Family Adventure Travel Tours & Trips

Phrases like ‘life-changing’ and ‘adventure’ may be overused, but they’re entirely apt for family holidays. A one or two-week break can become something important, helping form the character of children, instilling or nurturing passions and interests that last a lifetime, providing experiences for them to reflect upon and learn from. Future vets or conservationists may be made on the Serengeti savannah or among Borneo’s rainforest, budding chefs created in the pizza-making classes of Italy or kitchens of Vietnam. If that makes family holidays sounds like some dry exercise in skills-development, then it’s not – First and foremost though, they should be fun – the learning that occurs naturally along the way is always a bonus.

Taking your family out of their comfortable day-to-day home life is an adventure in itself. To take a break from the routine and see each other in a new way, to find out about one other is a pleasure. And whether you’re walking Himalayan trails or flying kites in Tiananmen Square, cruising past wildlife on Botswana’s Chobe River or walking to the summit of Mount Vesuvius, sharing new experiences and spending time in other cultures makes the ties that bind stronger.

A holiday is an adventure for children, but it’s likewise for parents. Holidays with children distils travel to its essential appeal – the excitement of being in new places and trying new things, the acceptance of different peoples and the unfailing wide-eyed wonder, whether it’s when confronting an iconic sight like the pyramids or during quieter moments such as overnighting in an exotic location – a Thai teak house, for example, or onboard a traditional gulet boat off the Turkish coast. The parts of childhood that burn brightest in the memory are not those burdened by routine, but when adventure takes hold, when the unexpected happens or the unusual is encountered.

And beyond those individual incidents, those moments to treasure for children and parents alike, there is the underlying joy that becomes apparent to all members of a family who travel together – that the world is actually a pretty friendly place, where cultures so unlike one’s own are nonetheless so welcoming and hospitable, and that to experience this fact in the company of those who mean the most to you is a life-enriching, wonderful thing.