Why you SHOULD plan family trips with your baby

Car sickness, bumpy rides, crammed seats… traveling can be a stressful experience, especially with young passengers in the car.

Long journeys disrupt your baby’s sleep patterns, leaving them stressed, confused, and exhausted. Even the shortest trips can quickly turn into a nightmare of family squabbles. It’s no surprise that parents are hesitant to travel with their children. It’s especially difficult for new parents who are still getting used to having a new member of the family.

Traveling, can, however, be a fantastically enriching experience for young children, if you plan your journey ahead of time.

Within the first three years, the brain develops at a staggering rate of 75%. This is the time when neural pathways are formed, and it is at this critical stage that a child’s interpersonal skills and ability to learn later in life are laid. The brain is stimulated by every experience a child has, whether it’s the shake of a rattle or the sight of trees whizzing past a car window. It develops their cognitive ability to dissect, analyse, and respond to information while teaching them about the world around them. The advantages don’t stop there.

Children who travel experience new landscapes, hear new sounds and languages and become immersed in different cultures. They will discover, whether consciously or unconsciously, that the world is larger than the small portion of it that they have so far seen.

Traveling strengthens family bonds by allowing you to share both positive and negative experiences. Furthermore, taking your children on regular trips will help them become better travellers as they become more familiar and comfortable with the process.

So start them young and don’t be afraid to travel with babies – they may not remember playing in the waves in Durban or how delicious the ice-cream in Cape Town was, but they will gain invaluable life experience in the process.