Don’t wait! Get out there and explore!
Travel with young kids can be such a joy, and I am here to encourage you to try it. If you are questioning the sanity of the idea because you are already feeling overextended and exhausted, I get it. As a mother of young children, I know how life with little ones moves at a different pace and comes with different priorities. I have also had to fight off the little voice in my head saying “we will travel someday, when they are older”.
Despite all the naysayers and self doubt, I have managed to travel to many interesting places with my young kids AND ENJOY IT. I know you can too.
Whether it is a weekend get-away, a road trip, or a big international vacation, here are 8 reasons why you should travel with young kids. Don’t wait until they are older to embark on your dream adventures.
- Young kids will go where YOU want to go.
- Kids take you off the beaten path and give you an opportunity to experience local life.
- Travel provides wonderful stimulation for young minds.
- When you travel with young kids you get to see the world through their eyes.
- Travel teaches you and your kids to be adaptable.
- It may not be any more tiring to travel with young kids than to stay home.
- You don’t know what the future will hold, so travel while you can.
- Traveling with kids is a skill that you get better at with practice, so start practicing now!
1. Young kids will go where YOU want to go.
The beauty of travel with young kids (babies and toddlers) is that they generally go where you take them without too many questions. They may ask “what’s that” and “why” nonstop, but they are pretty used to being carted around by you. So in many ways it is easy to plan a vacation with young children.
But should you travel with a baby?
YES! Babies sleep a lot. They can be strapped to your chest for a hands-free experience and don’t require their own ticket at most sites and on most forms of transportation.
And if you have your heart set on spending hours in museums or restaurants, you may very well have more success with a baby than any other aged child. Time your visit during a nap and you might actually get a couple hours to explore as you did pre-kids.
Remember to consult your pediatrician to determine the appropriate age to start traveling with your child. If your trip involves flying, always check with the airline before you book your flight. Airlines have their own age restrictions. Outside of those considerations, I don’t think there is an age that is too young to travel.
2. Kids take you off the beaten path and give you an opportunity to experience local life.
To locals, you may be just another tourist passing through, but your kids are different. Children have a remarkable way of getting people to open up. It is hard to not smile when you see a transit-obsessed toddler spot a double decker bus for the first time or watch a baby’s face contort in funny ways as they try a new food. The endless curiosity and awe that children display as they discover new surroundings will attract the attention of locals and help spark conversation.
I can’t count the number of times someone has started asking about my kids and then shared that they have a loved one of similar age. Often the conversation does not stop there. Because of the shared experience of parenthood and humanity’s love for children, I have had the opportunity to connect with so many people and listen to their stories.
And because young children are still developing their own language skills, they may not be as intimidated by language barriers as us adults. My kids have found many playmates all over the world, even if they don’t speak each others’ languages. Pretend play, digging in sand, and splashing in water are activities that children across the globe can enjoy together.
Whenever I travel, I make a point to visit a different playground each day. Sometimes this takes us to neighborhoods that we would not have otherwise visited. It is fun to relax and play in a beautiful park each day, away from the tourists. But I also get to enjoy casual conversations with other parents as my kids share the slides and other play equipment with local children. My young kids give me a reason to stray from the main tourist route, and for a moment I get to feel as if I live there.
3. Travel provides wonderful stimulation for young minds.
The new sites, sounds and smells that you will discover on your adventures will almost certainly capture the attention and imagination of your children.
I will never forget my son’s reaction when we landed in Hawaii for the first time. When we left home, it was snowy and the vegetation was in winter dormancy. As we got off the plane and walked down the stairs to the tarmac, my son immediately noticed the warm wind blowing through his hair. After months of freezing weather and heavy jackets, the warm, late afternoon sun seemed to blow his mind. As we made our way through the mostly outdoor airport, his head was turning on a swivel to the sounds of the tropical birds and the large bright flowers. Throughout the week, swaying palm trees, sand, warm water, and shaved ice all provided additional sensory experiences. Watching him soak it all in was so fun and quickly convinced me that the very long plane ride was worth it!
Wherever you travel, whether it is to another town in your state or abroad, your kids will experience something new and it can be a joy to watch them process it all.
4. When you travel with young kids you get to see the world through their eyes and learn from them as you go!
Have you noticed how even a simple trip to the park can turn into an adventure when you are with your little one? Kids help us open our eyes to little details and show us the magic in the ordinary. Your kids will likely have the same impact on your travels.
When I travel with my children, I am more engaged with my surroundings through all of my senses.
My kids point out sounds that are just background noise to me – like planes in the air and wind chimes. They notice that the texture of the grass where we are feels different than the grass at home. They acknowledge the breeze gently blowing through our hair.
Your kids may also prompt you to think a little deeper about the sites you visit and the history you learn. Their constant questions as you try to explain something might lead you to consider the subject more deeply.
