Reflections: Benefits Of Traveling With Kids

What are the benefits of traveling with kids? What will our kids get out of traveling the world with us? Will they even remember any of it? These are questions we frequently get when we tell people we travel with our kids. At the end of 2019, we sat down and wrote this post reflecting on the benefits of traveling with kids.

The end of a year and the beginning of a new one is always a good time for reflection. This is the time of year when lots of people are making resolutions for the new year and, even though we are not new-year-resolution people (we are more of a work-in-progress approach kind of people), we do believe it is a good time to reflect on the year that is coming to an end.

Looking back at almost eight months of travel, we have had a lot to reflect on and think about.  We wanted to write a post with our thoughts on the benefits of traveling with kids.

2018 was a very good year for our family! We feel incredibly blessed with all the opportunities we’ve had and all the travels we’ve done. Most importantly, we feel grateful for our health and that of our loved ones. 

Last year was very exciting! The most defining part of our year was leaving everything behind to go travel for a year as a family. Making that decision was a big deal and we are so happy we did it. Since leaving San Francisco last May, we’ve visited 20 countries in three continents. We’ve seen a lot of gorgeous new places and learned so much about the world along the way. It truly has been amazing!

As we did on previous trips, we have seen the benefits of traveling with our kids. They have grown so much and it’s been amazing to see them explore new places. In the spirit of reflecting on the past year, here’s a list of our thoughts regarding how travel impacts children.

Benefits of traveling with kids:

Travel fosters tolerance and understanding of other cultures

During our travels, our children have been around people of different races, skin colors, religions, clothing styles, and so on. They have seen women fully covered in Dubai and women barely dressed on the beaches of Greece and Lake Balaton, and not once have they uttered the words “weird” in describing what they saw. In fact, we noticed that most of the time, they don’t even notice these differences when traveling. Children have such open minds, they don’t judge what they see. Prejudice is learned and they say that traveling is deadly to prejudice.

Our children now know that there are many religions in the world. They understand that they are all different in their rituals, but the same in their teachings of love for one another. They loved the Buddhist temples and imagery in Malaysia. There they also saw Hindu temples with many-headed and armed gods. They learned to love hearing the call to prayer in Malaysia, Dubai, Morocco, Bosnia, and Macedonia. They loved visiting monasteries and orthodox churches in Romania and Bulgaria, and visiting great cathedrals in Malta, Italy, and France. Not once have they asked why some women cover themselves when seeing women wearing hijab or nuns walking outside cathedrals. To them, that’s just the way some people dress and it’s not for them to judge.

Travel makes kids more flexible

Like life in general, traveling doesn’t go exactly as planned and you need to suddenly make changes and adjust quickly. During our travels we’ve had to make unexpected changes to our plans, and our kids have had to quickly adjust. Small examples include arriving to a museum after talking it up to find out that it is closed that day. If you are a parent to a young kid, then you know that small changes like these can really upset kids, and we have really seen how our kids have learned to be prepared for the unexpected.

A bigger change of plans for us was missing our train connection on our way back from Lviv, Ukraine to Krakow, Poland after an already long day of travel. While Joe had to get us new tickets (alongside the rest of the passengers, since our first train arrived late), the kids had to patiently wait until we figured things out. They were troopers and went with the flow. Just because of the nature of traveling, kids learn to be ready for the unexpected and to adjust to whatever circumstances they find themselves in. The grounding force is having their parents with them during all of it (and keeping things positive!).

Travel exposes kids to other languages

Of all the countries we’ve visited on this trip, Malta has been the only one where English was the language spoken by everybody (in addition to Maltese, but English is very prevalent here). It’s so great that they understand that there are many languages spoken in the world and not just theirs! Also, they have learned the importance of learning some words in the language of the countries we’ve traveled to and they’ve seen how those little efforts result in great interactions with the local people. 

They learn to make friends anywhere

We love the fact that our kids are always ready to play with other kids and are not afraid to jump in, say hi, and play with kids at playgrounds anywhere we’ve been. Most of the times they can’t speak the same language as the local children, but that doesn’t stop them from trying by using smiles, giggles, chasing, and crazy talk!

Travel teaches kids to wait

There’s a lot of waiting happening during trips. You have to wait to get on the plane. you have to wait to arrive to your destination, you have to wait for the bus or the train, wait on the bus, etc. Sometimes you have to wait for your apartment to be ready after a long travel day, or you have to wait a long time for your food to arrive at the restaurant when you are very hungry. None of these situations are fun or ideal, but they are real situations and the only thing you can do is wait.

