Wanderlust.

[rivka]

Over Christmas, talking with my sister Debbie, the subject of our 2002 trip to the Florida Keys came up. I said to her, "You know, that was one of the nicest vacations I've taken."

"Wow," she said. "You really haven't traveled much."

It felt like a slap in the face, although I know she didn't mean anything of the kind. It's just... she travels a lot, and she makes enough money, and spends it frugally enough, to go on exotic and exciting trips. Since we went to the Keys together, she's taken a small-boat cruise to the Galapagos, for heaven's sake. She's been to Egypt. She goes sea kayaking in Alaska and hiking in New Zealand.

I had meant to be saying something about how much I enjoyed traveling with her, and what a peaceful and relaxing trip it had been. I wasn't trying to say that I thought the Florida Keys were the best place in the world, based on my extensive survey. I haven't traveled that much - we simply haven't had the money for it, or the time. But I'd like to do more.

So I've been daydreaming. I'm helped along by my discovery of the concept of family adventure travel. It's nice to know that there are other people who think it's perfectly plausible to take a 6- or 8-year-old child on safari to Tanzania, or on a cruise down the Nile, or touring in Vietnam. Further surfing has led me to infant adventure travel, minimum age one year, with possible trips to Turkey, Morocco, Jordan, Lapland, Egypt.

Okay, that last concept might be a little extreme. But it's feeling good right now to have a sense of expanded horizons. In a few years, we might go anywhere.

Comments

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

FWIW: when i was 11 my mother (a school teacher) said that she'd saved up money, and did i want to go to Italy for Greece.

being a total addict for D'Auliere's Book of Greek Myths, i chose greece. we went to Athens, lived in a studio apartment for six weeks on Paros, took day trips, went to Delphi, Santorini... it was *marvelous*. we had a GREAT time and still discusss that trip together. it's why as an adult she and i knew we could go to Paris for five days and have a great time.

people who think that they can't take their [healthy, physcially and mentally] children on trips are either underestimating their children, or actively engaged in making their child one of "those kids" that can't go out in public because, well, they never learn how to act in public because they are *never taken out in public*.

n.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

I had meant to be saying something about how much I enjoyed traveling with her, and what a peaceful and relaxing trip it had been.

that's why i like vacations. i mean, i do a lot of conventions for vacations, and they're not entirely always relaxing, but they are always about the people i see there and spending time with them or in that community.

even when i've been to russia, i have been there because my father always said he wanted to take us kids there, and i really wanted to go there with my dad. by myself i'd never have gone.

also? lapland. lap lap lap lap lap. i think you should go.

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

I try to think of it as "all of the places I want to show Henry someday" instead of all of the places I can't go now. It helps.

[wiredferret.livejournal.com]

I first went overseas when I was 6 weeks old -- my parents studied in France for six months, and there is a picture of me, in the Alps, as I was just learning to sit up.

We lived overseas for the first part of my life, and some of my earliest memories are of the trip home, when I played in a sandbox at Hadrian's Wall.

I think you could absolutely take Alex on an overseas adventure, or even domestically.

Not that I have lived up to these high ideals, mind you. Mostly having only one income and and active con schedule has made our choices different. But we could.

[fairoriana.livejournal.com]

I was about to say... my parents had me when they had lived in Zaire for 2 years (with their infant daughter) and still had two years to go. My husband was dragged all around the globe starting age 2 -- Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Greece. I think we're only as trapped by our parenthood as we let ourselves be.

Skarps and I are considering a trip to London or Mexico this year. Next year the whole family (his folks and brother) are thinking about hieing ourselves to Greece.

That trip Wired mentions to Hadrian's wall? I slept in a drawer on that trip. Our parents drove across country when we were 3 and 5, respectively.

Hrm. Then again, maybe that just means our parents were totally nuts....

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

galagan and I have covered great swaths of this continent by car ourselves (much as my parents did with us when we were little). I like those links - it's a great concept to think about, though I think galagan would be impatient with the whole guided tour thing.

I do think of myself as reasonably well traveled within this continent (I have been to 49 of the 50 states, and to maybe half of the Canadian provinces). I'd like to do much much more traveling off-continent someday.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I think galagan would be impatient with the whole guided tour thing.

I think it would have its advantages when traveling with a small child - it would be nice to always be sure that your lodgings were arranged and so forth. Michael and I, on our own, can deal with some uncertainty and hardship - long waits, missed meals, suddenly discovering that there's no bus service on Sundays so we have to hitchhike. Small kids can't be expected to be gracious about that stuff.

Hey, maybe in six years or so we could plan a trip together, and introduce our twins to each other. :-)

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I've been daydreaming today about renting a house in Brittany that sleeps eight, and going there for a week next summer with some carefully selected friends. It's remarkably cheap, or would be, divided by eight. It has a cot and a high chair, might you and Alex be interested?

