What does #TravelforReal mean to you?
Summer vacations are winding down, and school start is already here for some. We are still going on one more trip to Orlando, to attend the
Family Forward conference at
Pacific Royal at Universal Studios before our schools start. The Loews hotel property is asking their guests to share what #TravelforReal means for them, and I thought it would be a great time to ask you the same question and reflect on that.
A while ago I wrote a post for Huffington Post
how to give your kids the world, urging parents to travel with their children. With
so many different ways to travel, even when you have no money or time, you can create a lifestyle that allows you to travel with children.
Leigh recently asked if
traveling is a privilege or choice, and while there are basics that always come before traveling I think family traveling is a choice that anyone can choose to make reality. It can require a lot of work, sacrifices and even unconventional lifestyle choices. The sad statistics say that 20% of Americans have never left their home state, and 64% have never left United States (according to how many own passports).
Meaningful traveling is the best form of education, and now is as good of a time to start planning your next trip as any other time! Traveling isn’t always easy or fun, but the life lessons you get from getting out of your comfort zone and going somewhere new is a gift that will keep on giving for the rest of your (child’s) life. Our children have been traveling since they were a few weeks old, and meaningful travel has raised global citizens who are tolerant, educated and they have respect for different cultures, people and opinions. Our family unit is much tighter because we have spent so much time just us five, and without any everyday distractions.
You don’t always have to go far to travel. We did an
extempore road trip last weekend, and drove only a few hours away. In 36 hours we were able to tell more our children about our family history and memories than we ever could have if we had just stayed home (those long car rides offer opportunities for deep conversations). We also saw nature, historic sights, enjoyed a family picnic, and tailgated in a rock concert giving the kids a VERY wide range of life experiences and knowledge. We also took our six-month-old puppy for the trip, and kids took responsibility by helping and making sure the needs of our family pet were also taken care of.
Ask these questions from yourself
Now is the time to reflect on your family’s summer travels, and see if you are traveling in a meaningful way.
1. What was the best memory and thing that happened on our trip? Was it planned or unexpected?
2. What mistakes we made? Did we plan too much/too little?
3. Did we have fun? Who had the most fun? Who had the least fun? Were everyone’s wishes taken in consideration?
4. What did we learn from our travels?
5. How can we relive the experiences from our trip back at home and keep the experience going? How can we preserve the memories?
6. Did we get out of our family’s comfort zone? (Did we try something new? Did we try sticking too much to our everyday routines?)
7. Did our trip reflect on our expectations (of being relaxing/educational/fun/action-packed)?
8. How was the destination? Did it reflect on our family’s values?
9. How could the experience have been more meaningful?
10. How can our next trip be even better? Where should we go next?
More
family travel inspiration and ideas where to take the kids on our site and social media channels! Make those family trips meaningful!
Check out these family travel destinations on my Findery map.
Post by Katja Presnal
“My mission is to inspire you to live life to the fullest and find your own “skimbaco,” how you enjoy life where ever you are in the moment. For ideas for travel, home, food and fashion,
subscribe to weekly Skimbaco Lifestyle feed on Mondays and
I hope you get my newsletter that I send out sometimes on Fridays.”
Katja Presnal, editor-in-chief and the owner of Skimbaco Lifestyle.
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