Lately, when I go on a trip with my daughters, at first, I say to myself "Never again until a few years have passed." However, the feeling at the end of the trip is "What a shame that it is over, when is the next trip?". And is that nobody said that traveling with children was easy, but it was exciting.
I always tell myself that the day the teleport is invented I will not stop traveling (if it is cheap, of course ...). The worst of the trips, without a doubt, are the displacements. The inconveniences of the port, the airport, the station. The long journeys by car. But, as I know my daughters more and more, we are the elders who have a worse time.
And thankfully we have some tricks to make waits more bearable, the kids and us. For them, any novelty is interesting, any space is a game, something that by the way has to take us with our eyes wide open if we do not want to be lost playing explorers at the airport.
Our last trip has been to Malta. A nearby destination, warm, quiet, with proposals for children. But if I had to erase something, from this or any other trip, it's the transfers. The awkward waiting, the dreaded delays, the schedules that don't add up ...
From home to the airport, there to check in, pass countless checks, the flight, transfer to the hotel ... Once after those first hours, having arrived and unloaded the luggage at the hotel and located the place to eat, everything seems to relax and the destination begins To see each other with different eyes. The pleasant journey begins.
Until then, traveling with children is more uncomfortable (logically, it is easier to move one by oneself than to move other people and their luggage with you; and if not they tell the drivers of the Malta buses that had to leave in our help). Traveling with children is more expensive (Where you travel-eat-sleep one does not travel-eat-sleep two).
In addition, once at the destination, traveling with children is relatively more tired: there are no times to "disconnect", except when we fall for the night at the hotel. I have already stopped taking books or magazines to my trips because they returned the same as they were ...
When traveling with children we have to adapt as much as possible to their schedules, travel is over without knowing destination or transportation, without schedules or planning, consultations arrive at the situation of shops, bars and pharmacies nearby.
So it is normal that there are those who say that with children the trips are over, those who do not dare to leave home and who do not understand how we "dare" to travel with our daughters. It is also true that these people did not travel much, with or without children.
I remember very positively some trips as a child with my parents, and I hope that these kinds of memories and experiences remain in my daughters. It fascinates me to see how they appreciate a painting, a strange plant, other landscapes, a sunset, other languages, a breakfast at the hotel, different meals ...
It is true that many of these things can be done from home or very close to it, so it never hurts to escape to nearby places, a picnic, a weekend at the beach ... If we go further, even if they do not understand how the elders the history of a country or its culture, enjoy living new experiences every moment.
No one said traveling with children was easy.. But traveling with children is a wonderful and unique experience, is to share time with our children, is to teach them other cities, other cultures, encourage them to appreciate the different and enjoy new places and activities together. Now I wonder ... when is the next trip?
