Wanting to share your love of travel with your children? Or just looking to inspire them with wanderlust and a sense of adventure? Either way, here are some of my top ideas and resources for portable travel-related activities for young children.
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Introduction
When we made the bold decision to leave our house behind and instead live a nomadic life in our classic motorhome, we were keen for our 3 young children (aged 5,3 & 1) to grow up sharing in our love of travel. We hoped that living full time in a van would provide us with a great opportunity to reduce our attachment to material belongings and instead try to focus on the things that really matter, like family time and adventure. After all, there is only so much stuff that will fit in a van, along with 5 passengers!
That said, some carefully selected things that provide activities for kids to help keep them entertained are essential. To try and complement our current way of living, I like to select activities that link to travel and adventure, hoping to inspire and develop wanderlust in my children.
With the current severe restrictions on international movement, this may not seem the best time to be thinking about travel. However, we can still dream. As we begin to exit the Coronavirus lock-down, what better time to be planning and thinking about future adventures?
So, what are the best activities for small children that relate to travel and inspire wanderlust and adventure? Well, whether you’re looking for activity ideas for things to take away with you on your next trip, or just looking to broaden your children’s horizons and allow them to dream of future adventures, here are my top 10 suggestions for activities to inspire wanderlust and adventure in children.
Study Cat Language Apps
Learning a foreign language is easier said than done, I know. Nobody expects a child to become fluent in another language overnight. However, I think it is important to try and learn at least a few key words for any country that you are visiting, even if that is only little things like ‘hello’, ‘please’ and ‘thank-you’. These can be easily learned on arrival and help to show you’ve at least made a bit of an effort.
Far better is to learn a foreign language in more detail. The good news is this is surprisingly achievable for young children, who can actually absorb a lot of new information in a way that adults (myself included) struggle with. With the absence of a teacher, a great way to do this is by using an online language app. The language apps from Study Cat are excellent, providing children with a fun and interactive way to learn, with multiple language options available. Their Fun French app is one of our Top 5 Apps for Early Years Homeschooling. The apps can be used offline when travelling and contain a library of additional worksheets that can be printed and used to supplement the learning done on the app.
Sticker Books
Kids love stickers. I find that sticker books can be a great portable activity to carry around for when you need to fill a bit of time, like waiting for your meal to arrive at a restaurant, or on a long journey or flight. They are definitely one of our top tips for having a successful children’s day out.
There seem to now be sticker books for everything, including some lovely ones that relate to travel. Some of my favourites are:
Usborne Sticker Atlas of Britain and Northern Ireland (Usborne Sticker Atlases)
Flags of the World Ultimate Sticker Book (Dk Sticker Books)
Sticker Picture Atlas of the World
These can be an easy way to inspire wanderlust in children. They can be worked on independently and then used to spark discussions about countries to visit and places they may have already been to. This introduction to new countries and ideas can then always be built upon by using other learning methods if desired, such as searching for relevant videos online.
Atlas Book / Maps
One good way to develop upon any newly learned information from sticker books (or possibly better from the start for slightly older children), is through an atlas book or colourful map. These will typically contain a greater depth of information than a basic sticker book, showcasing all about the World and the different countries within it. Awesome Maps make some really beautiful pull-out maps that are perfect for sparking imagination in children (use the magic code ‘childrenofwanderlust’ at the checkout for 5% off!).
While the layout of an atlas book will likely mean more reading (so potentially lessen the child’s independent use), the flip-side of this is that this advance in language may actually help to develop a child’s own vocabulary and comprehension skills.
Some excellent examples of atlases for children are:
Collins Children’s Picture Atlas (Collins Atlases)
Some of my other favourite geographical reference books for children are:
All countries, capitals and flags of the world
The Travel Book: A journey through every country in the world (Lonely Planet Kids)
Jigsaws
Jigsaws can make excellent educational resources, disguising useful learning within a fun task. A good starting point for introducing children to how the countries of the World are arranged, is the Orchard Toys World Map Jigsaw Puzzle and Poster. This jigsaw not only shows how the countries are laid out on a map, but also has cute graphics of famous landmarks and animals distributed around it. This is a great way to introduce ideas of global variation and how different characteristics are associated with different countries on the map (ideas that can then easily be expanded upon for further learning if desired). The large size of the pieces (and therefore also of the completed jigsaw) means that maybe this isn’t a great choice to take away if travelling light. It does make a useful resource to use at home though, for either discussing places that you have visited, or looking for places you’d like to go next.
Another good type of jigsaw for starting conversations about different countries is a flags puzzle, like the Larsen L2 Flag-Puzzle, Jigsaw Puzzle with 80 Pieces, English Edition. Looking at all the weird and wonderful flags of the World is a fun and colourful way for children to begin to learn a bit more about the different countries.
For a good jigsaw more suited for taking away on your travels, try a magnetic puzzle, like this Flags of the world puzzle magnetic ENG (PUZZLE – Divers). You will need a magnetic sheet to stick it to, but that does mean there will hopefully be no lost pieces!
