Top Ten Travel Tips for Young Families
If you’re trying to get your head around travelling with young children in tow, Laura Dean from luxury family adventure travel agency Little People, Big Adventures has shared her best advice with us.
Read on for her top ten tips for making the most of your adventures.
Don’t wait until your children are old enough to remember.
My absolute number one piece of advice, without question, is: don’t wait until your children are old enough to remember. The world is such a big place waiting to be explored that you will run out of time to do everything if you wait until they can “remember”. I firmly believe that children are like sponges and they will benefit from seeing different cultures and understanding the differences around them from an early age. Plus, if you travel early and they are used to it, it will be so much easier as they get older.
Learn to travel differently.
Having children is not about traveling less but learning to travel in a different way. Gone might be the days that you explored an entire city in 2 days, but it will be so much more rewarding with children. Build your itinerary to take into consideration their snack times and walking distances.
Do some meaningful activities
There is nothing like exploring a new place through the eyes of a local. Everyone can learn the facts of a place and be a tour guide, but only a local can give you the insight into where the best rocks are to jump into the sea, or where his grandad used to live and the stories he used to tell. These are the little anecdotes that children will remember rather than the facts of a World Heritage site. They will also learn so much more about the culture.
Plan activities for the children
Standing in a playground or in long lines at a theme park might not be your idea of fun. But rewarding children with things that they will love means that you too can visit the places that you want to much more easily. The variety of this will keep everyone much more interested.
Plan in advance
I have never been a leave-it-to-the-last-minute person, or one to only book your first night and see where the mood takes you. Certainly when travelling with a family, it pays to have planned what you are going to do. Planning a structure helps you to avoid cramming too much in in certain days, or forgetting to include recovery time after long journeys. This way, whilst plans might change along the way, you’ll know that you won’t come home disappointed from missing out on something you would have found spectacular, or that you really wanted to see.
Get children excited before you go
Young children may not understand that they are going to Thailand, but they will understand that they get to ride in a Tuk-Tuk and go to an Elephant Sanctuary. You can read books together to help them understand where in the world they are going and what else they might see (we spend a lot of time ‘reading’ the Atlas!) and as they get older they might be excited to do their own research.
7. Choose your flight times wisely
Having a properly designed holiday means that you can choose each of the elements that suit you best. Perhaps one of the most important of these is the flight time. An overnight, long-haul flight is perfect for getting everyone to sleep and getting through a good few hours of a flight. A connecting flight - although not always a preferred option -can also help with managing jet lag as you only sleep on certain parts of the journey. Be mindful about the activities you plan for the first day as you allow everyone to overcome their jetlag.
8. Always look out for animals and nature
Whilst not every holiday will be a safari, there is something so interesting about nature that really holds children’s attention. The animals don’t even have to be real: our boys went on a mission to find all the animal statues in the Golden Palace in Bangkok! Later in the trip, they loved watching the enormous monitor lizards in the city’s parks, and exploring the elephant sanctuaries. On other holidays, they found as many lizards as they could in Jerash (Jordan), and still often talk about the toucans in the trees in Costa Rica.
9. Pack only the essentials
Depending on where you are going it may be difficult to buy anything that you have forgotten (especially if your children are really young). But don’t overpack: if you are moving around, be mindful that you will have to keep moving the luggage. It can be tempting to need to take everything with you, but streamline your essentials, and remember lots of layers for the plane!
10. Most Importantly: Enjoy It!
In my view there is nothing more rewarding than travelling with your children and showing them the world. It won’t always go to plan (especially in these current times!) but go with the flow and enjoy it. Make memories to last a lifetime!
Do you have any tips you’d love to add to the list? If so, leave us a comment! Plus, if you’ve got a trip coming up with your very own little people, be sure to check out our Explorer Cards. The Holiday in a Box Co. designed them in tandem with Little People, Big Adventures, to keep your youngsters inspired and entertained throughout their travels.
You can find out more about Little People Big Adventures by following this link.