Even though summer vacation is still a few months away, you are beginning to think about where to take the kids on vacation this year. You and your husband are planning to get the same weeks off so that you can take the trip of a lifetime, with the family by traveling abroad. If you have yet to decide on a destination, the first thing to think about is making it an experience.
Why spend the money to go to a foreign land if you aren’t going to learn something new and see things you can’t see here at home? However, even this takes some thought. Before deciding where you want to go, take time to learn about what you can experience in each of the places you have on your ‘A‘ list.
What Are the Best Ways to Experience International Travel with Kids?
Family First Destinations
While there are some places you have always dreamed of going as a couple, those might not be family-friendly places to take the kids. For example, you have always wanted a Mediterranean vacation but some of those tourist traps like Ibiza are not exactly kid-friendly destinations.
Ibiza is renowned for its active clubbing and nightlife, but kids wouldn’t experience much there. What about the Greek island of Gozo? This is a family-friendly island with those absolutely beautiful sandy Mediterranean beaches you’ve dreamed of, and there is so much the family can do because it is a ‘family first‘ society.
Let the kids see how the locals harvest sea salt as they have for hundreds of years without hi-tech machinery and show them some temple remains that predate the pyramids by more than 1,000 years. That time spent together experiencing new cultures is worth so much more than spending the same amount of money at a theme park, where you bring nothing home but an empty purse.
Connect With Your Family!
The best way to experience international travel with kids is to help them learn about the connectedness of all things and all peoples. Even those countries with which we have strained relations have commonalities with us in ways many kids are never taught.
Traveling Out of The Country?
There are so many things you need to consider when traveling out of the country. If you need a visa along with your passport, you can easily fill out an visa application and find out quickly if you are approved. You also might want to consider applying for your passport early so that you don’t miss out on traveling this year.
Moms and dads love their kids, they all work to put food on the table, have religious and state holidays they celebrate, and even have pets much like our own. Maybe one day your son or daughter will be inspired to pursue an advanced degree in liberal studies from a renowned university like Rutgers because of the fond memories they had bonding with others on your memorable international family vacation.
In the End, There Is No ‘Them and Us’
Rutgers University may be a future goal, but it͛s what you do with the kids between now and then that matters most. The best way to experience international travel with kids is to show them that we are not so different after all in ways that matter most. Some countries may be so poor that the majority of people live in huts, but their family life is much like ours. They work to survive, and they live, love, and laugh just like we do.
Perhaps if more children could travel the world with this focus in mind, there would be fewer wars and less friction between nations. It is a start, albeit a small one, but many of our problems stem from the tension between ‘them and us‘. In the end, there is no them and us, it͛s ‘we‘. We can make this a better world if we realize just how connected we really are.