How low tech travels with our kids taught us so much

Have you travelled overseas with your kids? Our family of 6 has done a few trips as a group – and let’s face it, when you have four kids or more, sometimes you are your own tour group!

Our sons are adults now, so our family trips were taken in the late 1990s and early 2000s when there were no smartphones or tablets to keep them entertained. Our main source of communication and sometimes amusement was their dad’s blackberry – who remembers the games on those!

So, while they didn’t have the benefits of a computer in their hand at the time, they did possess a natural curiosity that was enough to keep them satisfied before, during and after a day’s exploring. From our very first trip together, we also furnished them with travel kits – containing notebooks, coloured pencils and markers, glue tape, sticker sheets, plastic storage pockets – as well as their own basic film camera (and digital cameras later). I believe the family trips of today could borrow some parts of the low-tech holidays we took in the 90s and 00s to make the experience special for kids of the 2010s and beyond.

So where did we take our boys? Read on!

When my youngest son was 13 months old, we headed off to Bali – my husband wanted a surfing holiday, but to be honest I just wanted a holiday in the sun after four children in 7 1/2 years. Bali is the classic pilgrimage destination that so many young Australian adults make a beeline for. Because our trip was surf-based, we stayed in Kuta (sorry but never again) at a nice hotel with a pool for the kids and from there we made day trips to Uluwatu, & Ubud and other areas suitable for kids, including Waterbom Bali which was an absolute hoot! The Balinese people are delightful and adore small children, so you’ll have no end of admirers in this lovely cultural destination, despite it now being overrun by Aussies looking to party.

Our next major trip was to Fiji and the USA when our kids were aged 5-11 – we travelled with a couple of other families, staying in a self-contained house on the Coral Coast of Fiji, and with a couple of older friends to entertain them, our kids had a blast. We could have stayed at the resort down the road, and in fact we were allowed to use it if we purchased something, but instead we chose the house option for our group. It was cheaper than the resort and better suited. So as the blokes were off surfing, the mums sat by the resort pool with cocktails, the children did circuits on the kid’s slide and were entertained by the lovely Fijian staff. The family looking after the house cooked us donuts and delicious meals, and even a lovo in the front yard. The US leg of the trip was in LA, so of course Disneyland was on the cards, as was the adjacent California Adventure Park. Disneyland is cool, and even more so when you see it through your children’s eyes.
One astonishing thing from this trip is that when Pete and I rode the California Screaming rollercoaster, we left our four children alone in the park. No adult supervision. By the entrance to the roller coaster. What on earth were we thinking?? Our eldest son was 11 at the time and was basically in charge. Can you envision doing that now? Never.

Our next two international trips were indisputably our best. As an animal lover, I’d always wanted to visit Africa before I turned 40 – to experience safari drives, animal photography, and vastly different cultures. Surprisingly I hadn’t ever envisaged doing it with our family of 6 in mind…. but in 2004 the opportunity arose for Pete to take a personal bonus as a trip, and combined with Frequent Flyer points, we (mostly me) planned a trip to Kenya and Egypt. Frequent Flyer flights being as they are, this trip was circuitous – many legs were not available direct back then, so we followed this route: Melb-Syd-Joburg-Nairobi-London-Cairo-London-Singapore-Melb. Our kids were troopers and such great flyers. Armed with activity kits, digital cameras and an insatiable thirst for anything interesting as well as an incredible knowledge of ancient history, off we went for three weeks over the school holidays. It was the trip of a lifetime for our boys – the week of school they missed was more than compensated for by the invaluable experiences they had. So, I got my trip to Africa – complete with pre-dawn game drives, an amazing balloon ride over the Maasai Mara, incredible wildlife viewing – and having the whole family there made it more memorable than I could have imagined. The Egypt leg of this trip was probably a bucket list one for the boys – always history buffs, they knew so much about this fascinating ancient culture that our local guides were sometimes impressed. For them to stand on millennia-old pyramids, to enter the tombs of pharaohs and to sail down the Nile – the lifeblood of this country – was a privilege we’ll be forever grateful for.

Another work-related travel opportunity arose at the end of 2007/early 2008 – this time to South America! Primarily Brazil & Peru but we also managed to visit Uruguay, Argentina and snuck into Paraguay when visiting Iguazu Falls. This lengthy trip on Frequent Flyer points also included a stop in London & Barcelona on the way through and the USA on the way home. Our highlight of this trip was Peru – seeing the extraordinary Machu Picchu and staying in the lush Amazon rainforest were both exhilarating experiences we’ll never forget. We all have loads of digital & real mementos from this trip – the boys had their cameras on the go, and still have special keepsakes from that trip in pride of place on their shelves. Unfortunately, this trip also coincided with Pete losing his dad while we were away. He had been unwell for months prior to us leaving but bade us farewell with a promise that we should keep on living. In that respect, this trip was especially poignant, with memories forged by the emotion of losing a beloved father and grandfather.

In the northern autumn of 2008, Pete needed to work in England for 10 weeks, the mechanics of which made it difficult for him to come home during that period. His company instead very generously flew our gang of 5 across from Australia (including my eldest nearing the end of Year 11) for a 3-week visit to compensate for his absence. What’s not to love about a tour of England with teenagers…? From iconic London sights like the Tower of London, London Bridge, Lord’s Cricket Ground, museums, palaces, then to iconic Bath, mystical Stonehenge & picturesque Oxford and up the windswept coast to Scarborough, exploring Hadrian’s Wall and back down to London via a scenic drive through the beautiful Lake District. Such a special time and another trip we had such fun on – history, wide-open spaces, unpredictable English weather, culture – England alone has it covered with so many options for kids of all ages.

Here are my TOP 5 takeaways from travelling with kids/young adults

• Don’t necessarily choose an all-in-one ‘resort’ – expand their horizons by renting a house if possible
• Involve and engage them in the process of research of your destination by asking them to choose 1 or 2 places each they’d like to visit/see/do
• Have a mix of active/busy/touristy days and downtime days where they lounge around the pool or common areas or the like.
• Hang out with them – you’re all on holidays!
• Go with the flow – there are no KPIs on family holidays

Our boys (men) are way past the family holiday stage now, with partners, a baby and full-time work restricting those trips to happy memories. The trips we were super fortunate to take together during their formative years certainly left them with hugely variable experiences and sights of our incredible planet – from the hustle of a modern city to third world living, from ancient history to the wonders of nature. Travelling with your kids imparts a unique perspective to what you see as an adult, and of course opens their minds to the privilege of their life in a developed country. Over the years, our boys have expressed their gratitude to have seen so much of the world at a young age, and it fuelled their subsequent independent travel plans. My earlier takeaways for family holidays stand the test of time, and I wouldn’t change anything in hindsight.

Comment below and tell me about your family holidays!