Traveling is not always glamorous, comfortable and luxurious. It’s definitely not always easy. BUT IT’S SO WORTH IT! And the challenging moments you share as a family strengthen your family bond and teach your children tremendous skills:

• 

• patience
• people skills
• curiosity
• negotiation
• critical thinking
• and much more!

Our overnight ferry boat ride from Bari, Italy to Greece arrived in the wee hours of the morning. The glitch with that is that the rental car agency didn’t open until 9:00 a.m. YIKES! We hung out in the port station until the agency opened. (6:30 am.- 9 am!) The boys, being the troopers they are, played with a massage chair and I caught some shut eye since I didn’t sleep well on the ferry boat.

We had rented a family cabin on the ferry that had 4 bunk beds and the boys slept fine…but not MOM! I didn’t know my husband took this photo above but it’s funny to see now.

There’s a lot of waiting around sometimes for transportation connections. There will be glitches with flights, rooms, transportation, etc….but the good far outweighs the bad and there’s always something delightful around each corner. One disappointment we experienced was when our tour guide in Rome told us that we would not be visiting the Sistine Chapel because its was a Sunday (and it was closed).

We did not know ahead of time that it would not be open for viewing on a Sunday. This was truly upsetting to me as a mom because I wanted my sons to see that so badly as it was a trip highlight for me as a child. But, you also have to teach your kids to roll with it…..so I had to be aware that my sons were observing my behavior and reactions to this bad news, too.

Having the kids along was more relaxing for us as a couple, actually. I did not have to leave copious notes behind with sitters and I did not have to worry about the kids….because they were with US, after all! Seeing places through their eyes also made our trips more enriching. For example, watching our youngest son’s eyes light up when he rode a subway for the first time made it even more fun for us again.

Mealtimes were more fun because we got to order a variety of dishes and eat them “family style”. Going into dungeons, torture museums, optical illusion museums and Ghosts and Ghouls tours made us feel young again. And best of all—-body surfing in the ocean waves made beach time an energetic activity! Kids bring the WONDER into traveling this wonderful world.

A Dad’s Perspective on Family Travel:

Airline points- using points to purchase at least some of your flights will help reduce costs.

start saving when your youngest is a baby (or before) so that when they turn 6 years old, you have your $ saved up

Research different credit cards and see what card builds up a large point balance quickly.

Get your passports in order. There are ways to expedite this process if you’ve run out of time but it’s expensive and inconvenient.

inventory your luggage; does it need updating?

familiarize yourself with the international travel signs (b/c driving in a foreign country can be stressful)

international drivers license? They just wanted my state license upon rental

take your own tea bags if you’re a tea drinker. You can’t always find your favorite brands overseas.

the car models are different: Vauxhall (car). You don’t know if you’re going to get a big, medium, car…Ford Modella (long ago)—

get your euros from your bank in America if you like to carry cash. Otherwise, use your ATM card b/c you’ll get a good exchange rate. Traveler’s cheques are not very popular anymore

approx $_____ a day for a family of 5 for lodging, food and souveneirs. Figure this budget out ahead of time if you can.

A family of 4 or less is drastically cheaper b/c you can fit in one room and don’t need a villa.

Cabs—in Greece, for example, only take 4 passengers.

Backpack-– water bottles, cameras, shopping bags, fit in overhead bin. VS. fanny pack

Pharmacy—Bactroban, fever blister meds,–are good medicines to purchase in pharmacies abroad b/c they’re cheaper.

Melatonin–helpful natural supplement for aiding sleep

Passports are your portal to traveling obviously…..and they are a chore. May our experiences with passport expedition make travel easier for you! We certainly have had our share of challenges with them.

In 2004, we had an impulse to go to Costa Rica. We planned this out quickly and were going to bite the bullet. Since our youngest was three years old and didn’t have a passport, we were not updated on this. We attempted to expedite the passports immediately and went to the courthouse to do this. Some other circumstances came up and we decided not to go. The expedition costs are very expensive, too, so be prepared.

However, we did have the passports done in time and did domestic travel or to Mexico until 2007 when we took the boys to Greece for their first time. All was good with the passports then. We were careful to make sure our drivers’ licenses were also updated and valid because that can interfere with your travel if those are expired. You can get rejected from getting on a plane if your drivers license is expired even if your passport is updated. (We’ve seen this happen to someone traveling in our group. She lost a day or two out of the trip taking care of this.)

