You Have to Start Somewhere

People often ask me when I got so hooked on traveling, especially when they see that I'm still going all over with a child in tow. It really started with my honeymoon seven years ago. Until my wedding, I had never really been out of the country. Oh, I had gone to the Bahamas, but it was a pretty canned experience and it didn't feel very different from any other beach in the U.S. When we got married, however, Josh and I shocked everyone we knew by choosing to honeymoon in Luxor and Cairo, Egypt. Looking back on it, it was probably a crazy thing to do as neither of us had ever been out of the country on our own, we couldn't read or speak Arabic, and we pretty much had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. It still reigns as my favorite trip.

Going to Egypt taught me that experiencing the unknown, and even embracing it, isn't always a bad thing. I think it's the fear of the unknown that keeps a lot of parents from believing that traveling with children is possible. What if they don't do well on the plane or in the car? What if it's really different when we get there? What if we can't find a place to eat with food they like? And, as if all the questions and apprehensions parents may have just on their own weren't enough, there's also no shortage of websites and news articles sharing stories of how horrible it is being around small children while on travel. My advice: don't believe everything you read and hear and don't give up if your first experience is a bad one. True, it's not always sunshine and roses. We've had really good experiences and really bad experiences in our many travels, but traveling, be it to great grandmas or Great Britain, can become a truly rewarding part of your life if you allow yourself to just let go and experience it as it happens. In reality, traveling with a child is much like eating vegetables when you're a kid. Yes it's different and everyone has their horror stories, but, really, you won't know if you (or your child) will like it until you try it. Who knows, maybe you'll be the kid who loves brussel sprouts.