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ILs are a 14-hour drive away. We go once a year for a week in the summer (and we take the car for our own convenience, although we've also done the flying thing), and they visit us 3ish times a year. We won't drive that far on winter roads with little ones, and holiday air travel is too expensive. It's not ideal, but it is what it is. My family is local, so we celebrate holidays with them. It's not totally fair, but DH's family understands.

Flying is the only option we have and is soooo expensive! These days we just don't really go (last trip was two years ago). Cost plus emotional trauma of trying to fit everyone in, feeling guilty that it's never enough and all the goodbyes every time really put me off.

Is Amtrak an option? My family is 6-7 pre kids and we go a few times a year for a weekend. With a 14 hour drive I would probably plan around major holidays to extend the stay.

I live in MD, my parents live in OR, and my sister lives in TX. I usually end up flying 2-3x per year. It's expensive, but usually I can use FF miles or a companion ticket (I have a credit card that issues one per year) for at least one of the trips. Often it's just me and my dughter(s), as my husband doesn't have very much leave (and it's also cheaper that way).

Next week I am flying cross-country by myself with my 2.5 year old and 6 week old! Wish me luck!!!

My husband has set up all kinds of alerts for airline flights...do you have several options for airports near you at all?

We're actually visiting the in-laws right now and it was a 15 hour drive. It wasn't as bad as we thought it would be! It's our first time doing it with LO. Our plan is to do the drive once a year in the summer and the rest of the time have them come to us. We're staying 10 days.

My ILs live a 4 hour flight away. Before we had kids and when we had 1 lapchild we went all the time - like 6 or 7 times a year for one reason or another, including holidays, weddings, etc. It was stressful because my husband's parents are divorced, so we were moving back and forth between them and other family members pretty much every day and everyone was always mad we weren't spending enough time with them, multiplied by 1000 when we had our first. Since we have had our second, we haven't gone and my husband decided that we aren't going to go this year for Christmas. Since we have gone less, they have started coming here more, which is a lot easier because they get to visit for as long as they want, and we're not constantly being criticized for not spending enough time with each person.

Mine are close, but my husband's family is on the opposite coast. We usually see them about 3 times a year- they come to us once (usually my MIL flys out one additional time alone), we go to them once, and we meet them somewhere once. We also try to plan a conference in one of the trips, that way we can go somewhere fun, write it off, and give the grandparents time/have child care while we get continuing education.

We have lived basically across the country for 5 years. Until this year we used to fly to their locations twice a year (once for christmas and once for summer) In the 5 years, each set of parents has only come out here twice... total. To be fair, we are teachers so we get way more time off than they do, but we also get paid way less than we do. Each trip for just the 2 of us is about $500, so we regularly saved about $2000 a year to do this. It was a budget prioirity.

Now that most of our friends have moved out of our hometowns and we have LO1 on the way, we will be pushing to make the trips more even... we fly there, you fly here. Another change we have already made is dropping the Christmas flights and doing just summer, bc Xmas flights are so expensive and you usually run into snow issues somewhere.

We also have started suggesting family vacations some of which involve our "home regions" and some of which are halfway between us. So it's not just family time but vacation time. We've done 4 of these in 5 years.

Last idea, that depends on your locations and amount of time off:
We save a TON of money by doing our trips back to back. We in AZ fly one way to CT, then one way to WI, then one way back to AZ. It is always, always cheaper than 2 roundtrips and WI & CT are way closer to each other than AZ. This also only works if you are able to take off enough time (about 10 days total??).

For the holidays, we don't travel. Any and all family is welcome to our home. For me it's important to be at home and establishing our own family traditions. And my husband now has a job where he can't take time from October - January. Which just further enforces our lack of travel.

We'd love to travel to them other times of the year, but honestly it's just hard. I don't want to use all of our vacation time just visiting family.

@daniellemybelle: we moved from the east coast (where both sets of families live) to the west coast in october 2012. Since then, we have been back to visit 5 times - every 6 months except for when LO2 was born. It gets really exhausting, even with taking steps to make the trip as comfortable and convenient as possible. We try to avoid holiday travel times, fly direct with seats for both LOs regardless of age (SO worth every penny not to have to wrangle with a baby or toddler for 5.5 hours each way), rent a car, rent a 2 or 3 bedroom furnished apartment through AirBnb or Homeaway. Besides the planning and headache of flying, it is really hard to live out of suitcases and deal with jet lag and routines being thrown out the window. And running around trying to spend time with everyone and feeling guilt about taking away the only grandkids on both sides.

So after our 16 day marathon trip this past April (NYC and Toronto), I decided I need a break and we are not going back for 18 months, for FIL's 80th birthday in October 2016.

My in laws agreed to come visit us for thanksgiving (they are retired and mostly sit around the house). At some point it will be too hard for them to travel cross country, so then we will back to making the frequent trips. But it will be easier when the LOs are older.

It takes time to adjust to being far from family, but it does get easier and life gets so busy with kids.

@daniellemybelle: Re: reciprocal visits.. My mom comes out a lot and she always pays for her flight and stays with us and often buys us dinners out.. we're very lucky. When LO was really little she even babysat and gave us date days. I know it's not "fair" in that we pay a lot less but we just can't afford more than we already do. I'd do the same for my LO so I guess I don't feel too bad!