Vacationing for a few days with the family is enjoyable. However, it does’t allow you to immerse yourself in the areas you’re visiting. Packing up the family, and committing to travel long term, does. More than likely, you have dreamed of quitting your job, and taking your children to see the world. However, the idea of planning such a large trip seems daunting. Families who have taken the leap into long-term vacationing believe the benefits outweigh any challenges.
Why you should travel long term with your family
Benefit from Planning as a Family
An awesome benefit of long-term vacationing is you, as well as your family, can plan things together. How amazing to then watch as these plans become realities. It’s easy to make excuses for why a long-term trip wouldn’t work.
- the kids are too young
- the kids are in school
- it’s too expensive.
However, instead of letting perceived challenges stop you, use them as an opportunity to work together as a team. Tackle each problem, and come up with a group solution. As your children see you surmount obstacles to make a long-term vacation a reality, they’ll develop confidence, as well as long-lasting memories, helping them in the future.
See the World Through Your Family’s Eyes
You may have traveled as a single person. However, the experiences you’ll have traveling long-term with your family are drastically different than those you had traveling alone in your youth. Ruins, ancient temples, famous museums, and beaches will take on a different perspective when seen through the eyes of your children.
Since you are staying in an area for an extended period of time, you will watch as your children make friends, appreciate new foods, and adapt to new cultures. Long-term travel forces your family to at least learn a little bit of the language of the countries you’re traveling in.
Understand Your Place in the Global Community
Long-term family travel provides rewards. It softens a person’s heart. Living with people whose language, culture, and experience are drastically different than your own, forces one to learn courage, and tolerance.
Children, and teenagers, often have wanderlust. This is why they follow Instagram, or Facebook pages, of people traveling the world.
- they want to experience the smells of exotic foods in foreign markets
- see the vibrant colors of landscapes, and buildings around the world
Long-term traveling allows your children to receive an education they could never obtain by simply looking at pictures, or reading books.
Establish Routines While Traveling
Parents understand children need routines in order to thrive. Short vacations interrupt routines. The mad dash to prepare for the vacation, as well as the frantic rush to get back to normal life after returning home, leaves you exhausted.
Long-term vacations allow families to fold their routines into their vacation. Long-term vacations often require renting a home, or traveling in a recreational vehicle, in order to have a home base of sorts. Recreational vehicles you may consider: motorhomes, RBs, boats, etc.
Routines will allow both parents, and children, to have the peace of mind that comes from creating anchors in life. When you know you’re on vacation for months as opposed to days, you don’t feel pressure to cram things in. Movie night, walking as a family, and cooking and eating dinner together, will continue to be part of your routine while on vacation.
Taking long-term vacations as a family is a unique bonding experience. The memories made during extended vacations will stick with your family for years to come. So what are you waiting for? Make your dream of long-term vacationing a reality. Your family will thank you for it.
About the Writer: Hannah Whittenly is a freelance writer and mother of two from Sacramento, CA. She enjoys kayaking and reading books by the lake.
