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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
What a strange question for us international families, who visit parents and grandparents abroad every year.
Let me recount my personal experience as a child visiting family in different countries, as well my children's.

Your children, depending on their level of involvement and personality, will only have very limited memories of their visits abroad before the age of ten. It will be in the form of snapshots/visuals of certain events they really liked or for some reason stuck in their minds. So they may recall a certain distinctive hotel room (as I did at 5, the Parisian doorkey was in the shape of mic and I pretended to sing like a rock star, I chased pigeons all down the avenues, I loved the carousels), or a certain dinner with particular food and family (traditional tatami Japanese dinner at 7), or a highly unusual entertainment (camel rides in Lanzarote), but sometimes not the name of the place or the exact timeline. The first international trips I recall with a clear sense of continuity were as a preteen.

So it's up to you to determine whether you want to spend the money or not. Sometimes a trip *you* really want to do will just be for the photo op: "Hey kiddo, you went there when you where 2!". I know it's hard to wait when you want to show your children the world! Trust my experience, OP. If you want them to truly benefit from an intellectual and cultural standpoint, wait at least 5 years.[/quote]

i went to paris for 3 weeks when i was 8 and i have so many memories from that trip. sure, they are not necessary "important" sites, but that is not the point of travel - at all.

also, many memories from my travel as adult are very limited. after some point, it is the experience, not the age that determines what is remembered.[/quote]

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