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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Do. Introduce them to traveling young so that they will be good travelers later. [/quote]

Yes...I agree. I took my oldest kid to Tokyo, Paris, and Hawaii from 15 months to 2.5 yo+. She's a fantastic traveler now, and even did well on that Hawaii flight as a 2.5 yo.[/quote]

Not at all necessary. We did not do this and our kids are still great travelers. You are free to travel however you like, but this is not the “reason” you have a good traveler. [/quote]

I disagree. As much as I love going places, travel itself is draining, filled with plenty of unknowns and last-minute changes. Learning to navigate that is important to enjoying travel. Trying to get a teenager, who has never traveled across time zones, missed a flight, slept in an airport due to weather delays to "enjoy" traveling is a challenge. This was one of my sister-in-laws experiences with both her kids - they waited until the kids were older and now they never go anywhere because the kids don't want to explore, try new foods etc. The other sister-in-law started at infancy with her kids - they are both willing to get through the miserable parts of travel to get to the good parts. So I do think starting young helps the kids to appreciate travel. Our own kids - we started around the year mark, and I learned a lot about how best to manage a family while traveling - the things we needed to make the bad parts better, types of locations and activities that we all enjoyed. I don't believe our kids would be the seasoned travelers they are today without that early start and consistency.  [/quote]

I think part of it is the personality of the kids.  I started travelling at six months old, have always loved it, etc.  But one of my best friends in college left Wisconsin for the first time when she went to college in Massachusetts, got her bag, purse, and phone stolen in succession the first time she went to NYC by herself at 20 and had lots of silly little things go wrong on her first international trip (to Canada, with me; we almost missed our connecting flight, her credit card got flagged the first time she tried to use it abroad because she didn’t know to call her bank and tell them she’d be travelling, etc).  She’s one of the most enthusiastic travellers I know as an adult.  I have several friends who are capable travellers but don’t enjoy it at all and only do it under duress and some of them did travel as kids.[/quote]

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