Family holiday memories – part one

To celebrate the launch of our exciting new Scott Dunn Explorers children’s clubs, we’re invited our favorite Mumpreneurs, bloggers and journalists to share their happiest family vacation memories with us – from their childhood and as a parent.

Katherine Elphick, The Little Style Book
My name is Katherine Elphick and I am the Editor and Founder of The Little Style Book, an online guide for stylish mums and mums-to-be. A former Londoner I now live in a village south of Cambridge with my husband and children, Alice aged two and James aged 10 months.

My best vacation memory is somewhat hazy but it is learning to swim in Tuscany.  We were in a small villa and my stepfather taught me with a great deal of patience and enthusiasm (and jazzy armbands).  That vacation also stands out as I met another little girl who was my vacation buddy and we had great fun catching bees in jam jars (not very PC I know).  As an only child I always enjoyed vacations more when I made friends at the pool or playground – as I daresay my parents did too!

As our two tots are still so young our best vacation is yet to happen!  We haven’t ventured abroad with them both yet, but have had some lovely UK mini-breaks including a fantastic stay at Woolley Grange near Bath which is like something from an Enid Blyton book. This Summer we are taking a house in Burnham Market in North Norfolk but by next Summer I hope we will be ready to face an airport for something more exotic even if just to the Med. I’d love to take the children to Mallorca as that is where my husband and I met.

My dream vacation destination would be anywhere with a Scott Dunn children’s club!  All the resorts sound fantastic and I love the idea of the children having a whale of a time and eating delicious food while we catch up on some much needed shut-eye by the pool.  Bliss. 

Maggie Bolger, Maggie and Rose

My name is Maggie Bolger; I am a mum to four lively children, aged 11, 8, 7 and 18 months. I own family members club Maggie & Rose, so life is very hectic and busy. We live in Kensington, London, which is a great place to raise kids. I write a blog for our Maggie & Rose members; mostly we review cool and fun things for families.

I grew up in New Zealand, so family vacations were always at our beach house on the Coromandel coast, they were pretty rustic and simple. We spent a lot of time swimming, bush walking, digging in the sand for shell fish called Pippis, fishing and having BBQ’s.

My most memorable experience as a parent has to be our Scott Dunn villa vacation in Mallorca.  I always kind of dread going on vacation, as for me it is just a change of location, I still have to feed the kids, sort out their sunscreen, worry about shopping etc, plus this time I was quite pregnant as well! But we arrived at the villa and all was taken care of.  Delicious food was cooked for us by our lovely chef Dell and Tom our host, took care of anything we needed – I could even doze after lunch, with the kids happily playing in the pool, as the nanny kept an eye on them, making sure they had water and sunscreen.

It was the only vacation I have been on as a parent where I actually felt like I had had a vacation myself.

Our dream family vacation is currently safari, our kids are all animal mad, and we all want to go on Safari, teamed with a bit of a beach vacation as well.

We were all geared up to go as all the kids were the perfect age but then we had another baby so now we have to wait until he is big enough!

But we have started our scrapbook of ideas and love the Sausage Tree Camp in Zambia (pictured above) followed by somewhere fabulous in Madagascar or Zanzibar.