People often ask us ‘why do you travel with the kids?’ They claim it’s too hard or not worth the effort. What we’ve learned along the way, though, is that our mindset can 100% dictate the type of trip we’ll have. If you think it’s going to be difficult to travel with kids, then it’s probably going to be difficult to travel with kids. If you complain about every little thing that goes wrong, it’s going to really affect your mood and it’ll seem like everything is going wrong.
It’s often easier said than done, but shifting your mindset from negative to positive will have a monstrous impact on how your trip goes. Instead of thinking “Ugh this drive is going to be SO BORING,” try shifting to something like “what kind of things can we do to make the drive more fun?” We play the “I spy” game or teach the boys about directions and maybe something historical about the state we’re driving through. Sometimes we just turn the music up loud (SiriusXM Octane nonetheless) and let everyone rock out. We’ll ask them what type of instruments they hear in the song.
Doing something like this allows you to transition away from just accepting that a part of your trip is bad (and therefore dreading it) to instead thinking of ways to make it better. It’s a shift from passive to active – you are no longer a victim to an unpleasant experience, but rather the architect of a potentially great time!
And yea, trips take a little more planning than they used to do, certainly more time to pack & oftentimes we feel like pack mules carrying all the crap plus the kids. But I just remind myself that one day these boys will grow into young men & I’ll never carry a suitcase again (this is what keeps me going at least on the rougher travel days 🤣).
For sure we’ve had to make some adjustments along the way and consider the needs & abilities of the boys. But we would both attest that every difficult travel day, every long car ride, every unexpected layover has been worth it to see the world through our kids’ eyes. At the end of the day, it is a choice we make. We choose to include our children on our travels – and both they and Chance & I are richer for it. The memories we are creating are one of the most precious gifts in this life.
You can grab our top tips for traveling with toddlers & babies here if you want some extra insight on what helps make our travels with little ones go a bit more smoothly!
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9 Tips for Traveling with Toddlers & Babies
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