come back home. It makes the unpacking so much smoother!