How To Travel With Children In A Foreign Country

One thing that I really admire about my parents is that they didn't end their dreams of traveling after I was born. They just took me with them! Traveling overseas with a child does take some planning, though, since kids in general can be kind of unpredictable. In this article, I share my tips for traveling with children to a foreign country.

The Pros And Cons Of Traveling As A Child

Looking back, I realize how fortunate I was to have parents who took me traveling around the world with them. But I didn't always see it that way. There were days when I hated traveling and wished I could be a "normal" kid who spent her summers at home with her friends. In the end, the positive aspects of traveling outweighed the negative, but here are some things to keep in mind if you want to travel to exotic places with a child. PROS * It was exciting! How many kids get to go to China and Egypt? * I got to meet interesting people and try new foods. * Many of my friends complained that they were bored over the summer. I definitely wasn't. * I learned so much about different types of people and cultures. * I picked up phrases in various languages so it was educational. * I got plenty of fresh air. * I was exposed to arts, music, history and science from around the world. What better way to understand history than to actually see ancient ruins? * I was forced to grow up quickly, especially since most of the people we dealt with were adults. * I learned how to appreciate the fact that the world is made up of different kids of people so I became very open-minded. * My life became a lot more enriched because I was exposed to so many new things. CONS * For a kid, traveling was exhausting. We freqently took long haul flights or traveled for long distances on buses and trains. * It was lonely. Once in a while I found other kids to play with, but for the most part, I didn't have friends on the road. * I rarely got a break from my parents. This didn't bother me so much when I was 8 or 9, but by the time I was in my teens, I got sick of being with them every day, 24/7 for two months straight. * Some places were hot and uncomfortable - and yes, I whined. I was a kid after all! * I didn't have much time to simply play. I was always at the mercy of a schedule because we were always going to see something. Sometimes I wished I could have a break from all of that. Though there were some bad points, I still think that seeing the world was one of the best things I ever got to do. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Seeing Cats In Greece, 2011

My name is Naomi and I'm a crazy cat person. I proudly admit this. Jon is, too, though he probably wouldn't call himself "crazy." Because of this, we were very excited to travel to Greece. Sure, we were looking forward to seeing the ruins, eating the wonderful food and learning more about the culture, but we also wanted to see the cats. Because the Mediterranean is warm all year long and is by the water, it's a haven for feral cats. They probably traveled on the shipping boats long ago and are now plentiful in every Mediterranean country from Greece to Israel. In Greece, at least, many people treat them like pets so for the most part, the cats are semi-tame. Sure enough, we saw kitties everywhere! It was a cat lover's paradise. When we dined for lunch, they'd mill around the outdoor restaurants asking for food. One kept eating and eating the scraps we gave him and never seemed to get full. We named him Greedy Cat. Another cat and made herself at home in my lap. I called her Frisky. We hit the jackpot in Oia when we stopped at a cliffside cafe for dinner. The restaurant was located on a "cat highway" of sorts that led between the private homes and stores so about a dozen cats wandered through the eatery that night. One made friends with us so we named him Charlie. Some organizations are thankfully trying to do something about the cats and are having them spayed and neutered. Others feed the animals. Happily, all of the cats we saw -- 93 in all, yes we counted -- all looked healthy, especially the ones who hung out by the restaurants. We'll never forget the furry friends that we met while traveling around Greece. They made our trip even more purrfect.

