Planes, Trains, Automobiles, Boats and Walking shoes!

Ponn Sabra | February 1, 2011 | Comments (1)

Having traveled 10s and thousands of miles as a family I’m often asked how do we do it? How are your kids not bored in the car? Bored!? Never…traveling is such a huge part of our lives that we’re accustomed to being in a plane, train, car, boat, ferry, or simply in our walking shoes. So, I’m dedicating attention to Travel Tips Tuesday. But, we’re going to also host Technology Tuesday. But, don’t be surprised if we combine both themes some Tuesdays–because if it wasn’t for Technology, we’d never be able to homeschool our girls through all our Travels. So, here are a few Travel Tips to get started.

Ten Tips for Traveling with Kids

Qur’anic & Islamic Studies. Talk about and test each other’s Qur’an, give each other Islam studies quizzes. Share tafsir (commentary about the Qur’an). Hubby and I each have multiple versions of the Qur’an on our Smartphones, but we always have one in the car and one in my purse. So, we typically have enough copies for everyone–or, we share. We’ve had some of our most deep, touching, family moments of spiritual growth during our travels.
Educational devices, not leisure ones. We each have our own laptops, no movies or games allowed while at stops, and no mobile devices while in motion,
Smartphone Stock-up. Add educational apps, worthy ebooks, GPS, maps to your Smartphones. You can even add creative programs that you can change at your frequent stops to keep things interesting,
One travel bag each. Fill-up with dollar store atlases and maps of the area, Actually any little educational, writing utensils, Target/Walmart jump ropes,
Lifelong journals for the older and Print & Draw Notepads for the younger ones,
Teach Currency Conversion, play games to buy your own things at rest areas, airports, car rental organizations, etc., Our youngest has her world collection of coins and paper bills with her most of the time.
Pack only healthy snacks: bread sticks, zatar/olive oil/pita bread, boiled eggs, not-so-juicy fruits, dried fruit, tasty buns, Italian breads, etc. Nothing sticky, drippy, too salty, sugary or hard to divide evenly and save for later–basically most packaged school snacks.
Give as many people their own camera, video recorder or cell phones that take pictures (even netbooks with webcam), or take turns while in motion and especially during your frequent stops,
Have wipes, sanitizer, tissues, paper towels, disposable bath towels, extra grocery plastic bags, in your purse and in their own carry-on’s,
Read, copy, attempt to pronounce signs, billboards, pamphlets stuffed in the airplane seat folders, anything with words; challenge your family to read and learn whatever you can get your hands on–if they’re at arm’s length or eye-distance with public transportation, it was meant to be read (even if it’s in a different language). Warning: READ with your kids, different parts of the world have different guidelines to what’s profane and what’s not. Take the opportunity capitalize on geography, history, cultural, linguistic studies and so much more. Hands-on learning makes traveling that much more memorable–and, fun!

If you have Travel Tips to share, please grab the above button, post it on your site and comment below so we can learn from you too.

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