A lot of disgruntled and disheartened parents out there will preach to you that traveling with your kids can be a pain and a hassle.
Although this can certainly be true for a lot of reasons, sometimes, the reason traveling with kids is a hassle is because the kids themselves aren’t having fun with the travel.
With that said, if you plan on traveling with kids, then make sure that they’re a genuine part of the travel experience. There are several ways you can make travel more fun with your kids. Below are some ideas you can try.
1. Plan What You’ll Pack
The first thing you can do to have a great time with your kids is to plan what you’ll pack ahead of time.
When kids are packing their things willy-nilly, then you’ll end up finding a lot of things inside their luggage that they may not need. And when you’re carrying a child along with your heavy luggage, it can exhaust you quite fast.
With your best carry on luggage, you should make sure that you pre-plan your packing list so that you can avoid the hassle as the trip nears. All you have to do is check the list and see if you’ve already packed whatever is on it.
You can even make it a game with your kids by letting them help decide what should be on the list. Have them play a game of fetch with all the items in the packing list.
2. Give Your Kids Some Pointers
A mistake that a lot of parents do when they make decisions that involve their kids is that they don’t involve the kids in the process. They just expect them to go along with it.
Although your kids are dependent on you, they are still individuals. Thus, you should teach them self-respect in an indirect way by involving them in things like preparing them for a trip.
Tell them where you plan to go and what you plan to do there. Talk to them like the thinking human beings that they are.
Informing them about the trip will help reduce anxiety in your kids and they will then be more open to the trip.
3. Set a Family Travel Budget
If you aren’t aware of it, you can get carried away with the expenses that you can pile up during a trip, especially one with kids.
To be able to balance this well, you need to set a daily budget for your trip, and you can even set an individual budget or allowance for your kids’ travel expenses.
Even if you have a budget for your travels, it doesn’t mean that you have to restrict your enjoyment. It only means that you have to be smart about your expenses. You can splurge on some things during the trip so long as you don’t push your budget to the limit.
4. Be Ready to Capture the Moment
You can teach your kids to learn how to appreciate the moment by showing them means how to capture the moment.
If your kids are into scribbling and drawing then you can bring in some art materials or a notebook that will help them capture the sceneries with the means that they have.
You can try giving them a disposable camera for their own personal use. After the trip, you can bond with them by looking back on the trip with the photos that they took.
Give your kids that chance to save their memories of each trip, especially when they’re very young and they’re unlikely to remember the trip when they grow up.
5. Travel With an Itinerary
If you want to encourage your kids to have a good time when you’re traveling with them, then give them something to look forward to with a part of the trip that’s specifically catered to their wants.
Once you’ve planned those into your itinerary, you can then plan you accommodation. It can be as simple as typing “cheap hotels near me” or “cheap hotels near [name of attraction].”
Ideally, you should book these activities in advance so that you don’t have to worry about anything when you’re there. If you’re traveling with kids, you shouldn’t make them wait too long or else they might get grumpy, which is normal but it can stress you out during a trip.
6. Do Not Overdo Your Travel
When you’re traveling with kids, don’t expect adult-like behavior from them. They’re kids and they can get tired and lose interest in a lot of things very quickly.
Take this temperament into mind when you want to travel with them so that you don’t end up stressing them out during the trip.
7. Be Open and Spontaneous
Even if you have a set itinerary, make sure that you leave room for flexibility, especially when you have kids. You don’t know what’s going to happen when you try traveling with them so keep an open mind and a patient heart and you are sure to have a fun time traveling with your kids. Best of all, they’ll learn to love traveling too.