What Are Some Reasons NOT To Travel With Kids? Pitfalls Of Family Travel

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Yep, you read that title right! Don’t get me wrong, we love traveling as a family and have done for 16 years, but I’d be lying if I said there weren’t any downsides to traveling with kids.

We love to keep things real with you, so we’re here to talk about some of the reasons people don’t travel with kids and some of the pitfalls to family travel. 

I understand all of them and have felt them too, but I should make it loud and clear for those in the back – the positives far outweigh the negatives!

So here are some reasons why not to travel with kids, and how you can overcome these annoyances and travel anyway and make amazing memories with your kids!

Reasons NOT To Travel With Kids

1. Lack of freedom

Many people have the misconception that traveling with kids means you lose pursuing your own interests to playgrounds, kids museums and science centres.

No wonder you don’t want to travel with kids. How boring!

However, it’s about creating a balanced itinerary.

Choose the most amazing kid activities and attractions that you’ll enjoy too (because if they aren’t amazing the kids will hate them too), and choose destinations that offer variety for all the family.

Build a family passion for activities like hiking and kayaking, assuming all family members are walking at the time of your vacation.

If you participate in highly engaging activities together, your kids will love traveling with you and will be more inclined to embrace those quieter more restful experiences like cafe bumming and reading books on the beach.

If you have older kids, schedule in time for everyone to do their own passion based stuff. Split time between mommy and daddy, so that dad can take them to the zoo one day, while mom does what she wants, and the next day mom can take them to the aquarium, while dad does what he wants.

Make sure this is only a half day activity though, it’s a family vacation, so you want to do stuff together as well.

2. Traveling with kids is too expensive

Yes, it’s true that kids add additional cost to a vacation, but they are an extra cost to your lives in general, so why think of this as a bad thing?

If you pay for all the extra-curricular activities your kids do after school and on the weekends, why not pay for them to have a holiday?

Go through your expenses and cut out things that you don’t need,…