Ten Totally Stupid Excuses for Not Traveling with Kids

Why is it that people believe that life has to end when parenting begins?  Life is certainly changed when kids enter the picture, but none of the good stuff stops. Parents still have careers, go out to dinner, and occasionally have an adult conversation. It’s all a matter of learning how to do it all a little bit different.  The one area where parents seem to willingly concede defeat to the little people is in the realm of travel. It's as if suitcases and children are mutually exclusive. That's when the excuses start. Yep,  there are all kinds of excuses for why it’s not possible to travel with kids, and they are all as pathetic and whiny as that Caillou kid. 

Debunking the Reasons Not to Travel with Kids

They Won’t Remember It. First of all, that’s debatable. Research shows that even if kids don’t remember the exact details of a trip, the best learning opportunities happen when the brain is in a new environment. But, let’s just pretend like there is no chance at all that the kids are going to make a memory when you travel. Who cares if they remember? I remember.  I could get practically drunk on the memory of rhythmically swaying in a hammock in Hawaii with my one year old. His sweet, sweaty head was nestled on my neck and I dozed to the music of my two other little ones playing on the beach nearby. He’ll never remember that moment, but it is one of my most favorite memories. Replaying it is like a little love bomb going off inside of me.

It’s a lot of work. Heck yeah, it’s a lot of work. Who said it wasn’t?  Honestly, this line of thinking just makes me stabby. I can’t think of a single instance in real life where a parent would claim that having children is a cake walk. It’s hard. That’s part of the job description.  So, of course, if having children is hard, then traveling with children is, by correlation, also hard. It make be exponentially harder, but let’s not turn this into a math problem. Everything that is worth having takes effort. The best things take the most effort.  What if you miss out on the best moments of your life because you didn’t want to put in a little sweat equity? Do you really want to be that guy?

We’ll go when they are older. How much older?  It only gets harder to get away the older they get. Once kids hit the magical school years, their time to travel is drastically limited by schoolwork, soccer games, and friends. The younger they are, the easier it is to travel. If you are reading this and you have an infant, grab your Ergo and head to the airport immediately. It will never be this easy to travel with kids again!

We Might Get Lost. It’s the 21^st century. GPS devices are practically programmed into your palm. You don’t even need any special skills other than the ability to listen and follow directions. Next please.

Someone Might Get Sick. Being sick away from home is no fun at all, but the drill is still the same no matter where you are. Find a doctor (your hotel can point you in the right direction), get some medicine (the doctor can point you in the right direction) and make it all better with kisses and movies to pass the time. Just take the same health precautions you would at home and don’t worry.  

There Isn’t Enough Time. I’m totally going to give you this one. There isn’t enough time. Despite the infinite feeling of time during sleepless nights or science fair projects, childhood has an expiration date. There are only eighteen total summers to make vacation memories, and only 13 or 14 before they start to act like you-dear parent- are kryptonite. Work deadlines and the dreaded Little League schedule will always be there eagerly consuming your freetime on the pretense of good intentions. Forget them. Just walk away. Even for a weekend. Hop off the suburbia rat wheel and make a memory. 

But, I Don’t Speak the Language. Wait a minute! Nobody said you have to pack up and head to Mumbai. Go to Disneyland. They speak the universal language of Mickey there. Point is, travel doesn’t have to be exotic or far flung to be meaningful. Go some place close by and work your way up from there. No shame in starting small. If you do end up somewhere where the language is unknown, having a child along can be a major boon. Children can communicate in any language. Just follow their lead.

It’s Not Safe. Where? At Disneyland? It is scary there, but only because a Mickey shaped ice cream bar will set you back $12 and then melt all over the ground and permabond to your kid’s shoes. Other than that, Disney and all other non-mouse related destinations are perfectly harmless. There is the odd central American country and urban area that are known for being more risky. So, mark those places off the list and pick one of the 2 kajillion places that don’t have any sort of travel safety advisory.

We’ve Never Done It Before. There was also a time when you had never been a parent before, and you figured that out. There was projectile vomiting, and colic, and that time you left him on the couch and he rolled off. You survived it all, even though you had never walked that road before. Let yourself look back to the newborn days with your experienced parent eyes. It was really nothing, right? You made it seem more difficult that it actually was in reality. Sure, there were hairy moments, but you made it through. You grew and got better. You learned you were more capable than you imagined. You became a parenting rockstar. 

Traveling is the same way. There will be bad moments, but you will learn from them and you will grow. It took years of “learning experiences” before I figured out how to navigate security, make it through a trans-Atlantic flight, and bring enough changes of clothes. In between all the trial and error, we made the memories that will be woven into our slightly wonky family tapestry for life. When I look back and try to remember the mess-ups, they are all blurred out by the memories. There is no whiny excuse that is worth the exchange of a currency that valuable.