Traveling as a family: How it started
My husband and I have always enjoy traveling, we love everything from exploring within our state, around the United States and internationally.
Through the years we had traveled more, and our traveling bucket list has grown. But to be honest, when we decided we wanted to have a baby, we never thought we would be traveling as much as we are now.
Our first plane ride with Isabella, our daughter, came as no surprise, we visited Puerto Rico when she was just 3 months old. We wanted my family and friends to meet her and to take her to my island. During Isabella’s first year, we went back to Puerto Rico twice and did some road trips around the Midwest.
That’s when we realized that we were not going to stop doing something that we love just because we had a young daughter. We didn’t want to leave her behind either, so we decided she was joining our adventures, and that we would make it work.
That’s how when she was only 13 months old, we visited Europe with our baby girl for the first time. I remember many people telling us that we were crazy, asking why we were taking her. They told us that it would be very difficult, and that she would not remember any of it. And even when there was some truth in some of those words, we absolutely loved taking her.
The rest is history. Isabella is now 6 years old, and she has gone to Europe four times, twice to Mexico, visited various states, and gone to Puerto Rico more times that I can remember.
Why we travel as a family
We wanted to take family vacations, create memories, and have fun together. As long as we can, we want to show her the world and give her the experience early and expand her knowledge. It’s important for us that she can explore new places, experience other cultures, and see how different we all are.
There is so much learning and growth when you travel with kids, and we want to pass that to her. In every adventure we take, we try to incorporate activities that she will enjoy and are appropriate for her age. She is part of the planning, and her voice always counts.
Our hopes
Traveling for us is restorative, liberating, it teaches us to be kind, grateful, and of course, fills our soul with joy. We can see her experiencing all these things already, and our hope is that this continues to happen. Adding, of course, her own experiences as she continues her own journey.
We hope that as she grows older, her desire to explore the world grows with her. Knowing that every person she meets along the way and every place she visits are unique, with great value and that she could learn from each of these experiences important lessons for her life. The hope is that she can appreciate all the new things, but also that she grows to be proud of herself and where she comes from and can share that with everyone.
On our most recent trip to Europe this past summer we could see how some of our hopes are already having their effect. It is true that of many trips she will not have memories, but we realized that exposing her to travel only adds up.
Now we see a curious girl, who loves traveling, trying new things, she enjoys visiting new places and learning their history. We saw a 6-year-old engaging in conversations with local adults and kids, asking questions, and, of course, playing and having the kind of fun only kids can have.
Our advice to her is to treasure these experiences, make the most out of it, and always be humble.
What traveling as a family means to us
Traveling with her has been a joy, we absolute love it. To see things through her eyes has been amazing. She has showed us a new way of traveling, we now plan our adventures very differently and had learned how to flow better.
It has been wonderful to achieve some of my own dreams in terms of traveling with her. Sharing those moments with her has been magical, and even if she doesn’t remember some of them, I will never forget them.
These are some of the reasons why we do it and our advice for everyone who enjoys and can travel is to keep doing it and share these adventures with your kids. After all, for us it is true that having kids is not a reason to stop traveling, but is one of the reasons you should keep doing it with them.