In 2009, we had our passports still all within the expiration dates, etc. but we heard of a new glitch where you can be detained if your departure back to the states is within a few months of your expiration. ??? We didn’t want to take a chance where our sons would be detained in London, for example, so we called the passport agency and inquired about this. A helpful clerk spoke to me in length about all of this. I took down his name so that I could reference that I had spoken to a human about all this if I was disputed by anyone at the Houston passport agency. (Houston was the city where we would need to expedite our passports).

Our trip was two weeks away and they required that BOTH parents were in attendance with all of the children needing updated passports. So, we took two days off work and school and drove to Houston to do this. It was suggested that we be the first people at the window when it opened at 8:00 am. We were assured that we’d receive the passports that same day.

When we arrived at 8:00 am., we encountered a very negative and discouraging tone from the clerk. I spoke to the supervisor and told her how the clerk on the phone had assured me that we’d receive our passports without complications. She tried to tell me we wouldn’t receive them until the next week. I said, “we will wait here all day for them. We have already taken 2 days off school and work and  we live out of state and traveled far to get here.” She said, “is this a matter of life or death?” and she said something rude, too. It was very frustrating.

We were able to get our passports after a lot of assertiveness.  Crisis averted—and we didn’t even have expired passports anyway!–it was just because of a strange new rule about being within the limits of it expiring soon. Just wanted to be on the safe side.

There were no problems with us for the remainder of our trips. We continue to update them all the time.

In 2010, I went on a trip with a friend. It’s important that the name on your license match the name on your passport….and ticket. I was concerned because my tickets were made with my nickname and my other documents have my legal, birth certificate name. I couldn’t get it changed, either. I was prepared to have to explain it at customs in Mexico but it didn’t come up. Luckily, my given name is also a name in Spanish so I said it in Spanish and with a smile…..hoping that might help! 🙂 Now, all of my flight tickets are made with my given, legal name.

In 2013, my relatives were going to go on a trip and realized they didn’t have updated passports, so they went to Puerto Rico which doesn’t require passports.

In 2014, my friends were going with us on a couples trip to Mexico. A few days before departure, my friend pulled out her passports and saw that her passport was expired. I told her to look again, ….maybe she had the date wrong, etc. She had traveled already that year needing passports–so how could this be?  She looked again and discovered the confusion! She had pulled out some old passports from a drawer instead of her current ones. Everything was fine after all and we went on our couples’ trip.

In 2015, our trip to India required Indian visas. This was a process. You can attempt to complete them on your own or get a visa on arrival. I decided to use the travel agency to do this process for me and my son. It was worth the cost. I still had to complete several pages of steps on these visas even though a travel agent was submitting them, proofing them, etc… A courier came to the house to pick them up and drop them off which was helpful. The visa gets stapled into your passport book. This process came at the worst possible time for me as I was inundated with gazillions of deadlines and projects going on. I learned a lot about Indian visas, though!

In 2017, we got TSA Pre-Check which expedites domestic travel by getting to stand in the shorter, quicker line. It involved an online application and an $85 fee and you can obtain it in your home city. In 2018, we enrolled for  Global entry passes (for $100 fee each) online and had to travel to an airport out of town to complete the process. The participating airports are in metropolises.

My husband likes to carry our passports in a pouch worn around his neck and tucked into his shirt. My sons did the same when they traveled alone. I carry them in my purse and keep them locked in hotel room safes usually. I leave myself notes in several places of the hotel to remind me to get them back out of the safe when I depart the hotel. These are the stressful details of trips but you get in a good routine with it and enjoy your adventures anyway!

….afterall, you can’t leave home without it!

On long trips with the kids, organizational skills are crucial. I’m the caretaker of important documents, vouchers, schedules, contact numbers, etc. Between the documents that the travel agent gives us and the ones I’ve assembled in our research units, I decided to assemble them in a spiral bound booklet, like the one the travel agent gives you, but even handier.

—-I shrunk it at the copy place so that it was purse-size for easy access. I travel with a larger tote on the plane, but once I arrive to the destination, I switch to a cross body smaller bag which is conducive to lots of walking, etc. So the booklet has to fit in the smaller bag.

I also have the booklet laminated so that it’s more durable. It helps to have an extra copy in case you lose any bags, temporarily. I also leave an itinerary with a relative back home and I think this is very important to do.

