I'm Frank. I cruise with my kids and write about what it actually costs.

The short version

Practical Paths Travel is a Canadian family travel brand built around one kind of trip: family cruising with tweens and teens. I'm a divorced dad in Ottawa. My son is 15. My daughter is 11. We've sailed five cruises together as a family, plus one solo trip in January 2026. Everything on this site comes out of those trips — the numbers, the routines, the spreadsheets, the lessons.

Why I started writing about this

Most cruise planning content I found was either US-focused — pricing in USD, assuming you could drive to the port — or it was generic enough to be useless. Nothing was written for a Canadian flying to a US port with two kids and no other adult to tag in when something goes sideways. So I started keeping notes.

After our first two Royal Caribbean cruises on Allure (2017) and Oasis (2018), I had a working budget spreadsheet that actually matched what we spent. After the 9-night Anthem of the Seas trip through Spain and Portugal in 2023, I added excursion logic. After Star of the Seas in October 2025, I added a sample-data tab with real numbers so other families could see what a current Caribbean cruise actually costs. By the time I sailed Celebrity Constellation solo with a friend in January 2026, the spreadsheet was good enough that other parents I'd talked to about cruising were asking for a copy.

So I cleaned it up, made it work in any currency, wrote a packing optimizer to go with it, and put both on Etsy. Then I started writing the articles I wished existed when I was planning my own trips — single-parent versions, with real prices, in CAD first.

What this site is — and what it isn't

This isn't an aggregator site. It isn't an AI-written content farm. It's one parent's notes from five real cruises, written from a perspective most cruise content ignores: solo parent, Canadian dollar, tween and teen at the same time.

The trips are real. The kids are real. The numbers in the spreadsheets come from the trips I actually paid for. When I post a budget breakdown, the receipts exist. When I describe a port day, I was there.

What's here

• The blog — articles on the parts of family cruise planning that aren't easy to find good answers to. Flight logistics from Canada, tween-and-teen cabin choices, when to book excursions through the ship versus going DIY, and the longer Disney + cruise combo planning for our upcoming Harmony trip.
• The free budget calculator — a simplified version of my full spreadsheet. Five budget categories, auto-totals, works in any currency. Built so you can see your real cruise cost in about two minutes.
• The Etsy shop — the full Budget Calculator, a Packing Optimizer, and a bundle. Built for the same trip type the blog is about: family cruising with kids old enough to disagree about which port day to skip.

How to reach me

Email: hello@practicalpaths.com. Replies come from me, not a help desk. If you've bought a spreadsheet and something isn't working, email is the fastest way to get it sorted.

I'm also on Pinterest at @practicalpathstravel. That's where most of the visual planning content goes — itinerary boards, packing diagrams, and shareable budget snapshots.