Travel can be educational, too!

by Tim Larison

We’ve taken our sons Andrew and Josh all over the World on our vacations – from the glaciers of Alaska to the canals of Venice. These trips have not only been great fun, but educational, too! Here are Andrew and Josh sampling bananas right from the plant on a December 2006 visit to the Caribbean – they’ll never eat a banana again without thinking of how this fruit is harvested in St Lucia.

How do we make our trips educational for our kids without spoiling the fun? Here are some tips:

1. Study the places you will visit with your children before your trip. Prior to our Mediterranean cruise in 2006 Anne spent time with the boys watching videos and reading books about different places we would see.

2. Buy each child a camera. Disposable cameras are inexpensive and even digital cameras have come down significantly in price. Or do what we did – Anne and I bought new cameras in 2006 and gave the boys our old ones. A long “historical” type tour may seem boring to kids, but Andrew and Josh found even these tours interesting when they were taking their own pictures.

3. Have your kids keep a trip journal. We have the boys write a journal entry each night before bedtime of the day’s memorable activities.

4. Seek out local guides. Pick a tour that is limited in size and led by a native of the area. Our tour last month (by Cosol at www.cosol-tours.com ) was a wonderful mix of fun, sight seeing, and education of Cosol’s St Lucia home island. Often the smaller the tour group, the more time the guide has to interact with your kids.

With these tips we’ve had some educational and fun vacations with our kids, with many more to come!