Why we always take our kids (traveling)
I didn’t plan on writing a post about why we (almost) always travel with the kids, but the topic has come up recently, and I thought this would be the perfect place to share our thoughts.
It’s our 10th anniversary this year. We are planning a road trip to New York City. From there, we’re sailing out on a short cruise.
A Disney cruise.
With the kids.
For some reason, we feel we need to explain that the kids are coming along. And maybe justify it by explaining we expect to enjoy a few kid free half-days and possibly a romantic dinner while the kids are enjoying the cruise Kids Club.
I think we feel that most people believe a big anniversary trip should be just the couple.
Of course, there is no right way to travel. I firmly believe in traveling solo, traveling with friends, traveling as a couple. We have done all of the above. However, at this stage in our lives, we want to travel with the family as much as we can, even if it means including the kids in our anniversary plans. We feel lucky that we have the time and means to do so, and know that in the grand scheme of things, we only get the kids for as long as they still want to travel with us.
Our past experiences
Traveling as a couple
One of the main reasons we feel so comfortable taking the kids everywhere *now*, is because we’ve traveled quite a bit as a couple together before having kids.
It was certainly easier to travel without kids in the picture. We could travel more often. We could travel off peak-season. Traveling was undoubtedly faster and more efficient when it was just the two of us – we could cover more ground, see and do more on any given day. Some of our most memorable trips were traveling together through places like Tanzania, and Greece.
We had a good share of adventures just the two of us, learned each other’s travel style and habits. Now, we feel satisfied slowing down our pace and enjoying small moments with the kids, without FOMO.
Traveling without the kids
We’ve traveled without the kids a few times. And while it was lovely – for our 5th anniversary we got to experience a luxury adult-only resort in St Lucia – it’s a weird feeling being a parent away from your kids. Sure, kids might drive you crazy, but as soon as you’re away from them all you’re talking about is what they might be doing back at home, and working around all manner of time-zone differences to make it for your FaceTime call. (And we even consider ourselves chill parents!) I used to describe the feeling as a piece of you walking around outside your body, and you notice it more than ever when it’s not there.
Another tricky aspect is arranging childcare for when you’re gone. This is especially true when they’re tiny, and those first few years happens to be when you desperately need a vacation the most. Once, we not only had the grandparents help look after the kids, we had to have a nanny stay overnight the entire week as well.
The now – how we manage to include the kids in all our travels
Our everywhere view is a family travel blog after all, and our main goal is to share all our tips for traveling with kids as we explore more and more places. We are learning as we go, and we are picking up what works and what didn’t work along the way.
In our opinion, the key to traveling with kids is to pick the right places for the right ages, and to adjust your expectations accordingly.
The right places for the right ages
The main reason we would consider traveling without kids is because they might not “get” the destination. But somewhere on our mile-long bucket-list, there are always places that would be fantastic for kids at every stage.
That bucket list multi-week Patagonia hike? (Just me?) Table it for later. Ancient Rome? Later. A 2 day flight to Africa and days of driving through the savannah? Later.
This last one was our “you are the best parent until you’ve had kids” moment. When we were on safari in Tanzania, we passed a jeep where a kid was lying in the backseat, on his tablet, while everyone else was animal spotting. We immediately turned to each other and swore we would *never do that* when we had kids. While we would never judge a kid (or parent) for being on a device anywhere now (you do what you have to do), it is still a big wake up call that when you’re traveling, you have to meet your kids where they are at.
Infants and toddlers? With all that gear, the frequent naps and feeding, a place where you can have a home base and a flexible schedule might be the best option. Resorts are always good options, but what about renting a farmhouse in Tuscany? Even cosmopolitan places like NYC or Hong Kong where you have a home base would fit this bill.
Young children who love to run and explore? We loved Iceland. New Zealand. Visiting a national park in Canada or the US. Small European countries like the Netherlands would be perfect for this age group.
On the other hand, ancient history, adventure, those faraway exotic places would be perfect for teens and older kids.
Consider vacations with extended family
Depending on your relationship with said family, traveling with extended family is a great option when the kids are young, and you can do with an extra set of hands. Family members get to bond with the kids, and parents can sneak a few hours to themselves. If you have relatives living in another country, it can be a good excuse to visit!