When the trip is over, I almost immediately make a photo album / photo book while everything is fresh in my mind and before the travel journals fall apart. My sons re-read these books all the time and it’s what has solidified their memories. It’s the metacognitive component for kids’ traveling. Metamemory and mneumonic skills are a big part of metacognition. In a less technical way, I consider the photo albums a way of metacognitively remembering the trips. People think young kids are too young for traveling because “they won’t remember anything.” But the truth of it is, if you show the photo albums often—they won’t forget the trips and the details. I know most of you readers have done photo books on the computer and they are wonderful tools!—but for any of you who haven’t done them, they are easy and fun. IPhoto, Shutterfly, Snapfish, etc……there are several available.

Other pages I include in my travel itinerary booklets are:

• travel insurance card and contact info
• flight tickets
• maps
• inflight menus
• tourist dress code articles
• contact numbers for people I’m visiting

Keeping in touch with people back home or on your trip has been made easier lately by new technology. I have tried different methods on this….international phone plans for just the duration of my trips, etc..or communicating for free via Facebook email. On some trips, I paid to use the hotel computers/internet or waited to use texts on free wifi. A new “app” I’ve downloaded on my phone for free communicating is called Viber.  I first learned about Viber on a group trip to the Dominican Republic. Everyone could text or call each other through our Viber app. It automatically imports your contacts’ cell phone numbers. I liked being able to send a text through Viber that the recipient could read later.

Tripit is another tool that I’ve seen people use. Tripit keeps your travel plans organized in one place. It even finds alternate flights. Other apps that I want to learn more about are: World Mate, TripCase and Kayak.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/columnist/digitaltraveler/2012/10/22/4-best-apps-for-managing-your-reservations/1648971/

I like all of these in addition to my good old travel itinerary booklet. You can never be too organized, especially during international travel when you’re in different time zones and don’t always have internet, etc.

A friend of mine suggested that I write about the different social mores of foreign cultures. She wanted to know about things they could expect to see while traveling—as a way to prepare her kids. These things could happen in our own country, too. The differences we noticed while traveling include:

men and women greet each other by kissing on both cheeks (sometimes three times total)- in Greece, especially and other places in Europe.

people dressed in costumes; we once saw a woman in a Gothic cape walking her boyfriend on a leash around his neck. He was only wearing shorts and boots. (Zurich)

more tolerance

public restrooms are not all clean and do not keep toilet paper stocked

hygeine differences

nude beaches

random nudity: a man walking naked on a major street in the middle of the day (Barcelona)

public urination (India)

families seated in the back of restaurants in one country we went to (Scotland)

wardrobe modesty :women have to cover shoulders in India, for example, and wear conservative clothes to visit the temples. In Morocco and Turkey I also observed this dress code, however, it did not seem strictly enforced anywhere. I did it out of respect and courtesy.

in Greece, men or grown boys were given pants to wear to enter religious places and women were given long skirts. It’s best to travel with these items while visiting these places.

Staying healthy while traveling is important, obviously, but it is easy to fall into bad routines. The following health concerns occur during traveling:

• irregularity
• lack of medications packed or accessible     
• dehydration
• sleep disturbances
• indigestion
• food allergies
• proper shots/immunizations taken beforehand (certain countries)

The way we stay healthy on trips involves the following steps: packing Metamucil for regularity. I stirred a little bit of orange flavored Metamucil in the boys’ water or oj every morning at breakfast. we ate yogurt with peaches, honey for breakfast—this helped with regularity and it’s good to have good bacteria in your diet. pack medications diligently.

Pharmacies are not always accessible when traveling in remote places. have a constant supply of water bottles to keep your family hydrated some adults swear by sleep (eye) masks and ear plugs to drown out noises and light to ensure a good night’s sleep avoid or moderate overly rich foods if you suffer from indigestion Because you are not always near bathrooms (especially clean bathrooms!) when traveling, it’s easy to suppress your desire to drink more in order to stay hydrated. This is a problem because you get into a cycle of not drinking enough water and not eliminating on a regular basis. The latter caused temporary pain for our three year old on a beach trip once.

