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Childhood traveling is the best educational supplement you can provide for your children.
I am an Air Force Brat. My parents took advantage of the obligatory moves to enhance my sisters’ and my outlook on life.
Our early years oozed with cultural exploration. The diverse and structural environment of military living included immersion in British culture when we transferred to England.
Rather than living on base, our parents moved us to the nearby village. Although we still attended the American schools on base, our best friends became our British neighbors.
Adding fuel to the fire of our cultural experience, our mother became a travel agent, earning free trips for us all over Europe.
I’m sure there were times when our parents wondered if they were doing the right thing when they pulled us from school to take us on trips that couldn’t be done in off-school times.
Childhood traveling provided real-world lessons in art, architecture, history, language, culture, people skills, personal growth, sociology, and most importantly an insatiable appetite for learning!
Join me to explore the impact of traveling on your children.
One of the first major trips I can remember was in fifth grade.
We flew from California to Hawaii. Mom and Dad pulled us out of school because we were flying Space-A. A military plane with available space was taking us to Hawaii. They pulled us right out of class. No time to wait. Our excitement immediately came to a boil.
While there, we attended the Polynesian Cultural Center Lu’au. We were mesmerized by the dancers, their clothes, and the fact that their dances were beautifully telling a story about their history and lives.
We even tried Hawaiian Poi, a starch dish made from pounding boiled taro roots, and mixed with water until they reached a smooth consistency. Poi became one of our first memorable journeys down the path of culinary experiences.
This became our first experiential learning adventure and opened the door of our minds to the importance of understanding others and wanting to learn more about the world we live in.
Trips like these are even more impactful when you include your children in the planning and help them understand what they will be experiencing.
Their curiosity and excitement will exponentially transform the learning experience.
We lived in England way before the EU was established. Currency was an adventure.
Of course, we learned the American money system in school and from our parents. But that wasn’t much help if we wanted to walk to the post office/convenience store just down the road.
We learned about the schilling, threepence, tuppence, farthing, half-crown, and the variety of pound notes. Not only did we learn their value, but how it related to our money so we could understand if things were expensive or not.
I spent all my free time at the stable down the road from our house. At lunchtime, I would walk to the post office/convenience store near the stable and count the schillings and half-crown pieces Mum had given me to buy drinks and snacks to accompany my packed lunch.
My sisters and I often walked into the next town, because it was big enough to have a variety of shops, with our allowance money to buy toys or cups, and other such things. I remember saving to buy a special cup for my tea, that had a picture of the market Pavillion on it.
When we traveled through Europe we had a quick course of the money associated with each country. Life with the Euro system makes travel much simpler now!
The other big learning experience was traveling the trains and subways of London. We all learned how to read the subway underground maps.
I loved watching the scenery wiz by us as we rode the train to London.
I would follow the station signs on my pocket-size subway map, as we traversed the London Underground. We played a game to see which one of us would peg the exit station for our shopping or museum destination.
All of these skills translated into an appreciation for finance, budgeting, planning, and learning.
Create budgets for your kids for their souvenir purchases. Have them follow the journey with Google Maps or the Highway Weather App. They can research places along the way or track the weather conditions.
Your children’s success with travel budgets, navigation, and focused research will create a thirst for learning.
At 15, my first solo adventure filled me with excitement, anxiety, and an overwhelming sense of adventure.
By solo, I mean without my family. I was an exchange student in Vienna, Austria. A couple weeks before, the girl from Vienna who was my exchange partner, had come to stay with us and now I was returning with her to her family.
By now, my family had been living in England for over two years, and had numerous trips under our belts, but this trip was different. I was on my own, living with a family with whom I was barely able to communicate.
Her English was slightly better than my German. Her family spoke no English and my family spoke no German. This was an exchange program through the school system. There were a few nights that I got teary and very homesick, mostly because of my language barrier.
The family was wonderful. They took me all over Austria and to the border of Hungary. At that time it was still part of the Soviet Union. Razorwire topped fences and gun towers guarded the border! I stood there in awe, looking up in amazement at the reality of the Cold War.
One of my most memorable sites in Austria was the Spanische Hofreitschule, the Spanish Riding School. The majesty of the chandelier-lit riding arena was breathtaking for my horse-loving 15-year-old self.
Although it was the off-season for the Lipizzan Stallion Haute Ecole Exhibition, we were able to stroll through the stall area and see the horses. We were encountering celebrities!
This experience of being on my own in a country where my communication skills were limited, filled me with empathy, respect, and admiration for people who immigrate to a country where they don’t speak the language or know the customs.
