You might think it’s odd publishing a book about travel this year, but I’d disagree; what better time is there to dream of faraway escapes and to start planning for future Family Adventures. There’s no better way to expand a child’s mind than with travel.
Gestalten kindly sent us a copy of Family Adventures: Exploring The World With Children to review and share our opinions with you. All opinions are our own and no payment was received for our review.
Each Page Filled With Adventure
Family Adventures is a heavy, hard-covered book that has beautiful imagery from around the world, including over 300 photographs from around the world.
The book is broken down into the following age categories for ease of reading, depending upon the ages of your children:
- 0-3
- 4-6
- 7-10
- 10-13
- 13+
Top tips are given for each age/stage of childhood, such as what to pack, where to eat, choosing destinations, where to sleep, best methods of transportation, as well as other helpful hacks.
Next within each age level, you’ll fin stories or travelogues by real families who have travelled with children of that age. The stories and reasons for travel vary greatly. Some families have taken a year out to travel, others have taken a trip ‘home’ to visit family and extended their stay with a road trip.
I was surprised and delighted to see Oliver Jeffers, a Northern Irish artist based in Brooklyn, write an essay about “A Year Interrupted” who had been travelling with his family for 7 months when the current Covid-19 pandemic hit. They returned his hometown of Belfast as lockdown hit, and he reflects on the future of travel.
Reif Larsen, author of the novels The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet and I Am Radar, also talks about how he rediscovered his hometown with his children this year as they couldn’t travel. This is something that I personally love to do – be a tourist in my hometown and discover it’s secrets.
Of course, the majority of this book is dedicated to far-off lands such as:
- Morocco’s Atlas Mountains
- The Welsh Countryside
- Amazonia
- Touring America’s National Parks
- India’s Silk Road
- Foraging mushrooms in Germany
- A safari in Kenya and Tanzania
- And so many more adventurous locations
This is a great book for:
- Homeschoolers, particularly road schoolers, who can gather up ideas about where to go and what to see by people who have been there with kids.
- New parents who want to see how to work travelling with kids into their adventuring lifestyle.
- Families who are yearning to travel but:
- Don’t know if it’s possible
- Don’t know where to start
- Don’t know how to do it
- Don’t know the variety of options
- Don’t know the experiences available in different parts of the world.
Advantages of Family Adventures
There are many advantages of travelling as a family, such as demonstrated within this book:
- Family bonding
- Shared experiences
- The making of memories
- Adventure and a lasting love of travel for kids
- Knowledge gained in the areas of
- Geography
- Geology
- Culture
- History
- Language
- Traditions
- Food
There are very few disadvantages to travelling with children if you open yourself up to adventure, plan ahead, plan for your plan not to go as expected, and have both fun and learning planned for all.
Have you travelled with children?
I have my own travel stories when travelling both with my husband and on my own with our children, who were 8 months, 2,4,7,8,9, and 11 at the time. These were both camping, as well as flying overseas back home (last year’s trip was 35 hours one-way). That was a long time for kids, but it can be done with relative ease!
My dream is to road school, but it’s not financially viable at the moment, but it doesn’t stop me from dreaming about it. For the meantime, we’ll travel virtually.
There are definitely some places that are easier to travel to with kids than others. It depends on transport, accommodations, expectations, and personalities. Those who like adventure travel rather than all-inclusives will likely already have an open mind and be willing to change plans and to with the flow, which is key when kids are involved.
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