Easy Summer vacation meal plan for a family of 4

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Summer vacations can be quite expensive. You need to get to your location, pay for lodging and activities, and feed your family 3 times per day for the entire time. An easy way to lower your vacation expenses is to eat at home. When traveling as a family, we often prefer renting condos or houses. It gives us more space and an entire kitchen to cook meals at home. In this article, I will share an easy 7-day vacation meal plan for a family of four. Don’t miss out on the free printables below.

Important consideration

You will not know exactly how well-stocked is the kitchen until you check in.

Some rentals we have stayed at keep some leftover pantry items for the next guests to use such as salt, pepper, oil, etc. However, in many, they throw away everything and you are starting from scratch.

Pro tip: If you are driving and have room in your car, consider bringing some of those basics with you to minimize any waste.

Additionally, you won’t know what kitchen appliances and tools you will have access to until you get there. The amenity section of the booking might give you a little information, but nothing is certain until you get there.

Therefore, if you want to prepare your vacation meal plan before the trip, I would stay with meals that require the most basic kitchen items.

The meal plan below was created with a very basic kitchen in mind. Although a grill would be extremely helpful for the burgers and steak, you could use the stove and oven as needed.

Pro tip: You can usually confirm if the rental has a grill ahead of time. For a summer vacation, we usually try to ensure we’ll have access to one.

Should you meal plan before you leave

This really is a personal choice.

I like to create our vacation meal plan before we even leave the house. If driving, it allows me to bring some basics and I don’t have to “work” on this when vacation has started.

I usually confirm the grill situation and assume I’ll only have basic appliances for the rest.

Pro tip: If no grill will be available, you could bring a large cast-iron pan with you or even a small travel grill.

7-day summer vacation meal plan

This meal plan is for a family of four. Our family includes 2 adults and 2 teenagers. You could easily replace some of the food items that your family doesn’t like or even replace entire meals.

This was created to inspire you, although you could use it exactly as is.

Pro tip: the most crucial thing to remember when creating a vacation meal plan is that you need to try to minimize waste. You likely won’t want to drive home with a cooler full of food and if you are flying, that won’t even be an option. Therefore, you will see several ingredients come back in future meals.

Breakfast

We like to keep breakfast pretty simple. Nobody wants to slave in the kitchen for hours and we often wake up at different times. I’ll usually plan a few “all-together” breakfasts and others that everyone can make themselves when they are ready.

Pro tip: Make sure to align the easiest breakfasts for days when you might have to be somewhere early.

Pro tip: Consider cooking all 2 pounds of bacon on day 3 to further simplify lunch on day 5.

Lunches

We often do not eat all of our lunches at “home” during the vacation. This is often the meal that we choose to eat while out exploring. For this meal plan, I included all seven lunches but you could easily adjust this to work with your schedule and preferences.

Pro tip: I keep the chicken and shrimp salad easy. I like to add some mayo, diced-up celery, some salt & pepper, and voila! You could add some onions, parsley, or anything else you fancy.

Dinners

We love to have our dinners as a family and when we are on vacation is no different. You will notice that I tend to make more of some items so that they can be reused for lunches later in the week. This saves me time later and ensures I waste as little food as possible.

Marinated chicken

For about 12 chicken thighs, use 1/2 cup of Dijon mustard and 1/2 cup of balsamic vinegar. Let it marinate for at least 4 hours before cooking. You will have delicious chicken to eat as is or for your chicken salad later.

Marinated shrimp

Thaw 2 pounds of shrimp and add to a mixture of 3/4 cup of olive or avocado oil, the juice of 1 lemon, some garlic powder (I do about 1/2 teaspoon), salt, and pepper. I don’t recommend marinating for more than 30 minutes as the lemon juice can cook the shrimp. Cook them on the grill, in the oven, or a pan. Save half of them for your shrimp salad later in the week.

Here is the printable summer vacation meal plan for your convenience.

Grocery List

Other optional items

Coffee/coffee creamer/sugar

Juice or other drinks

Other condiments you like

Desert or snack your family enjoys: ice cream, cookies, yogurt

String cheese, goldfish, granola bars

Here is the printable version of this summer vacation grocery list. Of course, add or remove anything to better fit your family’s preferences.

In conclusion

I hope this article inspired you to create a summer vacation meal plan for your family. Or better yet, maybe you have similar tastes as our family and you will use our meal plan. Either way, I hope you have a fabulous family vacation with good food, at a lower cost.

Bon voyage!

Cat xx

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