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Oh, Rivka, if you can say yes to Papersky's offer, do. When Glenn and I received a similar offer two years ago, to stay in a farmhouse in the south of France with a group of friends, our first impulse was to say that it was a lovely offer, but we couldn't possibly. We got over that whole we-couldn't-possibly thang, and it was the most wonderful vacation of our lives.

It still amazes me what a lot of obstacles we threw in our own way to try to keep ourselves from being able to do something we wanted to do.

[xopher-vh.livejournal.com]

It still amazes me what a lot of obstacles we threw in our own way to try to keep ourselves from being able to do something we wanted to do.

Ever have something that someone said as a specific comment in a confined context point out a defining principle of your entire life?

I do that. All the time. In fact, I've been doing it more and more, to the point where anything other than going home and sitting in my apartment after work is terribly difficult.

Wow.

Thanks. Not sure it's going to change anything, but that just named something important for me. And naming gives power!

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I think that sounds marvelous!

[going-not-gone.livejournal.com]

When my kids were 18 months and 4.5 years old, we took them to England, with a day trip to Scotland and a fabulous 2-day stopover in Iceland (we flew IcelandAir). We stayed with friends in Cambridge for part of it, and spent a week in London. It was fabulous. It was also exhausting, but I'm glad we did it. Last year we took them to Yellowstone for a week, at ages seven and ten, which was perfect. We also go to Nova Scotia for a week every year.

You can travel with kids. It's not going to be the same kind of trip that it would be with just adults, but it's not impossible. I like the idea that my children know a wider world than I did at their age.

[ailbhe]

We said, when I first got pregnant, that at last we had an excuse not to spend all our vacation time visiting family. We can take Family Holidays with a fairly clean conscience, because both our families live in public-transport-inaccessible places, and we need the public transport.

If either of us ever ends up succumbing to the pressure to own a driving license, this might change. But until then, we're going to have a bit of fun. Linnea travels well, too; I love travelling with her. It's much more fun than travelling alone, especially as she gets that little bit older.

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

I've been travelling my whole life, including when I made almost no money as a high school or university student. You can see a *lot* of the world on very little, if you want.

I can't offer tips on travelling with kids, but I can offer many tips on having a tremendous experience with very little cash. Let me know.

-J

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Michael's probably the limiting factor when it comes to cheap travel, actually. I am happy to do things like youth hostels and picnic meals, but he prefers more comfort.

[redbird]

Nicest doesn't mean most exciting, or most exotic.

If I wanted excitement, I'd be following rezendi's footsteps in Africa, or at least picking a European city I haven't visited before.

Instead, I spend New Year's with papersky and family. Every year. We all enjoy it this way.

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

Why is everyone taking "travel" to mean "going to foreign countries"? I can't see myself scheduling going any further away than Canada any time soon cos there's so much to see right here. I haven't been to the Bridge of Flowers out in Shelburne yet, and there are lots of neat places in the mountains in NH that we've driven by but not stopped at yet. And further afield, I've never explored Baltimore, and I hear tell it's a really neat city, so it's on my list to go check out sometime, and Adam wants to take us to see the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Is it a class thing, that I'd rather take off with a pop-up camper and the family in a minivan with a cooler full of munchies rather than get us all passports and fly off somewhere? (I do want to explore Toronoto and Montreal someday, though.) Most of the followups you're getting here are leaving me blinking in bewilderment.

Come up here once she's climbing, and I'll be happy to show you how much fun can be had right here in New England. Little kids love Purgatory Chasm, for example.

[selki.livejournal.com]

Why is everyone taking "travel" to mean "going to foreign countries"? I can't see myself scheduling going any further away than Canada any time soon cos there's so much to see right here.

In the context of Rivka's entry, I thought exotic and eye-opening travel was implied -- especially with kids involved, getting them to see something really different from what they're likely to see/think about at home. I think travel really can broaden the mind, but it's more likely to do so in Tanzania or Lapland than Florida.

But I agree, there's so much to see and do here! And since my family and LDRs are spread out, I pretty much use my travel time seeing them and occasionally going to dance weekends.

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

See, from where I'm sitting, Florida is plenty exotic. It's got palm trees and alligators and flamingoes and manatees and citrus groves and such.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Doing one doesn't exclude doing the other.

Florida may be exotic physically, compared to Boston, but if you want to see something more than five hundred years old that isn't just archaeology, Europe and Asia have a lot to offer.

Also, other countries have other cultures. People speak different languages. It's a whole paradigm shift different from going somewhere in your own country. Everywhere you go in the US, and some places in Canada, people are going to say "Have a nice day!" to you. That's exotic to me -- I didn't know what the heck to reply to it -- but for you, in the US, there's always going to be that basic level of cultural familiarity, whatever subtle differences there are.

