Not too long ago our family spent 60 days travelling around the world, mostly in Europe, with 3-night stop-overs in Hong Kong (on the way) and Singapore (on our way home). From my own observation on this and previous overseas holidays it seems that very few people travel with children for this long, and those who do rarely have 3 of them along for the ride (though my daughters perhaps qualify as young adults, the eldest at least - they are 13 and 15).

You can see our family group in the photo of us on the London Eye; that’s me, Tony, (aged 50 at the time), my wife Maria (age her own business), Penelope 13 next to me, Jean aged 15, and Ethan (8). I suspect that part of the reason people leave their kids behind, or delay travel until they are older, is financial, but I think part of it is also uncertainty over how they will handle the whole experience. Well, it can be done, and while I don’t claim to have all the answers I thought it might be useful to outline some of the techniques I used to make the trip run as smoothly and enjoyably as possible for all 5 of us (and those we travelled with).

PLANNING

It all started innocently enough with Maria deciding she wanted us to go on an overseas trip to mark my 50th birthday. As it turned out I had my 51st birthday in Amsterdam, but at least I was still in my 50th year when we set out. I must say that, being a senior manager in my working life, I approached the whole trip as something of a formal project.

So, the first thing I did was work with Maria and our travel agent to define the parameters of the trip. Where were we going, and approximately how long would we be away? I then started dropping hints at family meals so that the kids started to get a bit interested, and to get them thinking about the possibilities. With their input we put together a brief trip overview.

The next step was to put some flesh on the outline. For this process we used that business favourite - the white board. Each family member was asked the question: “Suppose we actually went on this trip, what are the 3-5 things YOU would really like to do?” Each person wrote theirs up on the board, and we modified them over the next few weeks as people chatted with friends, read books or saw things on TV which prompted new ideas.

Once the lists had settled, I updated our draft travel itinerary to include as many of the preferred sights and activities as possible, and made sure everyone had more than half of their preferences accounted for. This process ensured buy-in from everyone, and made sure that everyone had things to look forward to on the trip that were only there because they wanted to do them.

So, we ended up with a tour comprising a few days in Honk Kong (including Disneyland), 5 nights in London, a month-long coach tour of the European Continent, then 3 weeks in Britain (two weeks on a hire car, one week on a canal boat), concluding with a few days in Singapore.

PREPARATION

By the time we had finished planning, our trip had blown out from an initial one month estimate to around 7 weeks (and would eventually end up at over 8). The question then became, what time of year could we travel? School would be out for 6 weeks over the December / January period, but that would be winter in Europe - cold, dark and inside most of the time didn’t seem the best way to meet everyone’s travel expectations.

So, we settled for June / July - the kids would have completed Semester 1 assessment and be back early enough to catch up on Semester 2. I checked with their schools as to the best dates in that period and then let the schools know the exact dates. I must say they were all very helpful, and this gave the kids confidence that they would not be penalised in any way while they were away.

Next was preparing the packing. As we had a hire car organised in the UK for part of the trip I obtained the dimensions of the car boot from the hire car company to ensure that the bags we were taking would actually fit in the car. Considering the time we were away we travelled very light, you can see our cases (and the white board we used for planning) in the accompanying picture.

ENERGY

I think they key element of travelling successfully with the family was managing everyone’s energy levels. The parents among you will know that tiredness is one of the primary factors when kids get cranky, and when kids get cranky, tempers get frayed and the whole thing can just degenerate. Add in the fact you are living in close proximity for the entire time, with private space hard to find, and the potential is there for a very unpleasant holiday.

So, I set myself the task of being the energy manager. I ensured that we all got as much sleep as possible over the 60 days. At times this meant Maria and I had to forego the sort of evening activities you would normally expect to get up to in Europe to ensure the kids got their sleep. I’m sure some of the people on our coach tour thought we were anti-social (no evening dinner in Paris etc).

FLEXIBILITY

After energy levels, I think being flexible was the next most important factor in managing the trip. The key area here was sleeping arrangements. Due to family size and hotel layout we invariably needed two rooms at most locations. While the kids were happy to have their own room most of the time, with the parents next door or across the hall, at times they were squabbling or over-tired and would not settle. So, at those times, mum and dad bid one another a fond farewell and I bunked with Ethan and Maria shared with the girls.

We did the same with seating arrangements on the coach - adjusting daily to suit mood. This then extended to being flexible with travel arrangements to maintain the energy levels referred to earlier. By the time we reached Switzerland everyone was really tired; we decided to skip the day tour to the snow at Mt Titlis and spend a quiet day seeing the sights in Lucerne instead.

FUN AND GAMES

A month sitting on a bus is a long time for a little guy. Ethan did really well the whole time, bless him, but it took a lot of effort to make sure he had a good time, and at the same time did not disrupt the tour for some of the folks who seemed a little peeved having a youngster along for the ride. Part of this was just having a portable video games machine with us, charged at the hotel every night. We also had books, drawing material and the like.

We also made sure he had lots of time to play. As one example, when we hit Lucerne, most folks were either resting or off seeing sights, we were across the road in the local playground having a swing and a slide. On our rest day in Lucerne we spent a lot of the time at a local playground. In London we spent hours playing “catch” on the village green at Winchmore Hill.

As another example, we loved the museums and art galleries in London but made sure we spent some of our time in them looking at things that Ethan would appreciate. Like most young boys he liked the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum, and the mummies at the British. With a bit more lateral thinking he appreciated the Van Gogh “Sunflowers” at the National Gallery as we have a print of it on out kitchen wall. We also made sure he spent lots of time at the hands-on section of the Science Museum.

BLOW UPS

So, having done all of that, the trip went perfectly, right? Well, not really, we are all human after all. There were times on the trip when one or another of us “lost it”. We just let the person blow off steam, have a coffee or whatever, and then just got on with it. I think we all let things go which we might not have at other times, purely because of the circumstances. Having all planned the trip together, everyone seemed to do their best to make it work.

CONCLUSION

Would I recommend taking young families on this sort of extended overseas trip? Well, yes. All of the kids have matured significantly, Ethan seems two years older now than when we left. All of them have experiences which will last a lifetime, they all have a much greater appreciation of the world we live in and the people we share it with. So, get those planning hats on - the wide world is out there and calling.

- Tony

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