After two and a half months on the road in a motorhome with her family, Family Times editor SONIA SPEEDY has learned a few things about making family travel a success. Here’s her top learnings.
Involve the kids in travel planning
Discuss in advance what you’re thinking of doing and perhaps even get the kids to plan parts of the holiday themselves. They could propose activities to do and places to stay. You could even work with them to book things online. Involving the kids from the start means you’re likely to get much more buy-in.
Set the tone before you go
Before you leave home, have a little pep talk. Discuss the fact that things don’t always go to plan and your carefully made plans could be derailed at any point. Someone might get a bug while you’re away, there might be a torrential downpour on your long-awaited camping trip, or the car might break down. Explain there is an adventure in everything and you just don’t know what fun person you might meet, or special experience you could have purely because things didn’t go to plan. Remind them that sometimes the trips you most remember are what went awry, rather than what went purely to plan.
Download audio books for the car
The car can be a tinder box for petty fights between siblings. Cooped up in close quarters, it doesn’t take long before someone is crying and someone is sulking. Audio books can really save your bacon here, but you need to choose wisely to suit everyone. The classic American book Where the Red Fern Grows went down really well with all of our family recently – parents included. We got hours of peaceful travelling out of that. See if you can download something from the library before you leave home.
Accept it won’t be all sunshine and rainbows
You may be doing something fun and out of the ordinary, but that doesn’t mean the fights from home won’t follow you there. Expect this, plan for it and deal with it – just like you would at home. It can be easy to expect everything to be brilliant all the time, and then find yourself bitterly disappointed.
Always have food on you – always
Even if it’s just a museli bar each and a bag of nuts tucked in your jacket pocket, you’re sure to need them. Having something on hand can save you a lot of money at a café. It’ll also buy you some time to get to where you’re heading without a meltdown.
Plan time out for yourself
While it’s tempting to think everyone will happily spend every waking minute together enjoying each other’s company, we all know this is unlikely. But by actively planning a little bit of time out each day for yourself as a parent, you’ll keep your tank topped up enough to get through the challenges that arise. Put the kids in front of a movie for a bit, or head out for a walk on your own to allow yourself time to think undisturbed.
Have a thick skin
We all know kids are fickle, so if you spend a bomb on tickets to a really cool museum you’re sure they’re going to love, don’t be disappointed if they constantly yawn, ask when they’re going home and tell you they’re hungry. Telling them they’re ungrateful won’t help. Help them make the location come alive, or just sigh and move on.
Find a way to make things fun
While something you’re interested in seeing might be considered ‘boring‘ by the kids, a scavenger hunt can sometimes save the day. And fortunately, most places know this, so ask at the front counter if there’s anything special provided for kids, and you might get more engagement.
Remember the benefits can be invisible
Even if your child moans that everything you’ve done on your trip has been rubbish, they’ve probably still learned a bunch of skills that will stand them in good stead in future. Perhaps it’s about being more adaptable when something goes wrong or about talking to people they don’t know. New experiences mean their worlds just get that little bit bigger, even if it’s not evident on the surface. You’ve just given your child a gift. Even if they don’t know it yet.
Read more: Travelling with kids >>