Parenting has certainly given me a greater awareness of and appreciation for my surroundings and our beautiful, yet complex world.
5. Travel teaches you and your kids to be adaptable.
Toddlers will be toddlers. I am not suggesting that if you travel, you will no longer experience temper tantrums. Or that your children will suddenly handle every bump in the road seamlessly. But your family will have opportunities to practice being more adaptable.
When you are in a new place, especially one that is far from home, you will almost certainly find yourself having to react to unexpected situations. If you forget to refill the diaper bag or run out of wipes, you will have to come up with a solution on the fly. If your toddler has an inconsolable meltdown, you can’t just take them home and let them calm down in their bed with their favorite lovey. Instead, you have to find ways to give them comfort and the space to calm down in an unfamiliar place.
Routines and rhythms to your day can still happen, but rigid schedules may be more difficult to stick to. When you are on the road, you may not always be able to find your child’s favorite chicken nuggets. But maybe the adventure will give your child the space to try new foods and flavors and possibly expand their pallet a bit.
Heading into a trip to England we had a pretty picky eater on our hands. We were going to be staying with friends for part of our visit. I thought about bringing some snacks from home to subtly supplement meals, but I decided not to. My hope was that exposure to different foods and unavailability of certain foods would break us out of that phase.
Sure enough, our picky eater ate a massive amount of food during our stay with our friends and during our week in London. Our friends made a delicious roast chicken with all kinds of fixings. My kids loved it and ate so much that I don’t think the friends believed we had a picky eater.
In London we ate Lebanese food – so much that the restaurant owner commented on their appetites. The curry house knocked my kids into deep food comas. And, though the pasta dishes at the Italian restaurant looked different than the cavattapi pasta with Raos that my kids were eating almost exclusively at home, they devoured what we ordered in quantities that would fill most adults. I thank our experiences and time spent in new places for exposing our kids to a wide variety of cuisines. We can now enjoy those foods as a family when we are home.
Some kids, for a variety of reasons, will have a harder time with the less predictable nature of travel. It is up to you how flexible you want to be with your schedule while traveling. As you find yourself having to roll with the punches that come with travel, hopefully you will pick up on what helps you keep moving on through tricky situations. I have certainly learned ways to better handle my childrens’ public outbursts and my own frustrations. I am now better at adapting to unexpected obstacles with my children. It is work in progress, but I can see my growth.
6. It may not be any more tiring to travel with young kids than to stay home.
I had heard this from other traveling families. I wasn’t sure I believed it, but I wanted it to be true. It was one of the reasons I convinced myself and my husband to spend a big chunk of our parental leave abroad after our second child was born.
If you are like most families, when you are home you have an endless to-do list that includes laundry, cooking, dishes, and cleaning. When you are on vacation, some of those things don’t have to happen or get put on hold. Sure the jet lag, the long days on your feet, and constantly having to figure out where you are going can be exhausting. But hopefully it is more enjoyable than the long list of chores you have to complete when you are home.
7. You don’t know what the future will hold, so travel while you can.
Need I remind you of what happened in 2020? When the extent of most peoples’ travel was from their bedrooms to their kitchens.
But seriously, there is never a perfect time to travel. So don’t push off travel with the hope that you will be able to fit it into your life once you have retired from your career or your children have grown up. Sure, you may have more time and resources down the road. But conflict, political factors, or your own life circumstances could make travel to your dream destination more difficult or even impossible in the future.
And the beauty of scheduling travel when your kids are young is you won’t have as many scheduling conflicts on their end. Once kids are in school and have extracurriculars, it might be more difficult to fit it all in. So take advantage of the fact that your schedule may be more open now and get out there!
8. Traveling with kids is a skill that you get better at with practice, so start practicing now!
On a recent flight, just me and the kids, a gentleman sitting near us commented on how well my children handled the flight. He then insisted I should write a book for parents. My first thought was, “that’s kind, but not all flights go this well.” It’s true. Toddlers can be unpredictable and even after practice and lots of managing expectations, they can have tough moments. My second thought was, “wow, I can see the progress. We have done this enough that it really is getting so much easier”.
Honestly, my children travel better than a lot of older kids and even some adults. The more I travel with my kids, the easier it gets. The older ones now understand the airport security process and what to expect when we board the plane. The toddler is quickly learning as well. They look forward to going to the airport and play pretend airport at home. Each time we travel I also learn ways to make it easier on myself and my children. The only way to learn what works for you and your family is to try it out.
The Big Takeaway
Don’t let your kids be an excuse to not travel. I think traveling with your family is important because it gives your kids a greater appreciation for other cultures and the world’s beauty, as well as its complexities. Travel also provides a unique opportunity for you to bond. Through your adventures you can grow and learn together.
If you are feeling motivated to travel with your family, I encourage you to visit givingthemtheworld.com for additional resources that I hope will help you turn your dreams of travel into reality.