If you plan on traveling to an area vastly different culturally or to a foreign country, prepare your children by introducing them to some events, ethnic restaurants, or free language apps like Duolingo.
The more prepared they are, the more impactful the learning experience will be.
My freshman year in college was an exploratory, spread-your-wings, disaster.
The following year my parents somehow put together the funds to send me back to England to regain my sanity. I was soon flying solo to a training program certified by the British Horse Society.
This was to be my dream-come-true positive reinforcement program. I was to become a certified horseback riding instructor.
Next thing I knew, I was living in a 15th-century thatched roof house at the equestrian training farm. Up at 6:00 AM to feed the horses and skip the poop from their stalls. Only then could we have our breakfast.
The window didn’t quite close all the way, but almost. As winter overtook us and the fields were a blanket of snow, our bedroom acquired icicles on the mirror.
I had to fill a hot water bottle, with boiling water, and start rotating it around my bed an hour before bedtime, to warm it up enough to sleep. Then I slept with it sandwiched between my feet to keep the blood circulating.
I had no car, so I borrowed my friend’s 10-speed bicycle for the year. He was away at college with his car. This allowed me the freedom to cycle the three miles into town to post my letters home and get snacks at the post office/convenience store.
This was the longest I had ever been away from home and I was half around the world. On weekends my roommate took me to her family’s dairy farm.
When the holidays rolled around I stayed with the family I had grown up with while in high school. I was still very close to this family, so the holidays were a wonderful family celebration.
Traveling halfway around the world by myself was an extraordinary experience. Not only a year of learning about the British way of training horses and students but for personal growth as well.
Childhood traveling is the best teacher of adaptability and resilience. Any responsibilities you can delegate to your children will empower them and boost their confidence and personal growth.
Let them be a part of the unexpected problem-solving, as well as the adventure.
History and time have a symbiotic relationship.
The present becomes the past as time marches forward into the future. The past explains the present and can forecast the future.
History also helps us appreciate where we are today, because of the accomplishments of our ancestors. Adding historical ancestral sites to the adventure brings new meaning to who we are.
Childhood traveling makes history come alive. History is not just a list of dates and experiences. History is real and its people accomplished great things while lacking our modern amenities!
When we strolled through the myriad of castles, mansions, and museums all across Europe, I imagined what life must have been like for the people of the time. Time had a new meaning.
The church we went to on Sundays, was over 800 years old. The oldest part of the current building dates back to 1220, while the main body of the Church, the Nave, was built about 1420.
Attending church on Sundays was an ethereal experience. The memories are vivid even no.
I looked around the architecturally magnificent stone church with high ceilings and amazing stained glass windows. The choir’s heavenly voices reverberated off the stone, amplifying the sound.
The country we moved from, the USA, had only been a country for 200 years, and here I was, worshipping in a church that people had stood and worshipped in for the last 800 years!
Even more amazing, was walking the halls of the many castles and palaces, where famous historical figures had lived and roamed.
The Tower of London for example, has an incredible history ranging from luxurious to infamous, dating back to the 13th century.
Most of its infamy stemmed from the torture and public executions, during the Tudor era.
The most famous public beheadings were, Queen Anne Boleyn, second wife of King Henry VIII and mother of Queen Elizabeth I; Queen Catherine Howard, fifth wife of King Henry VIII; and 17-year-old Lady Jane Grey who was a presumed threat to the ascension to the throne for Queen Mary I, eldest daughter of King Henry VIII.
Walking the halls and standing on the grounds was both chilling and amazing, visualizing history taking place.
The Tower of London also contains the crown jewels of England. Peering through the glass enclosures at the dazzling crown jewels was mesmerizing!
All of these castles, palaces, churches, cathedrals, and museums fostered an insatiable appetite for learning and an insatiable love of history.
When your children can see and touch history, it becomes tangible!
Childhood traveling today takes your children on a journey that surpasses the teaching environment of the classroom.
By stepping outside the familiar, into the unknown, they gain lessons that can’t be taught within the four walls of a classroom. All the academics become real and intertwined. Learning becomes fun, interesting, and mesmerizing!
The buying power of money takes on new meaning, especially if challenged with calculating foreign currency equivalents.
Meeting new people and experiencing different cultures brings a human touch to sociology.
Taking in the beauty of the world and stepping through time while exploring ruins or architectural wonders, makes history and geography tangible.
Sure there’ll be moments of chaos or unexpected events, but this teaches problem-solving skills, adaptability, and resilience!
The bottom line is that childhood traveling is an investment in your children’s education.
So start planning your next adventure, even if it’s a small road trip.
Pack curiosity and exploration into your suitcases and watch your children’s world expand and their appetite for learning explode!