Parent Friendly Travel Games

Several years ago I gave a friend who was driving around Australia a set of travel games. After she got back, she thanked me very kindly and gave me the set of cards back (each card had a different travel game suggestion printed on it). I thought she must have misunderstood that they were a present for her to keep, but I didn’t want to make a big deal about it, so we kept them.

Last month we went on a family camping trip which involved a four hour car journey. I finally remembered  these travel games and brought them along. Well, all I can say is that they made Monopoly look like a fun family game. I know this verges on the heretical, but as educational as alphabetical order may be, it is not fun. Repeatedly playing travel games based entirely on variations of alphabetical ordering are enough to make any parent ask “are we there yet?” Needless to say, these travel “games” are “accidentally” going in the recycling bin.

Instead I plan to make copious notes from the most amazing author. This has to be the ultimate travel book for dealing with the endless waiting and queuing and long flights and long car drives. All I can say is, not worthy.[amtap amazon:asin=1561452637] 

Carol Baicker-McKee has the most wonderful imaginative strategies for boredom busters. While the book’s title says it’s for preschoolers and the target age is 3 and 4 year olds, many of the ideas appeal to older kids as well. You’re not going to get much buy in from teenagers but that’s why God invented ipods. She has a gorgeous blog which has nothing to do with travel but is a fabulous read.

My current cunning plan is to use Evernote

Evernote

to make quick outline notes of the games she suggests. That way I’ll be able to refer to them quickly. Unfortunately I went through and bookmarked all of the pages I wanted to make notes on and it was almost the entire book *sigh*. I think I’ll have to re-read it several times before we go.

Tags: brilliant books, travel games, Travel with kids

Mad as Pants

You’d have to be mad as pants to fly from Australia to Europe with three kids in tow. Completely bonkers. I mean, it costs a serious amount of money. 

“Contestant number two, would you like to take a five minute family vacation to Europe or own a small African nation?”

This is not helped by us having three kids, which these days seems to count as a whole tribe.

“No seriously, I think you should consider the African Nation – you’ve got most of a tribe yourself after all.”

And so on revealing to people that we are planning to go to Europe next year, we are often met with some very startled glances. Most people are very keen to know what made us decide to do that. Have we in fact secretly won the lottery? Nope. But we have discovered a very unusual method of paying for things – it’s called saving. Oh all right, we aren’t financial geniuses but an auto savings plan does make a huuuuuuge difference in our case. The money that we don’t see doesn’t get spent on gadgets.

But why go to Europe at all? Well, the number one reason is that we have family over there. And a sprinkling of friends we’ve been meaning to catch up with as well. Apparently after three trips by the rellies over here, it is now our turn to visit. And the lure of Europe is strong. The wonderful mind stretching adventure of travel, with the added bonus of culture. language, art and shopping. Seriously there is no greater educational experience than travel. 

As Jean Luc Picard said,

“Time is a companion that goes with us on a journey. It reminds us to cherish each moment, because it will never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we have lived.”

We might be mad as pants, but we will have lived.

Tags: Europe, General Travel, Travel with kids