International Travel: Should You Bring The Kids?

Years ago, travel guru Rick Steves came to our town to speak. Ryan and I had spent many evenings immersed in his PBS show “Europe Through the Back Door” and now we couldn’t wait to meet him in person and hear him talk about European travel.

While he had many interesting travel tips and tales to tell, the one that surprised us was his response to a question posed by my husband:

“Do you have advice for traveling internationally with kids?”

I was 6 months pregnant with our first child and we weren’t sure how our travel would be affected once we started a family.

Before kids, we used every excuse to dart off to various U.S. and European destinations. Friends’ weddings in North Carolina, Arizona, Minnesota, Illinois, and Upstate New York? We were there!

Business trips in Seattle, San Francisco, and NYC? A long weekend it is!

We backpacked through six European countries and totally fell in love with traveling abroad. So we backpacked Europe again a few years later!

I also lived and worked in London, England for a time right after college.

We took advantage of every opportunity.

But now, when you throw kids into the mix, we weren’t sure what our future travels would look like. Asking Rick Steves for advice on traveling internationally with kids seemed like the perfect idea.

His answer shocked us.

“Drop the kids off at Grandma and Grandpa’s house on your way to the airport.”

Wait, what?!

How could a travel expert passionate about European travel not want to promote and encourage a love of European travel starting at a young age? I was disappointed to say the least… that is, until we went on our next European vacation and we actually took his advice. Wise man, that Rick Steves!

Some people will disagree and say bring your kids with you on international trips. Of course there can be benefits to taking kids with you internationally:

• Experiencing another culture is educational.
• It opens their eyes to a foreign language, unfamiliar food, and a different way of doing things.
• Kids can catch the travel bug early and develop a lifelong appreciation for international travel.

But does traveling internationally with children make the most sense for you or your child at this time ?

If you are passionate about international travel, you probably want to instill that same feeling in your child as early as possible, right? That’s how I felt before having kids. I was sure we’d take the kids with us on our European travels from little on – but I’ve come to think differently.

Ryan and I structure our travel based on what makes the most sense at this stage in our lives and our children’s lives.

The truth is, there are many reasons not to bring the kids along on overseas vacations.

• First of all, throw guilt out the window. It’s okay and even beneficial for parents to vacation once in a while without their children. Parents need time away from their kids to refresh and recharge. Research shows couples who travel together say they’re more satisfied with their relationship and that travel helps them communicate better. Kids benefit from being apart, too. They gain independence while experiencing valuable bonding time with Grandma and Grandpa or other relatives or trusted friends apart from you. International vacations don’t have to be very long – you can see a lot in a short amount of time. Since having kids, we generally spend less than 1 week at a time on our international travels.
• This is an obvious reason, but an important one… Traveling overseas is expensive. Bringing the whole family makes it that much more costly. More airline tickets, higher local transportation costs, bigger hotel rooms, more meals, and on and on.
• Young children may not remember the experience and if they do, will they think their adventure overseas is that much greater than a less expensive adventure closer to home? Our kids, for example, love hiking – especially to waterfalls. They don’t care whether they are hiking to a waterfall in a U.S. National Park or in another country. They also love to swim in the ocean whether it’s off the coast of Florida, California – or Italy, I’m sure. Sounds crazy to us, right? But kids just appreciate the adventure, they don’t fully understand the privilege of an international destination.
• Finally, your itinerary traveling with children will look much different than traveling with adults. Everything will be slower. You’ll have to go at their pace. You’ll need to plan kid-friendly activities and downtime into the mix. As it is, busy adults often have limited time for an overseas vacation. Rick Steves sums it up perfectly when he wrote,

“Two adults with kids spend twice as much to experience about half the magic of Europe per day than they might without.” (emphasis added)

If you have oodles of money, plenty of vacation time, or loved ones living in other countries, then it may make sense to bring the littles with you internationally. Otherwise, I stand with Rick Steves. My advice is to wait.

Instill a love of travel in kids – while being savvy with time and money

Ryan and I feel strongly about instilling a love of travel in our children and experiencing many memories with them. That’s why we take family vacations throughout the U.S. – West Coast, East Coast, Midwest, Florida, Arizona, Colorado, many National Parks, etc. Keeping our family travels stateside makes more sense for our family at this time in our lives.

Once kids become teenagers, an international family trip may start to make sense. Being young adults, teens should be able to keep to a more active itinerary and appreciate the investment of world travel.

On a recent trip to Norway with just Ryan and myself, I started to wonder if on this particular trip we should have brought the kids, since one was already a teenager.

But then as Ryan and I waited in the cold drizzling rain to catch an Oslo bus that was running very late, I knew we made the right decision. The rain didn’t dampen our spirits one bit. Neither did the late bus. We were just in awe of being in Norway! But if we had our three kids in tow, I guarantee one – if not all – would be grumpy and complaining – not fully appreciating the blessing of being abroad .

Also, I know full well that the Viking ship museum we were headed to was not their cup of tea either. This only reinforced the idea that they were having more fun at home with Grandma and Grandpa.

Thanks, Mr. Steves, for the heads-up!

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