Planning the trip - thoughts on "when to go?"

This seems at first, like one of those impossible questions, and indeed, people don't always have the luxury of cooly choosing the time of their lives to go travelling. I did want to share though, some of the thoughts that went into our decisions.

On the road, babies are easier than toddlers.
Yes it's a huge generalization, but am I wrong? We shuddered to remember short cross-Europe flights when Emma was about one and a half, but compared to that, the 14-hour flight to the far East was easy with our 11-month old. Basically speaking, babies stay where you put them, are easily amused, sleep a lot, and if still partially breastfed, can be kept full and happy very easily. Toddlers, on the other hand are full of energy and want to crawl, walk all the time. The limited mobility of trains, planes and automobiles will drive them crazy and you too. Add to this the pugnaciousness of the "terrible two's" and you have a very good time to stay at home.

School holidays are only so long. Once school starts, you really are committed to the long-haul. I have read of families skipping whole school years, or doing home-study on the road. I question the wisdom the former and raise my hat to the dedication of the latter, but for us it was an easy equation: get on the road, have fun and get back before school age. Kindergarten you can skip.

So for us these two points gave us a sort of window in which to travel - After the baby is big and strong enough to travel, but before the small one starts walking, and before the big one starts school. That was a valuable catalyst in getting out the door. It's always the first step that's hardest. After that it's all easy.

Stop Time. You can do it and this is how! Spending time together - quality time - not all of it pleasant, but all unquestionably real is as close as you can get to stopping the clock. If you want a treasure store of golden memories and shared experiences that brought you all closer together, this is it. Of course everyone wants a career, everyone wants to earn more and more to do the best for their families, but once in a while, an opportunity comes along- perhaps a change in job, or an unexpected move, or access to some study leave that could give you a couple of months to do some travelling with the whole tribe. When that chance comes, I advise you to take advantage of it.


Will small children remember any of this? In a word, no. Well probably not, but so what? The parents will (see "stopping time", above), and let's not estimate the power of the stories of borrowed memory. You know what I mean: the tales of stuff you heard that you did as a toddler or young child that you can't quite remember clearly, but everyone tells you about. Travel is just the same. If you know you were bitten on the bum by a camel in Cairo, or ate an ice cream bigger than your head in the states, well isn't that a treasured memory just the same? Also I don't think we can underestimate the effect of photos, blogs and videos. These will live on, offering a valued view of those golden days- especially videos: "Look, look this is the bit where I fall over!"