It is important for kids to get out there and experience the world outside of their bedroom – but why? We give you 5 great reasons why kids should travel.
1. It Will Make Them Open-Minded
Kids should travel so that they understand how the world is full of different people, different places, and different ways of thinking. Traveling allows children to learn about the cultural differences present in our world.
Melody Spier writes in her article “Why Kids Should Travel” that “one of the biggest obstacles to truly appreciating diversity that I identified within myself and my classmates was the inability to determine what was an absolute value, and what was just a cultural preference.” Letting your kids travel can drastically help them understand that preferences change from culture to culture. It gives them a sense of perspective about their own life, and hinders them from making drastic judgements.
Traveling certainly opens their mind and lets them embrace different ways of life.
2. It is the Best Form of Education and Creates Opportunities
Traveling is more than just a learning experience. It is one learning experience after another, all which are so engraved into your memory that the likelihood of forgetting what you learned is rare.
Traveling teaches new lifestyle techniques, geography, history, new languages – and a ton of interesting facts in between. While traveling, you expose yourself to so many different learning opportunities that you return with an incredible amount of knowledge.
In traveling, you learn new facts, new languages, and you meet new people. The new skills, knowledge, and connections you’ve attained can open door after door.
3. It WIll Boost their Confidence
Traveling is a unique experience that can boost a child’s confidence. Navigating a busy airport and dealing with authority are two intimidating tasks to a newcomer. Exposing yourself to a foreign country, a new language, and ulterior lifestyles is certainly overwhelming. If your kids experience this when they are young, they will better know how to handle themselves in unfamiliar circumstances. As a result, they will have confidence experiencing new things as they grow up.
4. It Will Teach Them Not to be Materialistic
Kids who travel recognize that experiences can be just as fun as toys. They learn that memories personal stories can be just as engaging as movies and video games. Essentially, they will come to recognize that there is more to being happy than owning material possessions.Traveling can show your children just how much fun they can have without material objects, and will teach them to pay more attention to people than to their possessions.
5. It will Teach your Kids to “Go with the Flow”
Traveling can really help a child become more easy-going and laid back. When a flight gets cancelled due to weather and you have a play to attend that evening, you have nothing to do but switch your plans. When your train gets stalled for an hour and you hadn’t brought pack-lunches, you are realistically going to stop at a different place to eat than you initially thought.
Traveling is all about changing your plans and reorganizing activities. Experiencing this as a child can make you more adaptable as you grow up. You learn that plans sometimes need to change, and that change is something to embrace but not push away.