Getting Stuck In A Massive Traffic Jam In Lagos, Nigeria, 2012

Prior to visiting Lagos, Nigeria, we received many warnings from our friend Kunbi, our friend whose wedding we attended over there. "Nigeria is a great place to visit, but I don't want you to have any surprises," she explained. One of the things which she warned us about were Lagos' massive traffic jams or go slows, as they call them over there. Because part of Lagos is on islands and there are no through roads, traffic can get bunched up pretty easily. She even told us how it had taken her now-husband six hours to get to the airport when it's only a few miles away. Yikes! During our first few days in Lagos, we were lucky. It was Easter weekend so fewer people were on the road than usual. That said, it didn't take us long to get anywhere. Kunbi's mother drove us all over town without incident and we made it to the wedding with plenty of time to spare. It was on our last day that we got the full Nigerian experience. We'd asked our driver to take us to a market that Kunbi had recommended, only we couldn't find the location. As we drove back in the opposite direction, we found that the road that went alongside our hotel was clogged with traffic. We tried to get through for about 30 minutes, then decided to go back around to the highway. There, it was even worse. We soon learned that the President's wife was in town -- and there was a broken down car near the bridge. So the blocked off roads and car caused a backup that went on for miles and miles. It ended up taking us over five hours to get to the airport. I've seen some bad traffic in New York City, especially during rush hour, but never anything like this. It was chaos. Happily, we had food and water in the car. We also had a great opportunity to people watch. Whenever there's a slow down, the Nigerians treat the stand still as if it's a mobile market. Men came by the cars selling EVERYTHING! We could purchase food, magazines, clocks, jewelry, lawn furniture, vases .... a man even came up to our car with a cage full of parrots! It was a slow-going but fascinating ride. Fortunately, we had more than enough time to say good-bye to Kunbi's family and to make it to the airport without missing our plane. But the experience made me very glad that we don't own a car -- and made me appreciate New York City's vast transportation system.

Naomi The Traveler Facebook Page

I have a new Facebook page for Naomi The Traveler! I'll be posting photos, videos and travel musings. Come on and check it out here.

Visiting Abu Simbel And Getting Stranded In Aswan, Egypt, 1984

People often ask me to name my favorite travel destination. This is nearly impossible since each place I've visited is very different, not to mention the fact that many I traveled to a long time ago. Out of all of the places I've been to, though, I definitely have the most number of memorable stories from Egypt. The following tale counts among one of the most bizarre stories of my life, period. It's going to sound like I'm going off on tangents, but everything comes together. Because my parents always traveled in the summer (this is when we all had off since they were school teachers), we often saw places during the off season -- including Egypt, where it was about 90 billion degrees outside. However, one advantage to traveling during this time was that we were often upgraded to fancier hotel rooms. This happened when we stayed in Aswan, Egypt. The hotel itself was lovely to begin with; it was very modern (for the '80s, anyway) and had a gift shop and huge outdoor pool. We checked in and were told to walk down the hall to our suite. We figured that this was just an expression until we actually entered the room and discovered that it was a duplex. A duplex! Our room had two floors and I had my own private space. After settling in, we relaxed for a while and I went for a swim. On the way, I passed through the book shop and was pleased to see that they had some books in English. I've always loved horror movies and especially liked gory films at that time, so my attention was caught by a book that had a severed head floating on the cover. It was titled Truly Muderous and cost $5 USD. I asked if we could purchase it and my parents refused -- not because they thought that I was too young to read it, but because they wanted me to get souvenirs that were relevant to Egypt. Anyway, I soon forgot about the book and looked forward to the next day's activities. We were going to see Abu Simbel, one of the most impressive ruins in Egypt. Not only that, we'd be flying there so we'd get a really cool view of the structures. The next day we awoke around 3 a.m. to make our flight. The idea was to fly in before sunrise so we could be there as the sun rose over Abu Simbel. My dad, of course, planned to take a photo as we flew in over it. When we reached the airport we learned that our seats weren't assigned so we came up with a game plan to snag a window seat for my father. Meantime, we sat in the waiting room with a bunch of young adults from Europe. For whatever reason, they decided that they hated us. They kept making faces at our family and my mom overheard them calling us "American pigs." My dad managed to get his window seat and picture and the ruins were awesome -- but these 20somethings kept bugging us. Wherever we turned, they seemed to be and they always had a nasty comment. I couldn't understand them, but when someone sticks her tongue out at you, it's never nice. They eventually shut up when my dad flipped them the middle finger. Things got even weirder when one of the guys propositioned my mom -- in front of my dad. Though I guess that was sort of flattering, at least... After dealing with all of this craziness, my mom suggested that we do something relaxing once we were back on the mainland. We'd seen many horse and buggies being led around so she chose that as our afternoon activity. She wanted to a visit a nearby village and thought it would be nice to just walk around and chill out for a while. We climbed into a buggy that was led by two kids who were maybe 13 or 14, a few years older than I was at the time. They promised to get us to the village in a short while and my parents negotiated on a price. However, it soon became evident that these boys had no idea where they were going because we were in the middle of nowehere. It was hot, I was tired and we all wanted to go home. Things quickly went from bad to worse when the buggy broke down. My parents refused to pay them in full and they angrily dragged their cart away, leaving us stranded on this dirt road. Now we were stuck in the middle of nowhere with no known way of getting back. Plus, it was midday so the sun was beating down on us. I began to panic. I'd say that it was because I was a kid, but truth be told, I'd probably panic now, too. Happily, luck was on our side and a few minutes later, a car came by. The driver stopped to offer us a lift and it turned out that he was an American expat. He drove us back to our hotel and warned us to be careful when getting around by ourselves. But did my mom learn her lesson? No! After relaxing for a while, we went back out. This time, she suggested that we take a ride on a felucca boat. I thought that she was nuts but my dad agreed. I guess they were determined to try every type of Egyptian transportation available. Fortunately, the felucca ride was delightful. It was early evening so there was a breeze. Also, the driver, a Nubian man, took us to his village and showed us around his home. We met his family and got to see how some of the locals lived. Later, when we returned to the hotel, we went for a swim. I'm not a great swimmer but used to be able to stay underwater for long periods of time. I also like to make little bets with my dad, so I bet him $5 that I could swim across the entire length of the pool underwater without coming up for air. "Fine," he said, "but you'll never be able to do it." I jumped in began swimming. I guess the other people heard us discussing our bet because they all cleared out of the pool for me and I had an audience. Everyone was cheering me on as if I were an Olympian. I swam until I thought my lungs would burst, but I made it! Everyone applauded and my dad promised me my money. I then enjoyed the pool for real and commented, "This ended up being such a nice day, so much better than when those girls were bothering us this morning." I then turned around ... and they were sitting right there! One of them gave me a little smile and wave, and I sunk back under the water. But I think that my swimming feat earned me some of their respect. After, my parents gave me my money and I'll bet you can guess what I purchased: Truly Murderous by John Dunning. It turned out to be a great book about real-life crime stories, including one that involved a wannabe vampire. But that book -- which I still have -- symbolizes more to me than my victory. It always reminds me of this crazy day in Egypt and how you just never know what's going to happen when you travel.