There are so many tips on how to stay healthy while traveling. Certain countries have certain requirements. Doctors are the best source to consult on medications and shots, etc. and reading up on it before you travel. It will only enhance your trip if you are prepared. There were times that I felt I had packed everything I could possibly need and other times when I wasn’t as prepared. It’s better to be safe than sorry. 🙂

Several weeks before I traveled to India, I tried a 3 day cleanse of delicious and filling smoothies or “blends”. It was not a weight loss cleanse –it was more about getting rid of cravings and getting nutritious ingredients in you. The next week, I noticed some weight loss kick in because I kept eating healthy and did not resume with unhealthy snacking after the 3 day cleanse.

www.nourishdrinkcafe.com

Packing for a trip is the exciting part! Unpacking is the tricky part. Most of our family trips involved changing locations often. In fact, most people would say we changed locations too much and too soon—but that’s the way my husband preferred. He liked us to be in a different place almost daily. There were times that we’d be in different countries within 24 hours, even! The way to cope with this (as a mom) is to pack the kids’ bags in a way that they can get to the clothing and items they need without totally disrupting the “tidiness” of their suitcase (or backpack in our case, often).  My solution for the latter (on a few trips), was to:

• pack their clothes inside compression bags. The reason for the latter is because they could pull out the compression bag without pulling out the other items, like toiletries.
• I’d pull out the compression bag and store it on the bottom of a hotel armoire.
• I’d leave the backpacks or suitcases aside and when they needed something, they had easy access to it without having to really unpack their suitcase or backpack. Storing the suitcases aside kept them out of our path (and we didn’t have to trip over things!)
• It was easy to toss the compression bag back into their suitcase when it was time to uproot again.

Another tip I do when packing, for me mostly, is to

• hang my outfits on hangers,
• fold them over and pack them into my carryon suitcase on the hangers.
• When I arrive to the hotel, I directly hang them up into the hotel room (or villa) closet. Voila! everything is fast and ready to go and wrinkle free for the most part.
• I even hang corresponding jewelry onto the outfit so I don’t have to spend time sorting that out of jewelry cases.

Trip prep is time consuming. Re-entry can be tough, too.  Some people say they need ” a vacation from their vacation.” Organized people will get well-prepared for a trip so they can enjoy it way before it even starts! The opposite of this can create disasters.

Here are some of my trip prep tips:

Stop your mail. If it’s going to be a long trip, put a note in your mailbox requesting this “stop mail form” from your mail carrier. You put the start and stop dates on it and they’ll save up all your mail and deliver it to you on the last day.

Trade favors with a neighbor and have them collect your daily newspaper so it isn’t obvious to others that your home is unoccupied. Or hire a neighbor kid to do this.

If it’s summer, you’ll need your plants watered. If you have a sprinkler system, you can gather up all  your container plants and put them where the sprinkler will hit them.

Pets—some people use kennels. I hire a neighbor instead to dog sit, get my mail and newspaper, feed my chickens and water my plants. It is peace of mind to know I have someone coming over daily to be on my property, check for doors or windows that might have been tampered with, etc.

Visit the carry-on size toiletries aisle at Target or Walmart to stock up on what you need for the flight. Spread out your trip prep errands so you are not overwhelmed. I go to Target one day, Elephant Trunk another day. Spreading it out will also increase the excitement for your travels!

Packing-–I start way early on this. It gives me an opportunity to see if anything needs to go to the Dry Cleaners or alterations place rather than last minute panicking. I love being packed early but I realize I might be unusual on this. 🙂 Before departing each hotel or city, I spend time , while I’m not tired, to re-pack and check my hotel room carefully. If you do this last minute or after a late night, it will mess you up for the next day.  For example, the next day, you may have to catch a very early shuttle to the airport. You need your mind clear for stressful transitions. You need to:

• leave yourself a note the night before reminding you to empty your hotel safe,
• check for passports and tickets,
• gather up your phone charger that is still plugged into the wall, and any other essentials. ( I’ve trained my teenage sons to do this, too, from a young age)

I take a tote for the flight and I pack small cross-body bags to use when I arrive to the destination. The tote is perfect for flights and it has compartments for various essentials:

• laptop (if I’m taking it),
• Metamucil packets,
• Advil,
• ” no jet lag” pills,
• DVDs in flat envelopes (not cases),
• travel itinerary booklet,
• travel toothbrush/toothpaste, etc….

www.backtoherroots.com/2013/02/04/whats-in-my-carry-on/

I prefer being over-prepared and I have a funny story about it. My sister came over the day before one of our big journeys to Greece. She wanted to say “bon voyage” (or “Kalo Taxidi”, in our case).  She found me and my oldest son outside, sitting at a patio table. My son was listening to his favorite album on his iPod and I was reading a book. We were enjoying the fresh air and sunshine. She exclaimed, “how are you so relaxed the day before a trip? You look like you are already on vacation!?!?” I never realized it before—but I guess it had become my way of getting in vacation mode before we actually got to the vacation! All the over-prepping is a little gift you give to yourself.