Showing My Kids the World Changed How I See It Too
I've been travelling since I was 22. Backpacking through Southeast Asia. Long weekends in European cities. Business trips that I'd stretch into solo explorations. I thought I knew what travel was.
Then I watched my daughter see the ocean for the first time.
We were in Bali. Lily was standing at the edge of the water in Sanur. She was 6 at the time. She looked out at the horizon, then up at me, and said: "Mum, it goes forever."
I've seen dozens of oceans. I've never really looked at one the way she did in that moment. Like it was the most extraordinary thing in the world. Because to her, it was.
That's what travelling with kids does. It makes you see everything again.
The Slow Down
Before kids, I was an optimizer. Maximum sights in minimum time. Wake early, walk 20,000 steps, check off every landmark, eat at the best-reviewed restaurant, collapse into bed, repeat.
With Lily and Max, that pace is physically impossible. And something unexpected happened when I was forced to slow down: I actually experienced the places I visited.
In Kyoto, Lily sat by a koi pond for 15 minutes without moving. Just watching the fish. I sat next to her. I watched the fish too. The light was changing on the water. A breeze moved the maple leaves. It was the most peaceful 15 minutes of the entire trip.
Pre-kids, I would have glanced at the pond, checked it off, and walked to the next temple. Post-kids, that pond is one of my strongest memories from Japan.
Travel with children is slower. It's also deeper.
The Questions
Max asks "why" about 200 times per day. On a normal day at home, this is exhausting. On a travel day, it's illuminating.
"Why is that building so old?" "Why do they eat with chopsticks?" "Why is the water that colour?" "Why does that man have a monkey?" "Why do people here talk different?"
Each question forces me to think about something I'd otherwise walk past without noticing. Why IS the architecture different here? Why DO different cultures eat differently? The questions a 4-year-old asks are often the same questions that travel writers spend 2,000 words trying to answer.
Lily's questions are different. More observational.
"Mum, why does everyone here smile more than people at home?" (Thailand. She wasn't wrong.)
"Mum, the streets smell different in every country." (Morocco. She was very right.)
"I think the trees here are happier." (Bali. I don't know what she meant but I felt it too.)
The Friendships
Kids connect across language barriers in a way adults have forgotten how to do.
Max met a boy at a beach in Koh Lanta. They were both 4. One spoke English, the other spoke Thai. They played for 3 hours without sharing a single intelligible word. They used a ball, sand, water, and laughter. By the end, they were holding hands walking along the shoreline.
I took a photo. It's my favourite photo from the entire trip. Two kids from different sides of the planet who found each other on a Tuesday afternoon and decided that language was optional.
I think about that photo a lot. About how we complicate things as adults. How we let differences stop us from connecting. How a ball and a beach are enough when you're 4.
The Hard Parts
I'm not going to pretend it's all koi ponds and beach friendships. Travelling with kids is genuinely hard sometimes.
Max melted down in the Lisbon airport over the dinosaur X-ray machine incident. (We've now discussed this extensively. He has processed it. The dinosaur has not.)
Lily got homesick in month 3. She missed her friends, her room, her routine. We video called her best friend and she cried for 20 minutes. I held her and felt like the worst parent in the world for pulling her out of school and dragging her across Asia.
The next day, she caught a fish with her bare hands in a stream in Chiang Mai and said it was the best day of her life. Kids are emotional rollercoasters. You ride them.
There was a week in Japan where both kids were sick, David was exhausted, I hadn't slept properly in 5 days, and our Airbnb was cold. I sat in the bathroom and cried quietly because I didn't want the kids to see me cry. Then Lily knocked on the door and said "Mum, there's a cat outside and it looks like it wants to be our friend." So we went and befriended the cat and everything was fine.
The Photos
I take more photos now than I ever did before kids. Not because I'm trying to create content (though we do share some). Because these moments are finite.
Lily will only see the ocean for the first time once. Max will only discover koi fish once. They'll only be this small, this curious, this amazed by the world for a brief window.
I document everything. My phone storage is a disaster. My iCloud bill is climbing. I don't care.
Having reliable phone data through our GOAN eSIM means my phone is always ready. Not "let me connect to Wi-Fi first." Not "let me find a signal." Just: pull out phone, capture the moment, keep living.
I took the beach friendship photo from 10 meters away so I wouldn't disturb them. I took the koi pond photo without Lily knowing because she would have posed instead of being still. I took the ocean photo from behind, Lily silhouetted against the water, because her face looking out at infinity was too sacred to interrupt.
These photos exist because my phone worked. It sounds trivial. It's not.
What They'll Remember
I asked Lily what she remembers most from the trip. I expected her to say the balloon ride in Cappadocia (which we didn't do this trip, but she's heard about it from other travellers). Or the ryokan in Hakone. Or Angkor Wat.
She said: "The cat in Japan. And the fish I caught. And when Max made a friend with the ball."
None of those cost money. None were planned. None were in any guidebook.
The things kids remember are the things that adults rush past. A stray cat. A stream. A ball on a beach. The quiet, unstructured, unoptimized moments between the activities you planned.
Why We Did This
David and I could have waited. Waited until the kids were older, until they'd "appreciate it more," until we'd saved more money, until the timing was better.
There's always a reason to wait. And the waiting never ends.
We did this because Lily is 7 and Max is 4 and the world is vast and wonderful and they deserve to see it now. Not through a screen. Not through a textbook. In person, with bare feet and sticky fingers and questions that start with "why."
We did this because showing our kids the world changed how WE see it. Not the other way around.
And we'd do it all again. Dinosaur X-ray meltdowns and all.
For Parents Considering This
Start. Don't overthink it. A 2-week trip is enough to change how your kids understand the world. A month is transformative. Six months is life-defining.
The logistics are solvable. The packing gets easier. The flights become routine. The budget is lower than you think.
The one thing you can't solve later is the moment. Lily at the ocean. Max with the ball. The koi fish in the autumn light.
Those moments are now. Go find them.