We are proud of how well the kids do these days when they have to wait. Of course, it’s not that they sit quietly and patiently waiting for things to happen, but all of us as a family work together to make the wait more pleasant. One great technique we use all the time is storytelling. Joe is a great storyteller and he really captivates the kids’ attention with his imaginative stories.

We also always carry a couple of toy cars and modeling clay with us, which have been life savers during slow meals at restaurants. We are proud that we never use phones or devices at restaurants or during other periods of waiting, and our kids have learned to entertain themselves with modeling clay, toy cars, crayons, stories, etc.

They learn to navigate new places on public transit

Both our kids started riding public transit when they were just a couple of months old, and they’ve always been very comfortable on it. This trip has cemented their love of riding the bus, train, trolley, etc. We love the idea of raising children who are comfortable navigating foreign cities in public transit, along with locals. Kids are sponges and they really absorb everything around them, so we know they have a good understanding of how buses work and, these days, they can recognize bus stops and, in the case of Hugo, he knows how to use his Malta bus card to pay for his ride!

Side note, but public transit is also a good place to teach manners. Our kids know that fitter people should give up their seats to those who need a seat, like the elderly or young children. We have encountered good manners and bad manners on public transit, and we’re happy that when our kids are older, they’ll know how to give up their seats to those who need them.

Travel teaches geography

The best way to learn geography is by traveling. That’s true for adults and children. During our travels we’ve explained to the kids where we are going and we’ve showed them our movement on a map. At their young ages, they know the names of many countries and Hugo can probably tell you what continents those are located in. It’s so cool to see them discover the world.

They learn about human impact on the environment

Sadly, we’ve had plenty of opportunities to show and teach our kids about human impact on the environment. Everywhere we’ve been we’ve found garbage littering nature. Even countries that do a good job with waste management and where littering is not a big problem are affected by plastic pollution because plastic travels in our waterways and oceans.

Even though Malta seems like the kind of place where people don’t dump their trash on the hillsides, you can still find plastic caps and wrappers washing off on beaches. This has provided us with the opportunity to explain to our kids the impact of littering on our environment and the wildlife. The kids have learned to turn down plastic straws because “they hurt the whales.” They have also learned the importance of doing your part in cleaning up. When we go to the beach, we try to pick up some garbage to make sure we leave it cleaner than we found it. When we find garbage on a hiking trail, we pick it up. They definitely feel more informed and empowered to change the world than they did before we left on our trip.

Their concern about the environment is directly related to the fact that they have seen so many beautiful places and so many beautiful creatures during our travels. Once you see an animal in its natural environment, you feel more connected to it.

They learn about wildlife

As we’ve traveled, we’ve seen different wildlife in different places. Some animals we’ve seen have been common, like beetles and other insects. But we’ve also had the opportunity to see some incredible animals up close in the wild, including a hedgehog in Croatia, a tortoise in Macedonia, two huge black whip snakes in Bosnia, praying mantises in Morocco, a gigantic grasshopper in Malaysia, and chameleons in Malta.

They learn about history

Every place we visit is a history lesson. Indeed, some of the main sights are usually touristed because of their place in history. We study up on the history upon arriving to a new location and then provide a kid-friendly version for the kids.

Among other things, the kids have learned from firsthand encounters about ancient Greeks, Romans, knights, kings, sultans, the Ottoman Empire, and the World Wars. And history brings some great individual stories, which the kids have loved, like the evil dragon Smok who used to guard the place where Krakow is located; the crafty knight Erazem who built an impenetrable castle into the Slovenian cliffs and withstood an Austrian siege for a year; the Trojan horse and Ulysses’s great voyage home (the caves of Calypso are in Malta!); and so on.

History also has its dark sides, as we’ve seen monuments to Jews massacred in the Holocaust and the exact spot where the Austro-Hungarian prince was assassinated in Sarajevo prompting the start of WWI. We have taught the kids about these events in terms appropriate to their age, but with the overarching message that war is bad.

Travel improves their vocabulary

Traveling is an incredible way to learn new words. At a year and a half, Valentina learned how to recognize and say “Buddha” because we were in Malaysia. They’ve learned new vocabulary about religion, castles, food, wildlife, history, geography, and so on. And, of course, they learn words in foreign languages. Travel is a never-ending source of stimulation and learning!

The benefits of traveling with kids are so many, we could keep naming them. Traveling opens kids’ minds to the idea that the possibilities are endless. Indoor waterfalls? Sure, we’ve seen those in Dubai. Woodworking and metal carving? Lots of that happening in Morocco. Farm life? Stayed in a couple in Europe. The point is, they see that there is no one way of living life but many different ones. It really expands their horizons and, just because of that, we hope to keep traveling with them.

To read more about our travel visit out blog.