Adventures Abroad to Keep Kids Engaged, How about a Travel Treasure Hunt?
There’s nothing worse than planning a family trip overseas only to be greeted with morose children every morning of the trip who say that they are bored or that they want to go home. This can be soul destroying. Instead, consider ways you can engage your brood. Traveling is an adventure, whether you go for a two week vacation in an all inclusive Caribbean resort, or whether you camp out under the stars on the plains of the Serengeti (if your kids are bored on the Serengeti, there is a definite problem!). I loved traveling to Europe with my kids, and I planned fun treasure hunts for them. Read on to discover the sorts of adventures you can partake in to keep your kids engaged with your trip, and for free printables!
Ask Their Opinion
Most kids like to be consulted. This goes for five year olds as well as fifteen year olds, and everyone in between! Consider what it is that your kids are into. If your child hates all things active, don’t go hell for leather into planning a trek along the Inca Trail. This stunning trip of a lifetime would be wasted on your little darling and you won’t enjoy it either. Instead, mix up the passions of the family. If your children are more into history, organize a trip to a castle, an art gallery, or visit an archaeological dig when on your vacation. At the same time, keep some active excursions in your plan too, as a pay off for fulfilling their needs and wants from a vacation.
Young Minds
The youth of today are inquisitive and eager to broaden their horizons. Make sure that you plan exciting and novel excursions into your trip. A tour around a nineteenth century monastery might be fun for you, but your eight year old might have other ideas. Bargain with them. State that after the tour, they can enjoy a trip to an interactive museum where they can explore exhibits and get hands on with puzzles and artifacts. By developing this level of mutual respect with your kids while traveling, you will learn to give and take as much as they do.
Where To Go
It can be tricky to decide where to go when planning a vacation with your offspring. You don’t want them to get bored. If boredom settles in, then the holiday can be beyond rescue. Instead, look into exciting destinations. How about Iceland? Venturing here could see you in the great outdoors, hunting for the Northern Lights, whale watching and trying the local pickled herring. Or perhaps Japan is more thrilling. You could spend your days on bullet trains, eating sushi, checking out Buddhist temples and mooching around the streets of Tokyo and Osaka. Or perhaps a more restrained road trip is perfect for your brood. This is cheaper, can give you more flexibility to change up your plans, and this trip means you can see more of your home nation.
How about Rome? We took a family vacation there and spiced it up for the kids by doing a treasure hunt. The treasure hunt required figuring out the clue and the destination it led to, then finding the destination on a map and leading the family to it! My kids loved Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons, so I led them on a Treasure Hunt in Rome, based on the novels! I wrote a blog post about it a long time ago, take a look at A Path Through Rome. It was an incredibly fun family vacation and travel treasure hunt, and there you will find the clues!
Planning a family trip gets more and more difficult as your offspring develop their own personalities and grow into responsible adults. Consult them, cover all bases with your excursion ideas, and allow them to sit out an activity if they want to. You can always find their interests and a trip to make everyone happy! Happy Travel Treasure Hunt!
Sign up for updates below and receive my Path through Rome Travel Treasure Hunt clues! I’m happy to arrange treasure hunts all through the world if you’re interested. Just contact me at [email protected]. Whatever your family’s interests, from food to history to animals to art, I will do my best to make everyone happy.
What a great post.
Why, thank you very much!