I’ve been following various travel blogs for a few months now, and realized that while we travel with our kids, ours is not really a family travel blog. Is it?
First of all, our name is wrong.
It looks like most “family blogs” include the word “kid,” “mom,” or “family” somewhere in the title.
We’re simply “Casual Travelers.”
Also, most family travel blogs (though not all) tend to post articles about planning beach vacations, best ways to entertain kids on the airplane, or list most kid-friendly restaurants in a given city.
In other words, most family travel blogs are, in general, very kid-centric.
We don’t do that either.
Looking at my recent and featured posts, I realized that it isn’t exactly obvious that we travel with kids – an eight- and a thirteen-year-old – mostly because we post very few photos of them.
We simply tend to write about the places and things we’ve seen.
Likewise, while we do have posts about more typical family vacation destinations such as the SeaWorld, or the Warner Bros. Studio Tour, we also write about museums or places where our kids kept asking “ARE WE DONE YET?!”
And while we generally mention how our kids reacted to a place we’d visited, overall we seem to focus just as much, if not more, on our reaction to what we’ve seen.
That is rather atypical for family blogs as well.
Is that wrong, though? Are we missing or misleading a huge chunk of our intended audience – families who travel with kids – by making our blog less kid-centric, and by giving more depth and adding history to our posts?
I don’t think so.
People ask us sometimes
“Do your kids actually like traveling and going to all those museums and sightseeing?”
At that point we usually laugh, and answer
“No, but they don’t have a choice.”
Our kids have learned that this is what we do on vacation – we travel, and we sightsee, which usually involves stopping in random places to admire the landscape, or visiting some sort of at least mildly educational attraction like a historical place or museum.
Then, when we go back to the hotel or our rental, we relax and either go to the pool or the beach, or just hang out. They kids get to have some fun, but we (the grownups) get to do some things we want to do as well.
The funny thing is, sometimes they get surprised by how much they like a place even though they weren’t expecting it.
My daughter loves castles, so she was very happy to see the Castelo dos Mouros in Sintra, Portugal, but my son didn’t want to go there. However, once he climbed up to the highest point he was awe struck by the magnificent view stretching out below.
Similarly, I wasn’t sure about taking the kids to the Thyssen Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, Spain, especially the day after we saw the Museo Nacional del Prado, where they whined pretty much THE. WHOLE. TIME.
But to our surprise, it turned out both kids liked modern art much more than the classics of the Prado, and my daughter got fascinated by pointillistic paintings, spending quite a bit of time (for a seven-year-old) examining “the dots” and how they compose together into a scene.
That’s what I like about traveling with our kids – sometimes we see places that stretch their comfort zone, and it’s incredibly exciting and rewarding to see their smiles or the look of fascination on their faces as they examine either the view, the painting, or the information about the place they didn’t expect to like.
That’s why I keep writing, even though our blog may not be exactly what a family looking for ideas for next typical family vacation would expect – because I believe there are families out there who are like us.
I believe, and hope, there are families who travel with kids, because … well, because they have kids so the kids go wherever the parents go, but their vacations and their voyages are not about the children and what they want to see.
So if you’re looking for posts along the lines of “Five best things to see in x with your kids,” you might want to look elsewhere.
But if you simply like reading about places you’ve been to or want to see, whether you travel with or without kids, I hope you’ll like our blog, and keep reading.
We promise we’ll be honest and as thorough in our descriptions as possible, to help you make up your mind whether you would like to go there, or to give you a good idea of what it’s like, even if you’ll never visit that place.
* * *
By the way, that photo at the beginning of the post? That was taken at the end of our week-long vacation to the U.K., which was after we’d already spent a week at a ski resort in Poland. As you can see, our kids have clearly had enough of sightseeing by then, and seeing the famous London Bridge elicited merely a shoulder shrug. If you’re traveling with kids, you might get a similar reaction toward the end of your trip.
On the other hand, both kids did love the Warner Bros. Studio Tour “The Making of Harry Potter.” We had been traveling for over a week by then, but they love Harry Potter so much, we spent hours at that place.
It’s a give and take every time.
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Reading this brought back great memories of vacations with our kids. We didn’t travel much, but when we did we had our share of both whining and happy surprises. In other words, we’re a normal family, too. You just travel more. What awesome memories those kiddos will have when they grow up!
Susan recently posted…Mourning the Seasons of My Life
Thank you very much for chiming in, Susan! I hope you are right 🙂 and that they will remember traveling as kids as fun times.
