Is it worth it to travel with the kids?

Traveling with kids-oof. It's not easy. It's expensive, it's a lot of work, and often it restricts your options (I have a family of five so good luck finding a hotel room for all of us in Europe!).

It's so worth it. The pay off may seem like it takes years 🤪, but I firmly believe that doors open for young people who have been fortunate enough to travel, and that our society as a whole is better for it.

When I talk about travel here, I don't just mean international travel-though if you CAN get a passport for everyone in your family, I sure hope you do. Passports open doors. Traveling anywhere is meaningful, though. The experience of meeting people who live differently than you do, trying new food, seeing different cultures and environments helps us all think a little more broadly. My children appreciated living in Oregon much more when they realized there are people in the US who have never seen the ocean, for instance.

I was really fortunate to do some international travel as a child, due to my father's research, including living for a couple years in Australia. Then, sadly, I became an adult and had to start paying for it myself 🤑 but I had the bug and I knew I needed to give my kids the same opportunity. My husband and I have been able to do a few international trips with our kids, and the way they see the world is so much different than if we hadn't done that. Our middle daughter just landed in Salzburg for the semester-at the same cost as her regular tuition in college here-and our son is planning Japan for next year. We put off a lot of things to make some of those early trips happen but it was worth it. Those few trips have left my children with an expectation that their future will take them across the world. It has also given them skills in navigating new cultures and experiences, and a fresh perspective when they come home (it may sound small, but nothing has made my kids appreciate home like realizing how good our Oregon water is compared to almost anywhere else!).

I have a lot of ideas of how to make travel with children and teens easier-from which is the best seat in an airplane with a baby to how to make the trip more enjoyable and less eye-rolling for a teenager. It is absolutely a different trip than it would be going with just adults, but it is so worth it. (My now-adult daughter spent much of our time in England and Paris when she was 17 being sad about a fight with a boyfriend back home-but all these years later, she looks back on that trip with such joy and nostalgia that my frustration with her at the time has long melted away and it's one of my favorite memories.)

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