Locating Family
Activities, Events, &
Resources in
Manatee County
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There are many reasons I was never going to have children. The top two were: my love of uninterrupted reading
and my passion for adventure and travel. I could not imagine that I would ever want to give up either. I don’t know
why I thought having children meant that I would have to.
I have since had two children. I do plenty of reading; if you count The Hungry Little Caterpillar (ten times in a row). I
have had a ton of adventures (including a cesarean birth in a German hospital). I have also traveled to 5 countries
outside of the US with babies, toddlers and/or preschoolers or some combination thereof. Sometimes alone and
sometimes with my husband.
We were daring enough to go camping, for two weeks, in Italy with a 13 month old who was just starting to walk. We
hiked through Cinque Terre on the cliffs overlooking the Aegean Sea. We sampled ice cream in Austria. We took a
horse and carriage ride through Prague. We made it to the top of the Alps with our baby in the backpack. We just
recently flew to Germany with a four year old and a one year old. That’s over a nine hour flight. Talk about
adventures.
The thing is, travel with children can be incredible. You see things you never would have noticed without a child: a
patch of green grass in an otherwise gray city, birds and bugs and puddles and stars, and the smiles of perfect
strangers.
People speak the universal language of children. You get to really know a place by the way it treats its children. In
Italy, we were always treated to a quick basket of bread, some extra pasta. In Germany, the restaurant owners would
carry and parade our children around for all the customers to admire and coo over. In France…well, I don’t recall
any special attention.
Some of the advantages of traveling abroad with children are that other countries have some really special things
just for children. Cool parks, playgrounds inside the airports, pedestrian zones. They have special things for
parents too (they actually sell beer in those cool parks). If you have kids who love to be naked…they will fit right in.
And no one will stare disapprovingly while your child pees in the grass.
So don't be afraid to venture out with children, but before you plan your next trip, consider these tips:
Ten Tips for Travel:
1) Be flexible, put aside the agenda to see all the famous landmarks
2) Pack light, you don’t need 4 pairs of shoes, 8 pairs of pants (who can schlep two kids, car seats and 4
suitcases?)
3) Set the goal of doing only one thing per day, that’s enough for everyone
4) See the place through the eyes of your child, you might see something incredible
5) Have lot’s of snacks and drinks for flights (you never know when or what they will feed you)
6) Extra clothing for a quick change
7) Keep the toys to a minimum, one old/one new, some crayons and paper and a few books
8) Know that it will take you twice as long to move along and you’ll get to see about one quarter of what you
thought you would
9) Get plenty of rest
10) Travel with friends/family so that you may take each other’s children for a break
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