5 Reasons to Travel With Small Kids

Today I’m sharing a list of reasons to travel with small kids. 

Last fall, I put together a massive guide with 30 tips for traveling internationally with small kids.

At the beginning of that post, I had started writing out this big speech about why traveling with your kids is so important and worth all of the trouble. The speech itself started to look like its own post altogether, so I pulled it over to a new Google Doc to save for another day. Today is that day.

And let me be the first to say: if you have hesitations about traveling with kids, I get it! It’s certainly not for everyone, and that’s okay. This post is meant to be an encouragement to those who want to travel with their kids but are having a hard time mustering up the courage to book the flight. I’m here for you. You got this. 

The gist is this: travel is good for your kids. It’s good for your family, and it’s good for your soul. I promise. Here are five good reasons to travel with small kids.

5 Reasons to Travel With Small Kids

1. Travel nudges children out of the comfort of their daily routines and teaches resilience. 

One of the most important lessons we can teach our kids is that the world doesn’t revolve around them. This perspective lays the foundation for growing empathy, patience, and resilience. 

Whether we mean to or not, our days at home end up revolving around our kids. Between nap schedules, school drop off, bedtime, activities, and even meals, I could see how a kid could grow up thinking that the world turns on their own personal little axis. 

Traveling nudges kids out of the comfort of their daily routine. It’s a lot of waiting, hurrying up, and then waiting some more. It’s eating foods they’ve never seen before, learning how to say “hello” and “thank you” (at the very least) in another language, cleaning up after themselves on an airplane, and learning to roll with the punches of a schedule change or unforeseen circumstance. 

Each day provides a new set of micro-challenges to overcome and an opportunity to observe and be in awe of a brand new place. It’s a chance to practice being “go with the flow,” as we call it in our house. 

Some travel days are harder on kids than others, but the truth is: real life isn’t easy breezy. As much as it’s my knee jerk tendency to put up bumpers around my kids’ existence, I’m not really doing my job if I let them think that the world is going to always be neat and tidy and run like clockwork. 

This mindset helped me relax on travel days so much. Realizing that the waiting, uncertainty, and long days on the road are actually good for my kids has allowed me to be there for them in a positive, encouraging way (rather than a frazzled, nagging one). 

The tough days give me a chance to MODEL resilience and give my children an opportunity to BUILD resilience. 

2. Even if your child doesn’t remember the trip, it is all part of laying the foundation for their development. 

I read somewhere once that traveling with a small child is like reading to a small child. They won’t remember the book, and they probably don’t even really know what’s going on, but it’s all part of setting the stage. I’ve never heard a parent say, “I’ll wait to read to them until they can understand what I’m saying.” 

Tyler and I want our kids to be adaptable, courteous, and independent. We want them to learn to be present and embrace the beauty around them. We want them to learn empathy and appreciate differences and, again, understand that the world doesn’t revolve around them. 

Of course, you don’t need to travel internationally to accomplish these things. But the fact of the matter is that Tyler and I do love to travel, so why not bring the girls along for the ride? 

I wouldn’t miss watching the joy Emmie and Char have experienced on our trips for anything. And if they are sad that they don’t remember it when they are older, they’ll just have to go plan a trip of their own. 

3. International travel provides an opportunity to experience a new language and culture. 

Exposure to other cultures and languages is good for our brains. Much like reading fiction, it’s a tangible way to flex our empathy muscles and step beyond our own perspectives and biases. The experiences we gain while traveling help us build neural pathways and expand the ways we process information.

This is all even more true for children, whose brains develop the fastest in the first five years of life. 

There is no shortage of research on the benefits of hearing (or better yet, learning) a new language in early childhood. 

In an ideal world, we’d be a glamorous multilingual household, but traveling is one easy way to expose our kids to new languages and cultures unlike our own. Tyler and I have always viewed international trip with your kids as a supplement, or even a foundation, of our girls’ education and development. 

4. The family that adventures together…

Much to my utter devastation, these early years with our girls have gone by faster than I ever could have imagined. Taking the time to get away and adventure together is our way of timestamping each season. 

Not to be all gloom and doom, but we only have so many years left where our kids actually want to spend time with us. These golden early years are precious and special in a way that we won’t get back. And it’s my secret hope that building these bonds as a family will work in our favor as they grow up–maybe they will want to keep traveling with us after all? Hehe. 

Travel has bonded us as a family in so many ways, and I am so grateful for the memories we’ve made. 

Our trip through Europe last year was so special, far and away some of the very best weeks of my life. The girls were happy and learned so much. We bonded as a family in ways that are just not possible when we are home. Tyler told me the other day that he can’t think about the trip or he’ll cry because it makes him so emo. LOL. 

And even though we have the girls with us, international trip with your kids are so good for our relationship with each other too. 

5. Being at home with kids is hard too. May as well go see the world, right? 

“That seems tiring.” 

I got this comment a lot during and after our trip to Europe last summer, and, yes, okay, flying across the world and living out of suitcases for 3 weeks is, objectively, tiring.

What’s ALSO tiring is being home all day with two young kids: making meals, doing dishes, folding laundry, grocery shopping, etc etc etc. And don’t me wrong: you’ll never hear me complain about being a stay at home mom. All I’m saying is that normal life is actually *quite* tiring too. 

I find myself energized, not exhausted, when we travel. Of course, a lot of that has to do with Tyler taking the time off work. We make all of our decisions together, and it is “all hands on deck” when it comes to taking care of the girls.

Also, I don’t have to clean or go to Trader Joe’s or prep dinner or wipe down bathrooms or worry about preschool pickup. That stuff adds up! 

Despite packing up and moving every few days, I am way more relaxed when we travel than when I am at home. 

And if that’s not of the best reasons to travel with small kids, I don’t know what is.

I say all of this not to “clap back” but to provide my two cents and hopefully a little encouragement on the topic. I think one of the biggest things that deters people from traveling with young kids is that they think it will be super tiring and not worth all of the trouble. 

Sure, some of those travel days were long. But the days are always long with young kids, you know? The memories we made were well worth the sweaty sprints through the airport and occasional meltdowns. 

Life is short, and the world is big. If you’re on the fence about waiting until your kids are older or even out of the house, take this as your sign that it is absolutely worth the trouble. 

Thank you for checking out my list of reasons to travel with small kids.

I hope this post was helpful or maybe even inspiring! While I have you, I send out a newsletter every Friday morning (seriously, I never miss a week). It’s low key and not spammy–just a pre weekend pick-me-up with lighthearted musings about motherhood, my latest product obsessions, the book I’m reading, and links to the latest blog posts. If you’re not already on the list, scroll down and tap the “subscribe” button at the bottom of the page, and I’ll see you on Friday. 

On that note…

30 tips for traveling internationally with small kids

What to pack for a long trip with kids

Our 3 week Europe trip itinerary

26 lifesaving tips for traveling with a baby in Europe

Check out more travel tips, city guides, and itinerary inspiration here. Follow me on Instagram for more updates.