Benefits of traveling with kids?

Travelling with kids comes with it’s own ups and downs. Before kids, one of our biggest fears was that we would have to give up travel once we chose to really settle down and start a family. Who knew that since having kids, we would have travelled more and farther away from home? We noticed that there were so many benefits of traveling with kids. We noticed their behaviour and personality changed for the better each time we came back from a trip.

When did it all start?

Our adventures began when Myrra was a mere 3 months old and there has been no looking back since. We have explored Maldives, Jamaica, Niagara Falls, Banff & Jasper, the Bruce Peninsula, Austria, South Africa and so many more places. Our family has gone a Southern Caribbean Cruise and cruised to multiple places. We have done road trips and driven over 8 hours per day, taken 13 hours non-stop flights and taken them on boat rides with us. I must say though this was possible only because we really really made sure to understand them and their needs. I will share more on how we have managed to travel so much in my upcoming posts.

Quiet often we get asked, “why go through this hassle to travel with kids”, or the classic “Isn’t it wrong to make your children feel privileged from at a young age to travel so much”. Well – here are my answer to those questions.

Benefits of traveling with kids

Kids are like sponges and they absorb absolutely anything and everything that you teach and show them. For us, it is very important to show the girls a world outside ours. We believe that travelling will make them humble because they will come across different cultures and meet different people that may be less privileged.

That being said, we both are firm believers that travelling will make them even more social. Let me give you an example on this – The months leading up to our trip to South Africa, we were noticing that Myrra was feeling shy in front of acquaintances or strangers or she would not say hi while they were there or say thank you to them. Since Myrra has really started understanding things, South Africa was her first big trip. She was eager, asking questions and learning everyday to get ready for this trip. On our trip, she heard us constantly say hi to everyone, say thank you and please and she automatically started repeating those words.

The day after we booked our airfare for the trip, we had gone to the Niagara Safari and while we were there we were so excited to show Myrra the lions and giraffes. When we saw her interest laid in the ball lying in the lion cages rather than the lions itself, we knew we had to prepare her for the trip. I mean up until this point we only taught her farm animals.

That very minute, I bought an African alphabet book for her. We love to go through this ‘hassle’ only because we see how much it positively builds her as a person or because she took the interest to learn all those animals in the African alphabet book – animals that I had never even heard off. For her A was for Aardvark and not an apple and this is when we knew that we were successful in preparing her for her big trip.

Does traveling mean feeling privileged?

The best question of all is making them feel privileged by taking them on these trips with us. I am not really sure how I feel when I get asked this question.

Let me tell you why – I finished my schooling at age 29.5 years because I decided to go back to university for further education. When all my friends were enjoying their lives and partying, I was in the middle of exams or had a paper due. Rohan and I have made so many sacrifices before and after marriage due to my choice of being in school. While I was consolidating full-time, I was working part-time on my days off from school. I have been through all of this so that I could be in a better position to travel. The perk of my hard work was so that I could financially afford to travel.

Now when I get to finally enjoy this perk, should I stop because I have kids? Absolutely not! I chose to make them a part of my travels. It gave us an opportunity to bond more as a family. It gave us an opportunity to get to know the girls and their temperaments when they were thrown into things they may have not necessarily liked to do. More importantly, it is teaching them patience and exposing them to different ways that people live.

Final thoughts

If you guys love to travel, then travel! And if you love it enough, than the kids will settle into the routine of it as well. I am here to try my best to inspire you to do just that if you really wish to do it. Consider it an education for them outside the classroom and see how they will never be scared to try anything new.

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I hope you enjoyed reading benefits of traveling with kids. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us.