Colouring Books
Like with sticker books, these now seem to be available for every conceivable subject. There are lots of nice ones out there that relate to travel and adventure. They can be used independently (at least, once your children are old enough to not make too much mess), and can be useful to have to hand for filling time when needed, such as when waiting at a restaurant. Some of my favourites for inspiring wanderlust are:
The World: A Map Coloring Book
These will obviously require pens or crayons for doing the colouring. I prefer washable pens and these Crayola Pipsqueaks Marker and Paper Set come in a nice carry case. I find these Felt Tip Pen – STABILO Cappi wallet of 12 + 1 cap-ring are good to carry around because the lids tie together and don’t get lost (like they seem to do for all the pens we ever have!). For times when you don’t want the mess of pens, the CrayolaTwistables Crayons, Pack of 12 – Multicolour are good.
If you have a printer, there are also plenty of free resources readily available online. Outline maps, flags or other pictures relating to different countries can be printed, to be coloured in later.
While never as good as the real thing, there are also many smartphone apps that can be used for virtual colouring (useful for when nothing else is to hand). The Kidlo Grade 1 Geography App has a nice section in it that allows different flags of the World to be easily block-coloured (see my review of the app, along with others, on my Top 5 Apps for Early Years Homeschooling).
Camera and Scrap-Booking
My girls love taking pictures and then looking through them (usually using my phone!). It is fun for them to be able to make their own record of all the new and interesting places that they have visited on our travels. For more independence, there are some excellent cameras available now that are specifically aimed at children, like the BOMEON Underwater Camera for Kids 12MP HD Underwater Action Camera Camcorder with 8X Digital Zoom 2.0 Inch LCD Display with 8G SD Card). They tend to be more rugged and easier to use and can often be used underwater. Having their own camera will also hopefully reduce the chances of a small person dropping your phone out of a window of a moving car.
Once some photos have been taken, a nice creative activity that you can do together after returning from a trip, is to compile a scrap-book (or annotated album). Making a record of a holiday in this way is a good way to help children remember it at the time, as well as making for a lovely resource to revisit and spark memories when they’re older. These can either be done physically using printed photos and a paper book, like the Our Adventure Book Pixar Up Handmade DIY Family Scrapbook Photo Album Expandable 11.6×7.5 Inches 80 Pages, or else compiled online using a website such as Photobox, who will publish your creation for you into a hardcover book.
If you like the idea of making your own, check out these top tips for creating a family travel scrapbook.
If you’re looking to add a professional touch to your scrapbooks, or create other interesting looking items for gifts or to decorate things around the house, consider these design bundles and free illustrations that can be used to really enhance your designs.
Travel Journal
Similar to taking photos, writing a journal or diary while travelling is an excellent way for children to record the places they’ve been, along with some of their experiences from along the way. This all helps to create future memories. These are best done at the time of the trip, while memories and emotions are still fresh in the mind of the child. As well as creating a permanent charming record for a child to look back on in the future (I love looking at my holiday diaries from when I was a child!), the act of compiling them is also a great way to help develop literacy and creative writing skills in children.
They can of course just be written on any paper or notebook. However, some nice ones that have been specifically designed for this purpose and include extra activities are:
The Ultimate Travel Journal for Kids: Awesome Activities for Your Adventures
My Travel Journal (Lonely Planet Kids)
Story Books
There are some really nice story books out there for children that are full of global travel and adventure. These are an excellent way to inspire a sense of wanderlust. One such book (about Australia) is the first of an upcoming series of fictional adventures about siblings who journey around the World with the help of their magic snow globe, called Little James’ Big Adventures. Each story covers a new country, where new phrases, landmarks, cities and foods are discovered. It makes for a really engaging way to discover new places and will hopefully have your children itching to go there afterwards for themselves.
Another great idea are story books that also encourage the learning of a foreign language, like those from One Third Stories (see also our full One Third Stories review). These colourful and fun books for children gradually integrate foreign language vocabulary into each story, in order to seamlessly introduce and develop foreign language skills.
Walkie Talkies
Small, portable and relatively inexpensive, I find these make great toys for inspiring a sense of adventure in children. When taken travelling, a nice way to use them is to introduce a game of a ‘secret mission’. Make the children ‘spies’ and get them in character. This can not only keep them entertained for a bit but, I have discovered, can also help with their behaviour in public spaces (such as airports), as they will want to stay on their ‘mission’! Some good ones to try are the Tyhbelle Kids Walkie Talkies 2 pcs for Boys and Girls.
Backpack
Last (but not least), what intrepid explorer could ever have got anywhere without a decent backpack?
In any case, you’ll now need somewhere to keep all the other stuff in! These pre-school rucksacks come in a range of cute animal designs and are great for smaller children, though admittedly they won’t fit too much in.
In Summary
I think we should all be aiming to inspire our children to want to learn more about the World. The diversity on offer around the globe is truly mind blowing – It’s all out there just waiting to be discovered. I hope that I have been able to provide you with some good ideas and resources for how to start and develop this process of inspiring wanderlust.
I truly believe that a sense of adventure and a desire for new experiences should be things that we are all trying to foster in our children. Only by increasing their knowledge and understanding of the World in this way, can we hope to leave them with somewhere to live that values international cooperation, rather than focusing on division and difference. I like to think so anyway.
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How lovely that you can travel around the world. I’m sure your kids enjoy to live like that. And all those ideas and activities are really good. #KCACOLS
I used to take these miniture books of Madeline to Paris and match the illustrations with the real thing…there’s so many ways to see the world in their eyes. Nice post. #KCACOLS