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Planning a Family Trip of a Lifetime
In the summer of 2007 writer Karen Stiller and her husband took their kids on a trip to parts of eastern and western Africa. Below, Stiller documents her family's journey along with a few useful tips for those thinking of taking their kids overseas.
We still can’t bring ourselves to take the map of the world off our wall.
The map has pins and red thread that lead from the heart of Southern Ontario to the heart of Africa. We set off last summer with our three kids to visit Burkina Faso, a country my husband had worked in years ago; Uganda, where our church supports schools for children and we sponsor two kids; and Kenya where we planned to see the wild beauty of the Mara Plains.
Traveling in the developing world with children—especially if you dare to go off the beaten path—carries with it challenges like endless night flights when they sleep and you don’t, vehicles that break down in the middle of nowhere, vomiting in unexpected places (like at least three African airports) and the realization that tired kids whine and fight no matter where in the world they are.
Here is a little of what we learned doing this kind of travel with our three kids, aged 12, 9 and 7.
Prepare Their Minds and Their Hearts
We pinned that map on the wall, traced out our route and talked about the countries we would visit. My plans to have the kids do extensive research on the history and politics of each country banged heads with real life. Very little of that actually happened. But we made sure they were familiar with our route and what we could expect to experience. (That being said, expect the unexpected.)
Prepare Your Bags
We packed a first aid kit for every health challenge we could think of, and we needed it all. This helped us deal with everything from dehydration due to high fevers to mending our seven year-old who cracked his noggin on a church window in a Kampala slum.
Remember to pack for hours in barren airport lounges. A deck of cards and set of instructions for family card games became our best friend. My kids are now Rummy pros. We left behind all iPods and anything else that would cut our children off from their experience.
Give Them a Journal and a Camera
Generous grandparents supplied our kids with their own cameras. They were able to record their trip, through their own eyes. Do not assume that you can run off to the corner store to buy new batteries or a new photo card. (You might be able to, but pack accordingly).
I also engaged in “forced journaling” with our kids, every night they sat down with their inexpensive notebooks and pencils and wrote (or sometimes drew) what they had experienced that day. They will have those for life.
Keep Talking
Now that our trip is over, we hope that our children’s journey to greater knowledge and sensitivity to the world is just beginning.
We talk about Africa more than we ever have. For Christmas, they all received enlargements of their favourite shots, and they have each written about their trip for kid’s magazines. If Africa is in the news, we share what we are reading.
Our friends and family kept calling our adventure the “trip of a lifetime,” and in a sense that was true. But we wanted it to be a trip that would shape the three lives of our children—for a lifetime. And we think it just might have.
Keep Learning
For educational resources to help teach your children about global citizenship and international development issues, click here.
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