Back in August, I attended the inaugural Family Travel For Real Life (#FT4RL) conference in Washington DC. The motto of the conference is
Travel with kids is not only possible, but necessary. By sharing the world with our children, we expand both their minds and our own, creating a lifetime’s worth of wonder that can come no other way.
I had a great time and spent some time live-blogging the speakers. To give you an idea of the topics discussed, we had:
- Shawn from Miles to Memories on traveling vs. vacationing
- Jason Steele from The Points Guy about finding and redeeming multiple award tickets
- Phil from MilesAbound on ways to manufacture spending
- Susan from Carolina Travel Girl on alternate forms of lodging
- Debra from Traveling Well for Less on how to save money on things besides airfare and hotels
Family Travel for Real Life #2 is March 7, 2015 at the Hyatt House Center City in Charlotte, NC. Ticket info here.
Speakers currently listed include:
- Phil from Miles Abound on Current Events and Sweet Spots in Miles and Points
- Kenny from Miles4More on National Parks and Destination Ideas Off the Beaten Path for Families (and how to get to them with awards)
- Bonnie from Frugal Travel Lawyer on the New Frontier (Airlines): Southwest, Jetblue, and the rest of the game changers
- Shawn from Miles to Memories on Immersive travel: family adventures, educational experiences, and ways to give back
- Leslie from Trips with Tykes on Disney: Mastering the International Houses of Mickey
2 repeat speakers (with different topics) who I know will be good and the other speakers I’m also looking forward to hearing from.
Early bird tickets are only $59 but you have to purchase them by October 31st (after that the price goes up to $69)
Are you going? I went by myself last time, but this time we’re going to see if we can turn this into more of a family adventure – we’ll see! If you’ll be there too, let me know and we’ll have to catch up!
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
I am looking forward to it!
I won’t be there this time, because I’ll be in San Diego for the FTU. Have fun in Charlotte, though!
Yeah I heard that they were both in the same weekend. We’ll have to catch up another time!
One thought for a speaker for a future Family Travel Workshop – Large family travel groups could use some organizational pointers from the experts in this field – elementary teachers who take students on field trips – especially overnight field trips. Also camp counselors are good at this.
Clare – that WOULD be a great topic!
Why not plan this for a future workshop as a moderated panel discussion with audience questions encouraged, perhaps also including a coach who has to take student on extended trips to away games and/or a language teacher who takes student groups on trips to Europe, etc.