Friday, October 29, 2010

Tots on Trips

The most common question that I get from my readers is the concern of travelling with kids. Majority of young parents tell me they love to travel, but at the same time they dread doing so with their young kids. Their experience with going grocery shopping or attending events with their kids has left a lasting stressful impression on them that they dare not think of going on a trip with the kids.

I am hopeful that some of my suggestions will relieve you of your fears, so let's dive into it...

Get your Kids Excited Before you Go: To get your kids excited about the upcoming vacation you are planning as a family, you must get them involved with the planning. You can give them about 3 different vacation spots and have them pick a place for the family. Look at maps together and do some research together. Pick your area of interest together and get them hyped about the trip. They must look forward to it!

Equip Them: Before you embark on your trip, provide some fun tools to keep your kids engaged and busy during the duration of your trip. Get them a disposable camera or a simple point and shoot camera. Have them take pictures of things they find interesting. Get them some coloring books, reading materials, and puzzles. Provide them with things that interest them.

Play Games: You can play all manner of games with your kids on the flight or on the road trip to keep them entertained. Remember that kids become restless and impatient when they become bored, so your whole goal is to keep them well entertained.

Plan Activities: As a family travelling with kids, the biggest mistake you can ever make is not having all your activities planned out. You need to have your ducks in a row when it comes to that aspect of your travelling. Key thing is preventing boredom! You don't want your kids asking what are we doing today and you having no definite answer. Engage in interactive learning activities as well as pure fun events.

Event Timing: Plan activities around your kids natural normal schedule. Fix educative events for mornings when they are most likely to learn and concentrate. Let them observe nap time and have afternoon activities very playful and fun. Ensure toilet time is observed whenever you see one.

Mode of Travelling: If you have infants and kids under 5, it may be better choosing a road trip over flying long distance. You may also choose destinations with short flying time. With road trips, you can stop as you please, walk around, relax, stretch, change baby, sightsee if on a scenic route, and stop at interesting places along the way.

Avoid Rushing: You know ample time on your hands can be your best friend when dealing with kids. With that in mind, give yourself plenty of time to get to the airport and check in. When making your ticket reservation, consider how much time you have between flights if connecting and make sure it is sufficient. Don't plan on rushing because that will be a trial of your patience.  

What other ideas have you incorporated into travelling with your kids that proved successful? Share with us in your comment.

6 comments:

  1. My wife and I travel a lot with our six children. We decided to store a bunch of our ideas on a website. Feel free to use our family travel ideas at RadRoadTrips.com.

    You may especially be interested in our travel activity books:
    http://www.radroadtrips.com/__category/downloads/passports

    Keep the fun in traveling with the kids!

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  2. Thanks John for your comment and resource provided. Will check it out.

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  3. Excellent tips. This is certainly an area I can relate to, travelling with children are never easy. These tips will surely help to have a great holiday.

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  4. Very good tips! The last time we travelled with the kids we had nothing planned out for the air ride. The kids were restless and kept disturbing other passengers..this made the plane ride really stressful. I'll ensure we have enough games and coloring books for the next plane ride. Thanks for sharing.

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  5. Well, there is a lot here to say about traveling with kids. To start, one important factor is to never over extend the scheduling periods of the children hence this can throw then off their existing balance. For example If the road trip is more than 4hr then you are in for a rough ride. They have to be kept busy in between two to three hours at a time. My recent vacation to Virginia I viewed partly as a challenge and experience for both my wife and myself. Simply to say, the shorter the trip the better behaved our kids are likely to be. My trip took us over seven hours from New York to Williamsburg in Virginia. If you ask me, will I do this again? My answer will be an emphatic Yes. This is because the feedback after a few days getting back put a lot of smile on our faces even until now. The keys is "No one should be left behind" the situation may be chaotic but bonding is chronically connecting. Our last plane ride to Phoenix Arizona last year was just amazing for me experimentally. The flight was over five hours however within three hours into the flight the kids were already restless seating down. Walking around the aisles was like therapeutic role play for them. No amount of seat downs or stay stills will work. In fact on one occasions, a passenger had to strongly request another seat due to my son's restless behavior. What a pity for the passenger but a greater experience for us both.

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  6. Events by Doyin: the goal of this blog is to provide valuable tips and reviews for our readers and i am glad this particular post proved resourceful to you. Come again and share your experience.

    Albert: Thank you for shedding more light on travelling with kids. We love to hear our readers's experiences and this comment has been helpful.

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