And as I said, you can do both. Z and I went to Arizona on the train. We saw a lot of the US we hadn't seen, a lot of different places and geography. It was fun. We've been talking for years about doing the Trans-Siberian railway if we could afford it. There's a whole planet out there, and your country, large and varied as it is, is just one chunk of it.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

And we did things in Florida that I hadn't done before, like snorkeling on a coral reef. It really was a great trip.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

There'd definitely plenty to see in the U.S., but I'm thinking about exotic foreign travel now because I haven't done much of it. I've done quite a bit of travel in the US - I've been in every one of the contiguous states except for Oklahoma and Alabama, for example.

Baltimore really is a great city. Come down for Balticon and stay around afterwards - I'd be delighted to show you all around.

[erbie.livejournal.com]

We've always traveled with our daughter. Her first cross country trip was at three months old, and she's been on at least 3 cross country trips every year of her life. She's four now, and she's even been to other continents. When she was one year old, we took her on a 4 day cruise to the Bahamas. When she was 3, we took her to Japan and Taiwan for 2 weeks. Just this past summer, she spent her fourth birthday on a 2-week cruise from Los Angeles to Florida, vis Mexico, the Panama Canal, Curacao and the Bahamas.

Barring money issues, there's no reason you can't take even a small child on a great trip. Most of our travel has been to visit family either across the country or across the globe, but when we've gone on real vacation vacations, we've done cruises. We're actually considering a cruise either to/from the Mediterranean, or within the Mediterranean for the summer of 2007, when we will have an almost six year old and a one year old along with us. We may just decide to go to Europe and take trains around though, since it's probably going to be cheaper.

There are certainly things that make traveling with small kids easier on parents. Having more than one helps. Having at least one who speaks the language is good. Bringing a favorite lovey/comfort object is a good idea. Also, for flights and train rides, plenty of snacks and entertainment. We always get new sticker books and give them to her on the plane. And she usually sleeps on planes as well.

[rosefox]

When I was born, my British grandparents were already getting on towards old and frail, so my mother took me to England before I was a year old. My brother took his first steps in Ireland. We took many family vacations, including several within the U.S. (One of my favorites was our "trip to New York", where we stayed at the Waldorf-Astoria for a weekend and did all the touristy things that we would usually sneer at.) It's a wonderful gift for a child, and a wonderful way to encourage global citizenship.

If you want a bit more rough-and-tumble with your adventure, I've heard great things about Green Tortoise.

[jenett]

My parents took me to Greece the summer before I turned 8. (And England, the summer before I turned 6, but that doesn't quite count: it was to visit family and very close friends, and was not very travelly otherwise.)

Granted, Greece was partly for my father's writing/research, but they took me all around various islands and other out of the way places, and I remember the whole thing very fondly (as do they. Though I think it helped that I was a) able to read in the back of the rental car while being driven around vast tracks of Greek mountain side and b) not prone to sea sickness in small ferries.)

It does help if someone speaks the language, but French and/or German get you surprisingly far in Greece if English doesn't work, as long as you can more or less manage the signs. The same is true, my mother claims, of a chunk of Eastern Europe and Russia.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

in novosibirsk it was a german washing machine that held my underwear hostage. so i do suspect your mother is right. (although i would still recommend staying in larger cities or places where they're used to people from other countries.)

[mcduff.livejournal.com]

Travelling significant distances with children is hard work, because they get cranky on long journeys, often don't fly easily, and don't necessarily appreciate all the nuances of the foreign culture.

That said, I am of the opinion that you can and should start travelling with children as early as your particular child is capable of. My nephew has visited the USA twice now and he's barely six. When he was four I took him with me to a friend's wedding in Zagreb (incidentally, if you have to stop over anywhere when travelling with a four-year-old, try and make it Zurich if at all possible). The older he gets, the more challenging I think we'll be able to make our trips together. When he is nine or ten, I think I'll start taking him on road trips through Europe, possibly even America, just me and him.

It will scare his mother witless, of course, but that's in the Good/Bad Uncle job description.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

My parents up and moved to Kenya when I was 7. (We stopped in Brazil and South Africa on the way.) We ended up living there for 4 1/2 years, and it was great. They took me on lots of safaris (I am still somewhat miffed that I missed out on the really dangerous trips where I could have been trampled by elephants in a tent or eaten by crocodiles in a river, but I don't think my mother is). Also to Egypt, England, France, and other places. Expanded horizons are good things.

[fourgates.livejournal.com]

In my experience with the other Alex, travel of long distances to strange places really became feasible at about age 4. Before that age the external (outside-kid's-sphere-of-normality) world doesn't matter much.