Your kids sound a lot like mine. They’ve asked me why we keep taking them places. The answer is that I wanted to go there, and they go where I go. Some people say that my kids are so lucky to get to travel the world, but I’m not sure that they see it that way. As they get older, I try to include them somewhat in the planning, and I’m occasionally surprised that their interests are aligned with my own. Many times, it’s totally about what the adults want to do. For the most part, I think I’m also like you in that I’m not completely focused on blogging about the kid aspect of where we go. I incorporate it if it’s especially compelling, but many times, the post is here’s what I loved — and oh yeah, my kids happened to be there, too.
Michele {Malaysian Meanders} recently posted…Live from New York
Thank you for reading, Michele! I am so glad to hear you have the same approach to traveling with kids as I do! I loved the comment “oh yeah, my kids happened to be there, too.” Heh 🙂 I think it’s important for kids to learn that the world doesn’t evolve around them and the parents have the right to do something they like as well.
We travelled quite a bit as children, both locally and internationally which I think accounts for my wanderlust now that I’m unlikely to ever lose. Your children are so lucky to have the travel experiences and for you to have those experiences and memories with them.
Thank you for reading, Toni, and for your kind words. I hope my kids will grow up to be travelers as well, just as you are.
You’ve pretty much described how we travel too! Yes, there are “are families out there who are like us”, we’re one of them. My blog has a very similar focus – we always travel with kids, but you may not pick that up from a casual reading. Keep it up – I’ll be reading!
Fairlie recently posted…Meet a stranger a day. Get involved!
Thank you for reading, Fairlie! I am so glad to find out you travel with kids as well, and you are right, that’s not exactly obviously from your blog, which probably is why I like it so much.
This sounds exactly like how I used to travel with my family as a kid! Everything we did was based on what my parents wanted to do, and I enjoyed (almost) every minute of it. When we were very little, they’d get an early dinner for my younger brother and then he’d fall asleep at the table while the rest of us went out for a nice dinner. We have tons of photos of him passed out with a wine bottle under his arm because my parents (and the waiters) thought it was hilarious.
Richelle @Adventures Around Asia recently posted…China Culture Shock #5: Selfies with Monks
Thank you for reading, Richelle! I’m glad you have fond memories of travel with your family. I hope my kids will to, and that in the future they will continue to travel, just as you are.
Great article! I think you can have a blog where you travel with the family, yet not make it really kid-centric. It sounds like your kids get to see many places, some of them educational, some kid-friendly, some sights and famous places and views….a bit of everything! Thanks for linking up with Weekend Wanderlust and we’re happy you’re enjoying our community! 🙂
Lauren recently posted…Surfing in Bermuda: Learning to Surf with Isolated Surfboards
Thank you for reading, Lauren! And yes, the kids do get to see a bit of everything. I hope they’ll grow up to be travelers just as you all in the Weekend Wanderlust community are.
Our kids are all grown up, but I recognized a lot of what they did and said in your post. I think your blog is fine just the way it is. Keep up the good work! Enjoy the holidays.
Corinne recently posted…Weekend Travel Inspiration – Germany
Thank you for reading, Corinne! I’m glad to hear your ways of traveling with your family were the same, and that you think we don’t need to change our blog. Enjoy the holidays as well!
“No, but they don’t have a choice.” 😀 This made me smile. I know this line! I totally see what you’re saying about how your blog differs from other “family travel” blogs, but I think everyone is just different and that’s what makes reading blogs interesting! I would get bored if everyone had the same dang posts lol Kids are a part of the family, so it’s not always necessary to go out of your way to target their view of something, because you’re the one writing, after all 🙂
I actually label my blog as a Family travel blog, but I do travel a lot alone also. The reason for same was I wanted to portray may blog as family friendly and we do travel with our kids.
Coming to your blog I think more important than labels like family travel, solo travel, backpacker blog which focuses on the traveler one should focus on the experience that a journey / destination offers, and you come trumps on that. So keep traveling and keep sharing. thanks 🙂
Prasad Np recently posted…Ganesha In Thailand
Thank you for reading, Prasad. I am glad you agree that more important is the experience of travel, and not catering to the kids. The world is so big and so interesting, that I am a bit sorry for the kids whose parents take them to the same place year after year, even if it is the amazing Disneyworld or Disneyland.
Wow, I hadn’t picked up on you having kids at all! What an interesting approach to blogging! Love the photo at the start of the post…..can think of many family holidays where I felt exactly like that at the end!
Gemma recently posted…Driving the Dempster Highway to the Arctic Circle, Canada
I don’t know how I missed this post before! Spot on about how you (and we) travel with kids! We travel and they get to do what we do and honestly, most of the time, they enjoy the museums, sightseeing, nature based, or other travels which people think only adults will enjoy. Enjoyed reading this and nice to know there are other ‘family travellers’ like us 🙂
samiya selim recently posted…Visit to Maraeti beach along the stunning Pohutukawa Coast, East Auckland