As a mother of four, I know that it can be difficult to find an affordable family vacation that the whole family will enjoy. And sometimes you just don’t have the time or the money for a long getaway. Here are three tips my family and I use when we need an affordable family vacation, whether a weekend or a week.

Try national parks: the United States is full of protected natural wonder and beauty, which is great for both kids and adults to see. From Acadia National Park in Maine to Zion National Park in Utah, there’s a national park that’s perfect for your family.

If you like history, you can visit battlefields or historic sites as well, adding a bit of culture to the beauty. When you expand your horizons to include these other national monuments, there’s something in every state that you can do with your family. Cassidy, my 12-year-old, is a bit of a history buff. She loves going to museums and historic sites and learning all about what happened in a particular place.

The best part is, visiting national parks truly does fall into the category of affordable family vacation. Some parks are free to visit or charge a small fee per person or carload. If you live in an area with lots of national parks and historic sites (or know you are traveling somewhere with many such sites) you can purchase a national parks pass for $50.

This pass will get your whole family into any national park or historic site that charges fees. It doesn’t affect charges for parking, concessions, tours, or camping, but it’s still a great deal. An additional $15 gets you a Golden Eagle sticker, which also covers fees at parks and sites managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Bureau of Land Management.

These passes can pay for themselves very quickly, depending on where you travel. For instance, Rocky Mountain National Park costs $20 a week for a passenger car. If we visit three times in a year, we’ve more than recovered the cost of the pass.

Look locally: Every state has tourist attractions, no matter where you live. For an affordable family vacation, consider staying close to home and visiting your state capital, the state’s highest point or lowest point, a state park, or a museum.

To make the trip more fun for everyone involved, pick somewhere no one in the family has ever been before. This might mean you’ll end up in a small town, but that can be a lot of fun. Plan your visit during a festival (many towns of all sizes have celebrations of local food, such as the great chowder cook-off in Newport, Rhode Island or the celebration of Dr Pepper’s birthday in Dublin, Texas. This could be a good way to get picky eaters (like my two-year-old, Rachel) to try new things.

Include a visit to the local historical association, if there is one, so you can learn about the history of the town. Ask locals for a good place to eat, stay in a bed and breakfast and you’ll have a wonderful, affordable family vacation the whole family will remember.

Vacation in your hometown: It might not sound like much of a vacation, but why not take a trip to the town you live in? I imagine you’re like most families; you get in a rut of eating at the same places, shopping in the same stores, always taking the same route home from work. Older kids love this kind of getaway because they get the best of both worlds. Matthew, who is 18 and will be leaving home soon, loves spending time with his friends but if we plan a weekend in town away from home, he always makes a point to drop in and stay with us.

When was the last time you visited a local tourist attraction? Again, every town has something it’s proud of, something you always take visitors to see. Go there. Check into a hotel (you could even make it more fun by getting one room or a suite for the whole family and having a “sleepover” in the hotel), eat somewhere you’ve never eaten before, walk down the streets with a different attitude. Slow down. Have fun. Enjoy your kids, no matter where you are.