Plan first international trip with kids
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Anonymous
In Italy I never had adverse experiences with thieves, which means either I didn't get stolen from or I got stolen from really effectively. |
Anonymous
Italy is very safe for tourists. Biggest concern is pickpocketing which is easy to avoid if you're paying attention to your stuff. |
Anonymous
I am the PP. Our first international trip with kids was actually to a different city in Asia to visit family when they were 2 and 4, and we stayed for two weeks. But we went to Kyoto for a week when they were 6 and 9 and thought it was perfect. Agree jet lag is worse coming back, but it was also over in a couple of days for my kids (more like a week for me). |
Anonymous
We've been to Asia three times with elementary-aged kids, and this has been our experience as well. On our last trip we landed in the evening, ate dinner (kids struggled to stay awake during dinner but managed to do it), slept through the night, and woke up early the next day. It was not too difficult to stay awake until a normal bedtime that night because we had exciting plans during the day. After that, the rest of the trip was pretty normal. Obviously different people will have different experiences, but for us a Friday-to-Sunday 10-day trip (including travel time) was totally doable and worth it. |
Anonymous
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Slightly OT, but if have not already done do, get their passports in order ASAP. There have been multiple threads on here recently on the delays the processing offices have been experiencing.
Would largely agree that unless Asia is of particular cultural significance to you that Europe would be better the first time out. |
Anonymous
| For 1 week, I’d choose the closer one. So England. It’s a 6 hours flight (so not too different from flying to California), I assume your flex before. The jet lag will be easier than Asia. For Asia, leave it for another time when the youngest is slightly older and when you’d have a bit more time. |
Anonymous
I think I would hesitate to take kids that age to Asia as their FIRST international trip/long-haul flight (unless it was to visit family). I also can't tell how long OP actually has for this trip, if it's really only 7 days including travel time, travel would just eat so much of that. 10 days like you did is much more worthwhile so you actually have a full week on the ground. |
Anonymous
Great advice. This is this year’s number one advice to anyone contemplating international travel - get your kids’ passports and check your passports for expiration prior to any “real” planning. Ask me how I know 😁 |
Anonymous
| Maybe you can compromise. Go to Turkey and spend time in both continents. In seriousness, you can do Europe or Asia. It just depends on what you want to see, how good you and your kids are at pushing through jet lag, etc. I agree that if you travel to Asia you’re better off focusing on one city or highlight that you want to have. Your time will be short and you will feel tired. With Europe you won’t necessarily feel exhausted or pressed for time. You can get a flavor of multiple cities and countries in a week’s time. You can also do one or two cities in depth. It really depends on how adventurous you are as a family, and what you want to focus your time seeing and doing. |
Anonymous
| If your kids are 8 and 5 they are definitely old enough for melatonin. I highly recommend it. It's not a sleep aid per se, just resets their clock to the right time zone. My child has basically zero jet lag when we use it. |
Anonymous
| Go to Paris and the beaches in France. My kids have been to both France and Italy twice and loved it! |