Again, all-inclusive resorts and cruises make a great extended family trip, but options don’t have to be limited.
Consider vacations with other families
It’s not always easy to travel with another family. Not only do you have to accommodate your own kids, you now have to accommodate someone else’s kids.
However, we found that having other kids to play with takes a huge mental load parents, and keeps the kids from getting bored. When we traveled to Iceland with friends who had kids similar in age to Big S and Lil S, they not only kept themselves entertained any time we had downtime, hikes and sightseeing that might otherwise be boring to a 6 year old became that much more exciting.
Carve out space and time as a couple
We still try to inject some romance into our vacations with the kids, by making time to have an hour or two alone together every day that we can. It has become much easier now that the kids are a little older and more independent. If we’re at a resort, we can actually relax together while the kids play on the beach. We can have breakfast in peace while the kids run around the campground. Kids Clubs at resorts and on cruises are fair game (and the kids always have a great time).
It was a little more challenging when the kids were younger and the only real time we’d get for ourselves was during nap time and after they were in bed for the night. Even still, we weren’t above letting the kids have some downtime with their screens while we enjoyed the view and a beverage on the hotel balcony.
Finding time as a couple can help balance a trip with kids.
Staying in a hotel room together on vacation can be a challenge. Forget intimacy, sometimes you might just want to curl up and watch a movie together, or have a glass of wine or a cup of tea and just talk. If budget allows, we’d love to be able to stay in suites or have a separate sleeping space for the kids. As those rooms can be pricey, alternatives could include vacation rentals or airBNBs, or even motorhomes! We had a great trip on a houseboat once, where it felt cosy and snug but we all had our own space.
Be organized (have an itinerary) and adaptable
It sounds like a contradiction, but traveling with kids requires more planning *and* more flexibility.
Adding flexibility into your itinerary translates to slowing down. Perhaps you can only hit up 1 or 2 sights in a day. Maybe you need to add a day or two here and there in case something goes wrong. This has actually turned out to be a plus for us, as it has allowed us to really savour our travels.
The other half of this equation – planning ahead – is really half the adventure, for me. (And part of the reason we started this blog.) In fact, sometimes, we develop a complete itinerary before we’ve even booked any concrete plans for going there!
Budget time and money
Overall, we found to fully appreciate each destination (outside of resorts and cruises), we need at least 2 weeks. For our lifestyle, this means we might only be able to fit in one major trip a year, and maybe squeeze in a smaller trip. While sometimes I wish we were able to travel more, we recognize that this really is the amount of time which makes sense to allocate to travel at this stage, as there are a billion other priorities we have on the go.
However, the good news I’ve learned is that even though traveling with our kids doubles the number of travellers, we haven’t really doubled the cost of travel. Traveling with kids is more expensive than traveling as a couple, but we have also become more travel savvy and budget wise.
We use points for flights, choose budget-friendly accommodations, mix tours and sightseeing with experiences that are free. We still splurge here and there on special experiences, but by planning ahead, we are able to budget for it.
Why we love traveling with kids
They say traveling with kids is a “trip”, not a “vacation”. It’s hard work, and not meant to be relaxing.
Maybe we are gluttons for punishment, but traveling for us (the most rewarding kind) is always a trip, with or without kids. It’s not because we’ve jammed packed our schedule and are totally exhausted. But for us, traveling is about going to new places where we might not speak the language. Where we frequently have no idea where we’re going. We’re doing something we’ve never done before. Traveling is about long flights and train rides and car rides. Traveling is about adapting, about compromise, about letting go of the small things. It’s about experiencing something new, and learning about ourselves along the way.
And what we’ve found is that kids are really good at this. They’re doing it all the time. On the road, our kids will interact with other kids even if they don’t speak a word of the same language. They will try new foods they might refuse at home. They’ll wait in those lines to see something cool. They are not phased by new, or different, or the unknown – they are excited and curious about it. In turn, when we are on the road, we are more understanding with them, less likely to raise our voices, more willing to find creative solutions to keep everyone happy. It’s 100% true that traveling with kids is a trip. But what we’ve found is traveling with kids, it actually makes us better travellers.
