I love seeing pictures of happy families while they are traveling. It’s inspiring and lovely to see people making memories with their kids, trying new foods, and getting out of their comfort zone. Smiling parents and kids while on picturesque, sandy beaches or some famous, touristy place, are beautiful.

It’s also total crap.

I’m 100% for capturing those perfect moments. In fact, I take hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of photos while on vacation. Occasionally, I pay a photographer to capture some beautiful moments for us, too. I want to be clear about “perfect vacations” and those amazing travel photos involving families. For every perfect moment, there’s an opposite and equal imperfect reaction.

So if your family vacation was more exhausting than relaxing: it’s okay and you are NOT alone.

The world is large. There are so many places to see and things to do. Searching for “things to do in” the city you’re about to visit is going to present you with so many search results and options of things YOU SHOULD NOT MISS during your possibly once in a lifetime trip. Travel FOMO (or fear of missing out) is a real thing and manifests in different ways.

What will happen if you don’t go to the Eiffel Tower in Paris? Or the Statue of Liberty in NYC? What if you don’t see Chichen Itza while visiting Cancun, Mexico?