The purpose of your travel, your expectations, your hopes, and your concerns are all part of your “travel principles.” Everyone has these even if they haven’t (yet) written them down. Articulating and discussing them with your family or fellow travelers makes for a more inclusive, and therefore, enjoyable, travel experience.
Travel principles are not thou shalt… -type rules. Beyond safety and basic civility we don’t need proper rules for travel. Too focused on the negative and likely to prevent you from leaving your comfort zone (another principle). Instead they help prioritize and focus your travel, making decisions easier to make and easier to act on.
Travel principles also proves invaluable when planning and budgeting so you make the most our of your time and money.
Travel Principal: Value of time
One of us is outside right now writing this post while Betsy and the kids shout “cheese!” while taking pretend pictures of each other. It’s difficult in life to take advantage of the time we have with our kids when they are young.
Money is money but when traveling we want to make sure we spend our time in the best way possible. A little bit of forethought and planning goes a long way.
Some basics:
- Itinerary – know what you’d like to see and do before getting on the plane
- Hours of operation – know opening and closing times; days or even seasons sights are closed
- Daily limits – with kids 1 main activity per day with 1-2 alternates has worded well for us
- Plan down time – our “green” day of parks might be a “learn about wine” day for you; either way block off large chunks of time for exploration, inspiration, and calm
- Avoid lines at (almost) all costs – consider the potential value of museums passes like those in Rome and Paris (we have both used and chosen not to use each of these on different trips)
Biggest temptation: I have ____ days to see all the sights. Ready. Set….Miserable travel.
This will likely be a lesson learned from experience. It was and is by us so you’ll find no judgement here. While it may be possible to see and do everything it’s rarely enjoyable to experience a place and people a predetermined period of time.
Here are a few times we got the downtime part right:
Talk soon,
Dan & Betsy
Family Conversation topic: What would a stress-free day in London look like? What would the kids want to do with a free afternoon in Athens? Or Shanghai?
Ask them what an “easy” day would be to them.