I love traveling – but it can be a double edged sword. After returning from a recent family trip, I can say the highs were high, and the lows were low. But I wouldn’t trade it for anything. It lets us explore new places, and experience new things while spending time together as a family. I’d love to expose the kids to as many new places as I can, but we can’t be traveling all the time, because, life. So we’ve come up with nine fun travel ideas for kids to extend the excitement of each trip, starting with before we even leave the house. Read on to find out if any of these would work for you!
Before you leave
Half the fun of traveling is the anticipation before the big event. It’s true! So before you take off, here are a few easy ways to drum up excitement with the kids.
- Read about your destination beforehand. Take a trip to the library and check out some books about where you’re going, non-fiction or fiction. Be sure not to exclude the littlest ones – there are baby board books on travel as well, like the Hello World series by Ashley Evans. I could write a whole post on great travel books for kids to popular destinations, but I’ll save it for another day!
- Buy them a special book for the trip. Before our last trip, we went to the bookstore and let each kid pick out one new book to take with them. This helps alleviate any boredom they might experience while traveling – at the airport, in transit, or at the hotel. To be honest, we resort to electronic entertainment more often than I’d like. But we gave this a try too, and it also worked. My son’s book (pictured above) had the bonus of being both a toy and a book.
- Make a countdown calendar. Print out a calendar and mark down the days of the trip. Have your child cross out or put a sticker on each day until it’s time to leave. I used a plain calendar, but have plans to design a printable calendar. I’ll update this post with a link when it’s ready. (My list of posts to write is getting longer by the second…)
- Get the kids their own luggage and let them pack (supervised). I don’t suggest you leave them to their own devices when they’re still young, lest you arrive to find a suitcase full of toys, random knick-knacks and no clothes or toiletries. I’ll sit with my daughter in her room a couple nights before we leave and help guide her with packing. I’ll tell her to pick out x-number of t-shirts, y-number of pants, PJs, etc. and let her select the clothes she wants to bring (within reason.) My general rule of thumb is, if they’re not old enough to carry or roll their own bag, then I’m packing for them and their stuff is going in my suitcase. I hope the ritual of packing, and having her consider the length of the trip and weather at the destination, will lead her to make smart decisions while packing by herself in the not-so-distant future.
- Make a welcome home sign and hang it before you leave. My daughter came up with this one herself, and I thought it was too cute, so I’ve included it here. She made herself a “Welcome Home” sign, to herself, from a stuffed animal that was left behind. She hung it on her door the morning we left, and it was there to greet her when we returned almost two weeks later.
During travel
You probably don’t need too many fun travel ideas for kids while you’re traveling, because you’re on vacation! The change in routine and staying in hotels is enough to get the kids excited. But here are a couple things we do anyway, to bring joy even after we return home.
- Write a postcard to your future selves and mail it. This is one of our favorites, and we’ve done it since before the kids even knew how to write. We always make a point to purchase postcards while we’re on vacation, write a message on them to our future selves, and mail them before we leave. If the kids are too young to write, we’ll write something on it for them (and let them scribble or mark on it) so they’ll have it when they’re older.
- Let souvenir shopping be an event. I debated including this because I’m not a huge fan of souvenir-y souvenirs. They’re usually poorly designed and overpriced. That said, I do remember the thrill of going to a souvenir shop when I was younger. So we’ll let the kids pick something for themselves, not necessarily from a souvenir shop. We just try to take them to a store we don’t have at home. We’ll usually wait until the end of the trip for this event. Our son picked a toy truck in Denmark, and it talks in Danish! I chuckle every time I hear it. None of us know what it’s saying, but it makes me happy to hear nonetheless.
After you return home
- Get a scratch-off travel map. We have this big map and we scratch off the destinations we’ve been to after we return. It’s fun to do and nice to see where we’ve been geographically. My husband asked once if we’ll get to scratch off all of Russia even if we only visit one city. I say yes?
- Make a photo album. OK, so I don’t have baby books done for either child. But I do try to put in the effort of cobbling together a digital photo album after our big trips and getting them printed. The kids love to look at the pictures after we return, and it’s a good way to reminisce. (Maybe someday I’ll finish those baby books.)
That’s it! After we return from the trip, the postcards will usually arrive a couple days to a week after we do. It’s always fun to find something other than bills and advertisements in the mailbox. Do you have other fun travel ideas for kids? We don’t implement all of these strategies for every trip, but we usually try to do at least couple. I hope at least some of these ideas will be useful for your next adventure!
Top photo credit: Priscilla du Preez
