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Gmail - zen habits: 16 Essential Tips for Traveling with a Family

Muhammad Fudhail Roslan <flizzard@gmail.com>

zen habits: 16 Essential Tips for Traveling with a Family

zenhabits <zenhabits@gmail.com> To: flizzard@gmail.com 21 July 2012 09:06

zen habits: 16 Essential Tips for Traveling with a Family

16 Essential Tips for Traveling with a Family
Posted: 20 Jul 201 2 08:48 AM PDT Not all those who wander are lost. ~J.R.R. T olkien
Post written by Leo Babauta.

Trav eling with a family is a completely different beast than trav eling solo or as a couple Iv e done both numerous times, and the two ex periences dont ev en seem related. Ev a and I just got back from a 3-week trip through southern Europe with fiv e of our kids. It was a wild adv enture, going through six foreign cities on foot and by train, speaking broken bits of three foreign languages, ex ploring cities and coastlines all day long, soaking in sun and history and wine. We lov ed it. We ex hausted the kids, but came back wiser, tanner, and better off for hav ing seen more of the world and its peoples. This post isnt meant to giv e an account of our trip, but to share some of what Iv e learned about trav eling with a family , in hopes that it will help other families who trav el. Here are some random things Iv e learned: 1 . Pack light as hell. If y oure trav eling in multiple cities, that means y oure dragging ev ery thing y ou pack around for miles. We each carried a tiny backpack (mine was 1 6 liters) with just a change of clothes, a book and a few toiletries. My packing list: a tshirt, shorts, 2 pairs of quick-dry box ers, 2 pairs of socks, a book, deodorant, razor, toothbrush, 1 1 Macbook Air. That all takes up v ery little space and weighs a tiny amount. In addition I was wearing jeans, a t-shirt, underwear, socks and tennis shoes. There was a big contrast between us, with our small backpacks, and others who had roller luggage, big backpacks, suitcases and other heav y things they were lugging around ev ery where. 2. Stay in central apartm ents. We av oid hotels, as wed hav e to rent sev eral rooms for our large family . Its cheaper to rent an apartment, which also comes with a kitchen and often a washer/dry er and a liv ing room. Its much more comfortable. We will rent an apartment in each city we v isit, and try to find ones that are central, so we can walk to the best areas from our home base, and come back for naps if necessary . 3. Walk ev ery where (with some mass transit). The best way to ex plore a place is by foot, not car or tour bus. Y ou cov er less ground on foot, but y ou only really see a place when y ou walk it. Bikes would be nex t best, but not manageable for a large family . We hav e good walking shoes and are in good walking shape from walking around in our home city . Its so much fun to walk through winding mediev al streets, stop and drink
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Gmail - zen habits: 16 Essential Tips for Traveling with a Family

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from ancient fountains, grab a croissant or gelato whenev er y ou like, see locals walking around, stop in a little shop if it catches y our fancy , see nature up close. And its a good workout. We learn to use the local mass transit sy stem a bit, when were in a city , so we can easily get to further areas and walk around there. Get lost. Y ou dont really learn a place until y ou get lost in it. I alway s get a map of where we are, and try to orient my self, but I also like to put the map away for a bit and get a bit lost, so I can find my way through ex ploring and wrong turns. Y ou also discov er the most unex pected things when y ou allow y ourself to get lost. Wander, ex plore, discov er, be surprised. Gelato will keep kids happy . Kids get tired walking, and bored of historical sites and museums. But if y ou buy them a gelato ev ery afternoon, they perk up, and smiles suddenly appear as if from nowhere. After sampling a bunch of different gelato flav ors the first few day s in Rome, I discov ered I alway s regretted not getting chocolate gelato. So I came up with a rule for my self: Alway s get chocolate gelato. I nev er regretted it for the rest of the trip. Use y our trip as a language course. Knowing we were going to Italy , France and Spain, we learned a bit of the languages before we left. The kids had fun learning to say hello, thank y ou, and wheres the bathroom, among other phrases. We nev er got fluent, but I think we all learned a bit about cultures and languages, and it was a great start. Theres no better way to practice a language than v isiting the country . Ask locals for recom m endations. Guide books and the Internet are great, but the best recommendations come from people who really liv e there. Before we left, I asked for recommendations from locals (on Google+) and made a list. While we were in each city , I would ask locals we met for recommendations as well, and came up with some delightful discov eries. Av oid tourist traps. We tried to av oid the most touristy places, though of course y ou cant av oid seeing the historical sights like the Colosseum in Rome or the Duomo in Florence. But if y ou do go to highly touristed places, av oid the shops and restaurants that surround them. They are ex pensiv e, bad quality , and aimed at the tastes of tourists instead of locals. Walk 5-1 0 minutes to find something better. Hav e som ething to keep kids busy on trains. I dont mind train rides at all, but the kids get bored. So they each hav e some kind of dev ice, like an iPod touch or game dev ice, to play games, listen to music and watch mov ies. Not my fav orite thing in the world for them to do, but so much better than complaints of being bored for sev eral hours. Naps are good. We tend to leav e each morning for ex ploring, and then come back after a late lunch for a nap. The kids get tired walking around in the sun, and so do we. A nap of an hour (or three if y oure jetlagged) is a good thing, and we usually would head out when the day was cooling down for some ev ening sightseeing and dinner. Buy groceries. We tend to buy cereal and y ogurt and fruit for breakfast, along with coffee and may be some things for dinner or snacks. This allows us to sav e money , eat something a bit healthier than pastries and pizza at least one or two meals of the day , and relax at home in the mornings and during our afternoon break. Its one of the good things about hav ing an apartment. One or two day s isnt enough to see a place. I found 4-5 day s a better number. In one or two day s, y oure rushing through the major sites and dont get to relax , or if y ou go at a slower pace y ou dont get enough of a sample of a city to really know it. Of course, if y ou dont hav e kids, y ou could spend a week or three in a good destination, but with kids Id recommend a medium timeframe like 4-5 day s. Spice up the history lessons. Trav eling makes history come aliv e. I will usually do a little research and then tell the kids stories about the sites were v isiting. Still, they get bored with that sometimes, so y ou hav e to spice up the history with tales of wars, romances, pirates and tragic deaths. Im not say ing y ou should make stuff up (though I wont tell if y ou do), but look for that stuff in the histories and highlight it.
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Gmail - zen habits: 16 Essential Tips for Traveling with a Family

1 4. Hav e relax ation day s. While ex ploring cities by foot is great, sometimes y ou need a longer break than an afternoon nap. So wed hav e day s where we lounged around on the beach or parks most of the day instead of sightseeing, and it was a great way to recharge the batteries. 1 5. Wine m akes things m ore relax ed. Ev a and I would often hav e wine with lunch, and definitely with dinner. It made us more relax ed as we had to manage herding fiv e kids around busy streets that we didnt know, using languages we couldnt speak. We smiled more, breathed easier. Also, red wine is like health food. 1 6. Its a grand adv enture. Things will go wrong. Y oull not only get lost, y oull lose things, miss trains, find the place y oure going to closed. Y ou can make the best of plans, but the truth is, y ou dont control things. Life has its own plans. The key is to smile, accept the way things are, and see it all as part of y our great adv enture. And this is the philosophy y ou should conv ey to the kids, ev en before y ou trav el, to make their ex perience all the more enjoy able and enlightening. Bizarre trav el plans are dancing lessons from God. ~Kurt Vonnegut

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