With summer lurking around the corner, you may be solidifying your summer vacation plans. For many parents with young kids, traveling may seem like a daunting prospect, and not quite worth it yet, especially if you have kids too young to remember just how crystal clear the ocean is or how majestic the Taj Mahal is. But perhaps with newborns aside, travel has tremendous benefits for even young kids, especially young kids. Your kids may not appreciate the star rating of a lavish hotel, or that they encountered an endangered species but travel forms perspectives, habits and dispositions. Here are at least eight exquisite benefits of travel for kids.
1. Travel inspires curious. There is nothing quite like being in a different city, country or continent to heighten all five senses and expand the mind. Everything from hearing different languages and accents to tasting new foods to observing cultural idiosyncrasies will have your child asking questions and connecting dots to his life back home. You can’t be curious about something unless you’ve been exposed to it. And when you travel, you are constantly exposed to new sights, smells and tastes.
2. Travel makes kids adaptable. Travel is synonymous with trying something new. There is no familiar route when you travel. Travel forces you to eat different, sleep different and even use the potty differently in some cases. You’ll be required to push boundaries and in doing so, it will make your child more adaptable to change. And the more you encounter change, the less you’ll be afraid of it.
3. Travel promotes tolerance. If your goal is to raise a close-minded child, travel can pose a real thought to a narrow point of view. Even when tolerance isn’t explicitly taught, the act of trying a new cuisine, observing cultural mores, and simply just being there says your destination of choice is worth your time to discover.
4. Travel fortifies bonds between siblings. You might be born into a family but you’re not required to stay friends when you’ve grown up. At the core of friendship is a commonality. One of the main benefits of travel is that it provides a shared common experience between siblings. Even after we’ve returned from a trip, I’ve heard my daughters repeatedly reminisce on memories created on trips. It’s something special between them because it’s something they shared exclusively.
5. Travel teaches you to live in the present. This probably applies more to parents than to kids, but being able to enjoy a few days or a few weeks with attentive parents is a huge benefit for kids. The best memories are created on trips not only because traveling is fun, but it’s also the one time when parents tune in to the present moment. Due to the nature of modern work, a laptop is always open in our house. Work never seems to truly stop – except when we are on vacation. Maybe we value the time when we’re on vacation more because we paid good money to be some place, but traveling has a way of helping us live in the moment. Seeing a natural wonder, observing beautiful exotic architecture or simply just experiencing life outside the confines of your normal life also serves as a good reminder that there is more to life than work.
6. Travel makes kids cultured. Being cultured is so much more than being educated on a topic or having good manners, though there is that too. But travel matures and refines a person. Each time my kids come back from a trip, they never come back the same. They’ve overcome an obstacle, they’ve learned a thing or two and they’ve gained perspective. This manifests into greater appreciation and patience.
7. Travel refreshes kids. There’s nothing like leaving home and traveling between the academic school years to wipe your slate clean and give you a breath of fresh air. Traveling may be physically exhausting, but it refreshes the soul.
8. It helps your child find his place in the world. No matter your size, travel has a way of helping you find your place in the world. This is why so many people have career and life epiphanies while traveling. By encountering different people, your child will discover he has a unique story of his own. Back home, your child might’ve been the good student who always does what’s expected of him, or even the student who struggles, or the one who makes everyone laugh. But when you’ve stepped outside of your expected routine, it gives you the freedom to reinvent yourself. Travel is so much more than a discovery of a new place. It’s a discovery of the self.
So even if you’ve got a young child who won’t remember all of the precise details of your trip, you could argue that travel benefits young children most of all since they are the most impressionable at this age. The prospect for enhanced curiosity, tolerance and refinement, may be even more valuable than recalling exactly how he got there.