The Right Time To Travel: Why Now? Why Not?

Whenever I'm preparing to go on a trip or talk about some place I've been, I encounter someone who regards me with envy. "Oh, I wish I could do that" or "Wow, you're so lucky." "Then do it," I tell them. "If you really want to, you'll find a way how." More often than not, that person will have some excuse ready for why now isn't a good time. He or she is waiting for retirement. He's busy at work. Doesn't have enough money. I had one co-worker at my last job who made a good salary, had been working at the office for years so she had plenty saved up, and didn't have children. Yet she never went anywhere. She was always interested in hearing about my travels and I frequently urged her to go on her own journey ... and it never happened. When I brought her back a little magnet from Santorini, she eyed it wistfully and said with a sigh, "This is the closest I'm ever going to get to Greece." There was really nothing holding her back, though, and I don't understand what she was/is waiting for. I really hope that she does plan that trip sometime soon. In our case, Jon and I are both busy with work, but have managed to find a balance between our jobs and travel. We like our jobs and like having roots in New York City so we only plan trips that are a few weeks long at most. But for now, at least, we figure that it's better than nothing. It's at least a taste of the world. A few years ago, we took an almost impromptu trip to Ireland. We were only there for a few days and my parents, who are retired, wondered why we were bothering if we couldn't spend more time. Why not? was my answer. We were getting to see Ireland which was better than not seeing it. What were we supposed to do, wait until our retirement? I'm 38 and Jon is 40 so we're both still fairly young. We don't want to wait that long. We want to see the world now! We also like our lives in New York, but hey, we want it all. So we've found a way to incorporate shorter trips into our schedule. Who knows what kind of shape we'll be in when we're older or even HOW long we'll live? I believe that with most things, you can find a way to make your dreams come true. For us, it's having jobs we like, being close to our families AND traveling. We do our best to make all of this happen for us. You can, too. There's no RIGHT way or time to travel. So if you want to do it now, there's no sense in putting it off. Find a way. Make it happen. You won't be sorry.