Favorite Blogs: Travels with Children
Traveling long-term on a career break with children can seem very daunting, but the Vogel Family (Family on Bikes) and the Hoffmeister Family (4Suitcases) have shown what an incredible experience it can be.
And even short-term travel with children can be overwhelming. But here are a few sites that offer some great insight into making it a fun and rewarding experience.
[singlepic=1728,275,,,right]Debbie Dubrow’s blog, Delicious Baby, offers advice on “Making Travel with Kids Fun”. Her blog details her own experiences traveling in the US and internationally with young children as well as product reviews, city guides and travel tips like “Ten Tips for Keeping a Toddler Busy on a Plane” and “Breeze Through Airport Security with Kids”.
Perhaps my favorite tips include the ones listed under “Why Travel?”
Everyone knows that travel with children is unpredictable, difficult, and definitely not at the same pace or with the same freedoms that pre-child travel afforded, so why do it at all?
Through our children’s eyes, we see the world in a new way.
You get to immerse yourself in the local culture. Traveling with children forces you to do as locals do… shop in the grocery stores, bakeries, and pharmacies, not just tourist shops. You get to connect with locals in a way that’s difficult to do as adults traveling alone. People love kids. They’ll go out of their way to connect with you and see you as a family rather than just tourists, and you'll gain insights into what it's like to live in a different place.
The kids love getting out of their everyday routine, and being in new situations helps everyone to reconnect. Whenever we travel, we find that there’s a special brand of giggly, silly fun that happens after a long day of travel that we just don’t seem to have at home.
The kids learn new things. For young kids it isn’t so much that they’ll learn world history as that they are exposed to new experiences, sights, sounds and smells. With a little thought, you can bring those experiences home to make your everyday life a little richer too.
For school age kids it’s much more engaging and fun to learn history by doing than by reading.
[singlepic=1729,300,,,right]Michelle Duffy’s blog, WanderMom, offers insight and resources for independent family travel. As she says “The goal of this website is to share my experiences as a traveling parent with you and through that to encourage and inspire you to take your children to interesting places far and wide, inside and outside your home country.”
Other blogs that focus on traveling as a family and with children include:
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Ciao Bambino! – Inspiring Families to Explore the World
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Pitstops for Kids! – Getting There Should be Half the Fun!
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The Q Family Adventures Travel Blog
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Travel Savvy Mom – Where to Stay When You Go
3 Responses to “Favorite Blogs: Travels with Children”
Other comments
9 Comments on "A Year in Paris"-
Leah on Mon, 6th Jun 2011 8:12 am
I really enjoyed reading your post. I am thirty-two soon and have itchy feet that are ready to try out foreign soils.
It is a fear of leaving the security of the day to day grind of paying the bills and living a safe and non-challenging way of life that has put me on hold for some time.
I hope (as it has I) your post will inspire others to go and follow their bliss – Leah 🙂 -
Patricia GW on Mon, 6th Jun 2011 8:54 am
Travel and experiencing a new culture really has put it into perspective, and filled that void with purpose (and joy).
In three weeks I’ll be moving to Paris myself for one month. I have the same feeling – the incredible surreal realization that I’m going to be living there…. it’s thrilling!!
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Abby on Mon, 6th Jun 2011 2:11 pm
Oh, Jenny! Escargot isn’t palatable — it’s delicious! I love your writing style; it’s so fun and energetic. Can you believe how far we’ve come? Everyone, Jenny and I were in the exact same industry and have known each other online and via work emails for years and years. But we’ve only met once, many, many years ago. And one of those jobs she was sleeping next to her BlackBerry for was one I’d just left. And now she’s 33 and living abroad, just like I was last year. Kindred spirits. Jenny, you’re a true inspiration — I can’t wait to see how your adventure unfolds!
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Debbie Beardsley on Mon, 6th Jun 2011 3:22 pm
Your life in Paris sounds ideal. It is nice to read about people who follow their dreams instead of wishing they had! Enjoy the rest of your journey.
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Terriaw on Tue, 7th Jun 2011 1:40 pm
Wow, fabulous and well said! I love your new outlook on like. After experiencing career burnout and feeling a little lost and purposeless lately, you have encouraged me. I look forward to seeing Paris someday!
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Jenny on Tue, 7th Jun 2011 6:50 pm
merci for all the sweet comments! @abby we are soooo kindred spirits! well except when it comes to our differing feelings on escargot…;) and congrats patricia on the move! thrilling indeed!
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shawna on Thu, 9th Jun 2011 1:32 am
you’ve reawakened my travel bug. must. return. to. france. (someday.) eat a croissant for me!
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Weekly Travel Blog Links — LandingStanding on Mon, 13th Jun 2011 6:16 am
[…] how badly I want to go to Paris… If only we could afford living there for an extended period of time during our travels! Any […]
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G. Michael Schneider on Sun, 19th Jun 2011 3:36 pm
I am a firm believer in living and working overseas, just as you described. However, many of us actually like our jobs and our homes and are simply looking to renew and refresh our lives, not change it. However, you can have the same type of cultural experience without having to reach into your own wallet and without having to quit your day job–by taking what I call a “working vacation.” My wife and I have done this 15 separate times, from Australia to Zimbabwe, Turket to Tibet, Mauritius to Mongolia. I describe how to do it in my blog otherguysdime.wordpress.com and via Twitter at @otherguysdime. Learn how to have fun without having to have burn any of your bridges behind you.
2010-05-22 17:50
I disagree totally with the notion that travel with children is difficult and having done single, couple and group travel, I think family world travel is by far the BEST!
We have been traveling the world non-stop as a family since 2006 to 4 continents & 32 countries so far, living very luxuriously on 23 dollars a day per person...even in expensive Europe!
We're monolinguals raising a very fluent trilingual & tri-literate who speaks some of many other languages.
Travel is the best possible education and also the greatest way for families to bond, while having a ball!
2010-08-05 06:33
I love this site! And the interview about homeschooling and list of useful blogs for travelling parents. It's very reassuring for us. We have travelled for over two years with our boys mostly by public transport through the Middle East and Asia and have lived in rural China for the last two years. We are planning another long trip through Europe, Africa, the Middle East (?) for next year. We've been homeschooling our boys since we arrived in China in 2008 and even though it's not always easy, it is surely a great experience. On our website we publish a lot of stories about our lives in China, but we also provide pdf downloads for travelling parents (i.E. packing list, FAQ, list per country with activites, travel preparation tips etc.). If you like, check it out on www.hudsonfamily.ch/en (or without the "en" for the German version).
2010-08-06 04:57
Nadine,
Congrats on all of your amazing family travels! Thanks for passing along your website - we'll surely take a look. Glad you are enjoying Briefcase to Backpack - hopefully it's inspiring more people to travel with families like you are doing as well as providing career break inspiration!