10 Tips For Travelling With Kids

Travel becomes a great Teacher when children get involved in The planning. and oTher useful advice. a veteran at organising family holidays, Gauri Jayaram Tells you how To make each journey a memory for a lifetime

- Gauri Jayaram

We got a VIP reception when we reached Casa Red Hills (now known as Redhill Nature Resort), but then a homestay about 30km from Ooty in the Nilgiris. Our six-week-old daughter, Gayatri, was their youngest guest ever, we were told. The year was 2003 and since then she and her older sibling, Aprajita, have been on innumerable vacations with us, and sometimes with the extended family including the grandparents. As a traveller, I believe that there is no greater teacher than travel. Wishing to give my children ‘real education’, I have dedicatedly invested an amount, equivalent to their annual school fee, on travel each year. Luckily for us they don’t go to expensive schools and that also means that the vacations are usually modest. It’s not just about learning and growth, travelling with the children has given us the chance to build a memory bank that both the children and we, the parents, will turn to for the rest of our lives. Over the years, I have learnt a few things that have helped us get the most out of our travel adventures with the children.

INVOLVE THE KIDS WHEN PLANNING A HOLIDAY