Single moms on vacation -- easier to just stay home?

This week The Huffington Post published an essay I wrote about vacationing with my SMILF BFF Morghan and her two kids. Traveling alone with kids is rife with challenges: the logistics of packing, maneuvering, organizing and entertaining while away from home are doubled — tripled, I say! — if you go at it alone. Plus, there is the loneliness factor.

Here’s an excerpt from the essay:

We were two moms in different stages of divorce, each armed with a 2- and a 4-year old, sharing a lake house for the week. Along for the ride was Sabine, a French babysitter, who pitched camp in the basement master suite where she entertained the kids while Morghan and I slept in. We’d booked the place at the last minute — the Astoria daycare our kids attended was closed for the week and we were both desperate for some country air, to say nothing of a break from our intense lives.

We found it. The house surprised us as remarkably large, clean and pretty; the lake was beautiful and the fresh air liberating. The kids ran in and out of screened patio doors, splashing in the kiddie pool on the deck as we took turns barbequing, slathering them with sunscreen and filling water guns. What was not to love?

Morghan and I met four years ago at baby music class. At the time, we both told ourselves that we were happily married. Now I was nearly three years into life as a single mom, and this week away was the latest mark of pride I took in the new life I was creating for my little family. Who better to share it with than another single mom, who was still in the tangle of separation?

Later in the story I mention how the the thought of a week away alone with the kids had felt lonely and boring. Such a trip also felt overwhelming. After all, how many times have I heard moms sigh, “I need a vacation from my vacation!” Stale joke aside, there is this whole crop of parents with the financial means to travel with their kids, but the work and the craving of adult company can impede on the enjoyment factor of vacationing. We might even be compelled to stay home.

How have other single parents found ways to better enjoy travel with their kids? What is the travel industry doing to meet this challenge? Please share your tips below!