To travel with family, what does it represent?
Valuable tips from our community of traveling parents to make your family trip even more special
By Sut-Mie Guibert and Flávia Oliveira
Our community of traveling families has an important voice within our platform because it brings us real experiences and teachings that help many families with their doubts, anxieties, fears, challenges, and joys while traveling. It’s great to be able to rely on the experience of other families. We talk about various subjects, from itineraries and tips, but we also share the delights and challenges of traveling as a family. In other words, we speak of what we know and establish this routine of exchange very frequently.
Today, we chose to ask what traveling with family represents, given the passion is so great. Shall we see the answers? See if you identify with any.
From a Father: “It means even more time with the girls, new discoveries, countless learnings, fun, chaos, and lots of play!”
From a Mother: “Emotional memory. A unique opportunity to share discoveries, teach, and learn. Rediscovering places through the fresh and pure gaze of childhood. A precious way of educating! That’s why bags are always packed.”
Another Mother: “It means spending quality time with my child. Sharing experiences and discoveries. And learning from my child to see things with joy and innocence.”
From another Father: “Stepping out of the comfort zone. Looking at the world with different eyes. Slowing down.”
From a Mother: “Having time to talk, love, and discover the world filled with emotions! Traveling with my daughter is the best part of the year!”
From another Mother: “Making their eyes sparkle with things they’ve never seen before! There are a lot of things I could talk about here, but this is what enchants me the most. I often find myself on trips just admiring them as they become enchanted!”
Another Mother: “Discoveries and memories that last forever. That’s how it was for me, with my parents, and I think it has been the same with my little one too.”
From another mother who remembers her childhood: “I have incredible memories of the trips I took in my childhood. After losing my father, it seems that this gained new meaning, and it showed me how much I should enjoy time with my child, create memories and reminiscences. After all, that’s the best inheritance we receive and can leave behind! So, traveling with my child represents that, creating memories and leaving moments marked, both for me and for him.”
Passionate about her daughter: “Love, discoveries, complicity, and the fulfillment of dreams. My daughter is a great travel companion.”
A mother of now adults: “Moments to create bonds, ties, memories, but also to introduce/discover a world that goes far beyond our own. To show that people can be different in the most concrete way possible when they are children: the foods are different, the clothes, the beliefs, the games, the routines… Growing up believing in and respecting diversity was our life goal.”
Another one passionate about diversity: “Mainly emotional memory and the learning that our culture, our belief, and our ‘truths’ are just one among thousands of others.”
An objective mother: “It represents memories, but it also represents not stopping doing things that I always loved doing before having children. Traveling is one of them. That’s why I try to balance trips to resorts and trips to destinations that interest me more than my child.”
From a mother of a much questioned child: “My son, when he was 11 years old, told me that his classmates kept saying at school that he was rich because he traveled on every vacation. Then he told me that he replied to his friends that while other parents preferred to buy ‘big’ cars and apartments, his parents preferred to invest in trips. I felt very, very proud of the answer he gave. And, in a way, that sums up my answer to the question.”
From an experienced mother: “It represents unity, challenges, new experiences, maturation, memories, rough patches… Not everything goes perfectly, but we always come back more connected and happier. My 8-year-old daughter already helps to define the places and activities. My 4-year-old son is starting to show interest in the theme and asks for trips as gifts. Whenever people ask me why I travel with my children or when they say that children are too much trouble, I reply that children are trouble anywhere, it’s better to have trouble while knowing the world! I don’t give up traveling with my children, we even make smaller trips without them, but with children everything is more complete!”
A 360º view: “Fun, opportunity for growth and maturation, unity, affinity, and slowing down… It’s a fact that only as a couple, we can accelerate, do more things, walk more, because our energy is different… And I think that for a family to be 100% happy in terms of leisure, there has to be space for both: family trips, and trips just for the couple! (And one day, trips just for the children too! It’s just that mine are 5 and 9 years old, but during vacations they already go to the beach with grandparents and we stay!).”
And to finish, a pinch of good humor: “Guys, you are super romantic, I already find the craziest thing in life, the best memories of our family time. And let’s agree that staying at home would be easier, traveling with children is always an unpredictable adventure!”
And for you, what does traveling with family represent, now that you’ve seen various views and opinions?
Sut-Mie Guibert is the founder and mediator of our community of traveling families, Family Trippers – Family Travel, a closed group with over 11,000 families sharing their real experiences and travel tips to help other parents travel better. Co-founder of Family Trip Magazine and mother to Clara and Nina, she brings a new article in each issue recounting the discoveries of other families around the world.
Flávia Oliveira, mother of Duda and Bernardo, also moderates the group with great humor and is a frequent traveler.
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