For the next installment of the Travel Myth Buster Series I will address another common excuse for not incorporating travel into one’s lifestyle:

If you want to travel and have kids, you basically have two options: 1. You can find someone reliable and trustworthy to leave them with when you travel, since you don’t necessarily need to travel for weeks on end to make it part of your life. 2. Or, take advantage of the more obvious and satisfying option, bring them with you!

There are hundreds of reasons why international travel is a fantastic thing to take part in with your kids, even with your young children. If they can walk and talk, they will love the experience!

Let me start by addressing 2 of the biggest concerns people have for NOT wanting to travel abroad with their children.

1. Safety: An understandable concern for any caring mother and father. However, the unknown truth is that in general foreign countries, even developing countries are not any more dangerous than home. Sure, theft can be a problem, but in general, most countries around the world have lower violent crime rates than we do in the US or in the UK. As long as you take normal everyday precautions, and do some research on potential destinations, you shouldn’t be in harm’s way anymore than you would be crossing the street at home.
2. Missing School The other common and understandable concern is you children missing school. First of all, you can completely dodge this concern by scheduling trips during school vacations. However, if that isn’t possible you first need to decide how long you’ll be able to travel. As I have argued before, you can effectively travel for just 1 or 2 weeks a year, in which case most schools and teachers are usually quite supportive of the child missing a few days in order to go out and actually SEE the world that they are learning about in the classroom. So, what if you want to travel for months, or even a year or more? You still have a number of options, as this is not such an uncommon thing anymore. Homeschooling your children on the road, or even accredited online courses designed for traveling children are both possibilities. See how his family is traveling the world while educating 4 school-age children! Again, the experience and knowledge they gain from traveling the world, will far outweigh any time they miss in the classroom.

Now let’s go over all the possible good that can come from incorporating international travel into the time you spend with you children:

1. Bonding: Having had many a travel partner in my day, I can guarantee with 100% certainty that traveling with your children will be a bonding experience. Even if you rarely see eye to eye with your kids, there is something about being surrounding by a strange new culture and environment that brings people closer together.
2. Worldly knowledge and experience: Like it or not, we live in a global world. Local problems are global problems, and global problems are local. The experience and knowledge your child will get actually seeing other regions of the globe from a young age, will help them immensely in their growth as a world citizen.
3. Compassion and understanding: Going along with number two, the world we live in is far from perfect. However, growing up in the US or Western Europe it is easy to get sucked into the culture of materialism. It will be very valuable for your children to see the problems facing the majority of people on our globe, so that they grow up to be compassionate, understanding individuals.
4. Language learning: Ever wish you spoke a foreign language? Why not give your children that opportunity. Your young children will literally soak up new languages as their brains’ capacities for learning are at their peak at a young age.
5. Diversity: Imagine a childhood in which you have the opportunity to learn the philosophy of Buddhism, the morals of Christianity, and the sense of community behind Islam. Where you meet people and keep up with friends from China, India, Zambia, and Peru. Think of the diversity and multiplicity that would come from such an experience. This is the kind of experience you can give to your child through travel.

Want to hear more about families that have embarked down the great road of travel, TOGETHER?

• Six in the World
• The Carlson Family’s around the world adventure

Or check out these other family travel resources:

• Family Vacations and Travel Blog
• Travelogger.net
• Taking the Kids
• Fun and Educational Family Travel Tips

Return to the “Travel Myth Buster” series

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