Our little family has been navigating the world of family travel for almost two years. In less than one month, we’ll have a set of two year olds, but that’s a blog post for another day.
Over the past two years, we’ve conquered a number of travel experiences, from flights, to overnight car drives, to water taxi rides… day trips, to quick overnights, weekend stays, and even multi-week adventures.
We’ve yet to pack it in and call it quits on any trip, no matter how far off course things seemed to be. I’d say that’s success. Not that we’re family travel experts. We still have a lot to learn, but we’ve gained a lot from a long list of Family Travel pioneers.
One topic that comes up quite often in the family travel blog world is the question of where your travel inspiration comes from. Do you travel WITH your kids, or do you travel FOR your kids.
There are many benefits to both schools of thought. The obvious perk of just bringing your kids along on your travel adventures is that you are able to check things off of your bucket list, and fill your days with people, places, and things that interest you. Sounds great, until you’re mini tagalongs decide they are bored, just as you’re entering the one place you’ve been dreaming of. They collapse on the floor, wailing and flailing. Doesn’t sound like much fun anymore, does it..
On the other hand, if you base all of your travels around kid-centered activities, your trips will start to feel like they are an ancient form of torture. There is really only so much time one can spend in a room full of screaming toddlers, squealing youngsters, or angsty pre-teens. Before long, you’ll realize that you’ve spent a lot of time on the road, and you still have so many sights you haven’t seen, because they wouldn’t be interesting or engaging to your children.
The key to successful family travel, is balance. It’s important to balance the needs and interests of each family member. In our family, it might be a little easier than most, since our two kids are the same age, and can do the same things. We don’t have an older child vs. younger child situation. It isn’t often that twin parents can feel relief that they may have a slightly easier time doing something! Enjoy it!
We work hard to mix it up. When we travel as a family, we balance the more adult friendly outings with plenty of activities that allow the kids to be kids. We find that they are more willing to not only behave, but to almost enjoy, the grown-up stuff, when they have been given an opportunity to run around, be loud, climb on things, and just be a kid.
With toddlers, this means we’ve spent a lot of time in children’s museums, playgrounds, and parks. It also means that we might pay more attention to the seats we choose at a sporting event, or any other assigned seating venue. Aisle seats are key, since we will most likely be up and down with restless kids. We can make It work in other seats, but why put ourselves in a situation that will be less enjoyable, if the alternative is available?
The bonus advantage to this strategy is that we hope the kids will learn to love traveling as much as we do. The more we can expose them to, the better the chances they will be also succumb to the traveling bug. We are optimistic that by expanding their horizons at such a young age, they will see traveling as a staple, and make it a priority in their life in the future.
High hopes, we know. There is only so much in this world that we can control, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to provide the greatest experiences for our kids that we possibly can, while still trying to enjoy ourselves, too!
In the meantime, we’ve got a great way to document all of our adventures as a family!