With summer just around the corner, Joanna Gaines is already planning for family adventures. Fans might be surprised that the former HGTV star doesn’t have any extravagant vacation plans in mind, but prefers spending quality time at home.
Joanna Gaines on ‘Chasing the Ordinary’ & Her Summer Family Vacation Plans
Gaines shared some of the plans for their upcoming downtime in the Summer 2026 issue of Magnolia Journal.
“We’re not naturally big ‘go on vacation’ people — even in nature’s most persuasive season. For our family, home is where we recharge, where we reconnect,” she wrote in “A Note From Jo: Chasing the Ordinary.”
Gaines continued, “Here, we are our most relaxed, our most free. I’m likely to blame for our staycation state of mind. I think I may have unintentionally turned the kids (sorry, Chip) into bona fide homebodies just like me.”
With their two oldest kids, Ella and Drake, in college, spending time together as a family is important to Gaines.
She noted that while her husband Chip has more of an adventurous spirit, she has “always been more enticed by a slow weekend at home than a weekend anywhere else.”
Gaines pointed out how a line from a poem to “find the wonder and the marvel of an ordinary life” spoke to her.
“Our dreamiest moments have rarely been the places we went or the big splashy plans we made,” she explained. “They have always been the way we lived out the days in between. The terrifically mundane, quietly compelling, profoundly ordinary days of summer.”
“I’m calling for a summer of thrill-seeking here at home, among the ordinary and the everyday,” the Magnolia empire owner shared. “I have a feeling the true pursuit is learning how to notice, how to let the wind wake us to life, how to linger in moments that don’t announce themselves, how to revere the pleasure of a simple joy as much as an extravagant one.”
Gaines addressed what summer is like for this season of her life. “It’s my kids coming home, or staying home, and settling back in,” she explained. “It still involves a lot of ordinary days stacked on top of one another, but instead of spinning my wheels wondering where we should go, this year I’m also asking, ‘What do we need?'”
She expressed a desire “for all of us is time to come down,” noting, “I want my kids to see what doors slowness might open.”
“With a few of them off to college, this is our season to come back together, to explore side by side,” Gaines wrote. “Maybe we’ll stay out late. Maybe we’ll fall asleep beneath star-filled skies. Either way, I’m believing this to be true for me and for you: Our greatest adventures can begin closer to home. They can unfold right where we are, surrounded by a million ways to grow and make an ordinary moment feel rich and attentive and alive.”
The former HGTV star said they will likely “find our wanderlust somewhere at some point” and venture away from home. “But for the majority of the next three months, I hope we’re chasing the ordinary,” she noted.
Joanna Gaines is Remodeling Her Kitchen
Gaines is currently working through a full kitchen renovation and, despite the disruption, said she has no plans to move out while it’s happening.
On May 11, Gaines posted a kitchen update on Instagram. “Living through the farm renovation is building character, but getting a front-row seat to it all coming together is my favorite part,” she explained in the caption.
“After almost 15 years, my kitchen is getting a whole new look✨,” she added.
In the video, she explained, “I’m trying to do this renovation in pieces. I am stubborn in that I refuse to move out. The kids have two weeks left of school.”
Gaines showed some of the progress and noted, “It’s kind of funny, this is like my normal. This is going to be a fun two weeks trying to figure out how to end the school year well, but also work through mother’s emotional challenges through renovation.”
