Ways to Get Your Kids Excited About Traveling

Traveling with young children can be intimidating, particularly if you’ve never done it before. A trip to the grandparents for the weekend is one thing. Catching a flight to another country or taking a long road trip is another thing. And if your kids have no concept of what it means to travel, they might be confused or fairly apathetic to the idea.

Getting kids excited about traveling can make a big difference in the overall experience. The question is, how do you do it? What follows are several real-world suggestions that you can use to get your kids amped up about the possibility of travel.

Have a big reveal. Nobody loves a good surprise quite like children. (And nobody loves giving surprises more than a parent of a young child.) So if you want to get your kids thrilled at the prospect of going on a trip, have a big reveal.

There are plenty of fun ways to reveal a trip. For example, you could have them open up a letter with pictures of the destination inside. Or you could have a scavenger hunt with clues. Some parents will even make it a mystery up until they reach the airport gate. Pick something creative that you know your kids will enjoy.

 Let the kids study up. One of the best parts about a trip is the anticipation. You can really build up this anticipation by letting kids study about the place you’re going. There are tons of really cool ways to do this, including:

• Go to your local library’s travel section and check out books on the destination.
• Use Google Earth to take a 3D tour of the city you’ll be visiting.
• Give kids an hour of time online to research different facts about the destination. Then have each child deliver a mini report on what they’ve learned. 

Give kids the freedom to research things that they’re interested in. For example, if one of your children loves sports, let them learn about local professional teams in the area. Have them find the arenas and stadiums on the map.

 Let them help plan. When your kids learn about the place you’re going to, it’ll probably spark some desire to see different sites or experience different events. Let them each plan something as part of the itinerary. By giving them ownership over part of the trip, they’ll feel a sense of excitement and responsibility.

 Purchase fun luggage. If this is your child’s first trip, they might not have luggage. And as boring as it seems, choosing luggage can actually be an exciting part of the travel experience.

For example, Kiddietotes has some really cool children’s luggage that doubles as a scooter. (Seriously!) What better way to get a kid excited about a trip than by letting them pick out their own unicorn luggage scooter that they can ride around the airport?

Use a trip countdown. For young children, time is a difficult concept to grasp. Once the trip is 30 days out, you can use some sort of countdown to help them understand it’s getting closer. A paper chain is one option. Each day, a child gets to remove one cuff from the link – until there’s only one left!

Raising a Family That Loves to Travel 

A family that travels together stays together. Vacations can provide a much-needed escape from reality while also opening eyes to different cultural experiences. In one sense, it makes a person more worldly (in a positive sense).

Think about it like this. When you’re at home, you have responsibilities. There are chores, clothes to wash, work to be done, errands to be run, and dozens of responsibilities that stack on top of one another. This leads to stress, worry, and very little free time to enjoy as a family.

Vacation provides separation. When you’re traveling, you effectively hit the pause button on all of those regular duties. Stress slips away, worries are put on hold, and there’s time to be present with one another. It doesn’t matter if it’s a weekend trip camping in the woods, or a weeklong excursion across Europe – travel allows you to connect with the world, as well as with one another. Get your kids excited about travel and life will have more meaning!