Best advice for kid-friendly travel
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Finn Olaf Jones, Adventure Travel Dad, shares his best advice for parents on how to have a fun family travel experience that your kids will remember for a lifetime
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My best tip for travel experience with children is it's got to be a relevant travel experience. You got to go somewhere where your kid can have some sort of connection. Go to Scotland if they love Harry Potter, go to Marche Nice, if they're learning French, go to Mexico if they're learning Spanish; but I think relevance is important for getting a kid excited about a trip.
Secondly, I think it's important to get off the beaten track a bit. First of all, the farther off you get the beaten track, the more people are going to be friendly to you. I mean when they don't see tourists, people are more likely to invite you in, actually a better value for your money. It's cheaper to get off the beaten track.
I would also say, experiential travel for kids is vital. I mean, you don't want - Adults appreciate a good view and an excellent meal, but kids couldn't care less about those sorts of things. They don't really want to go and count the window pane and shutter, they want to run up and look at the gargoyles. So the more experiential travel you can do, the more travel you can do out of what I call "the tourist bubble', the better.
Finally, I would say that you've got to leave a lot of room for spontaneity on your trips because an awful lot of opportunities will appear on the road. I found out when I travel, I have 5 kids, I find when I travel and my kids off schedule, we are able to take whatever opportunities come along. We recently, in Italy, we found out that there was this tree climbing camp in the outskirts of Florence. We just took a bus out there and had a great afternoon doing that.
So, as long as you leave yourself open to experiences with kids, you're going to have a great time.
Finn Olaf Jones, Adventure Travel Dad, shares his best advice for parents on how to have a fun family travel experience that your kids will remember for a lifetime
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Finn Olaf JonesDad & Travel Expert
A harrowing climb of Aconcagua in the Andes 15 years ago emboldened business analyst, Finn-Olaf Jones to write down his experiences and send them to Forbes who took the story. Finn now writes regularly for Forbes, Architectural Digest, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, National Geographic Traveler, the Travel Channel, and Adventure Travel magazine. He lives in Los Angeles with his lovely wife and five energetic children who can now all set up a tent in total darkness.
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