Travel, Daily Life, Adventure
How is traveling with children different from traveling with adults? My children’s first overseas trip was always 23 months old. From 24 months on, I had to pay for one person’s flight, so I went on a trip at 23 months, where I could raise as much as I could but only pay 10 percent. The first is Singapore and the second is New York for my second birthday.
When I went to New York, I couldn’t help it because it was 23 months old, but my seven-year-old sister read a lot of picture books about New York. I’ve seen several movies set in New York, including Batman and Home Alone 2. If I knew anything about New York, I thought I’d be thrilled to travel there, “Oh, here!” If you’d been to London, you’d have seen Harry Potter.
But Kkotnim said at the New York Plaza Hotel, “This is where Eloise lives! “Wow, I’m actually here.” Far from being moved, I didn’t even remember which book I saw. Instead, when I read the book after I came back from my trip, I was surprised, “Wow, this is the Plaza Hotel I went to!”
That’s when I realized. Oh, they’re the main characters. Not because of others, but because of me! It’s not because of celebrities or famous works but because of me that some places have meaning!
After that, I don’t try to tell you specifically about the destination in advance. Still, children don’t waste any of their travel experience and use it as a foundation to expand their world.
Even in travel destinations, children travel from a different perspective than adults. Adults like famous places, exotic places, but what kids like on their trips are unexpectedly signs, traffic lights that are different from our neighborhood, and so on. It’s because they don’t yet have a notion of a traditional routine that makes them feel “foreign.” So they don’t care about foreign temples, they dig dirt in front of them, and they’re fascinated to see ants, and they remind their parents of what they’re doing. So it’s nice. It doesn’t matter if you don’t travel abroad. Everyday life is an adventure, and for traveling children, the main street in the neighborhood is a wonderful place to travel.
“A Promise” (Marie Dorléan writing, painting/JEI talent education) is also the best way to make your daily life feel unfamiliar and like you’re on a trip. In the middle of the night, a mother wakes up the sleeping children.
“Guys, we have an appointment?”
Children and parents go to the forest in the middle of the night to feel the moonlight. It is a picture book that becomes more sensitive to light because it is dark. How blue the night sky is actually, how dreary the train lights are passing by, and how plain and full of starlight is on the table.
If you open the last page, it will be dazzling. You’ll probably live this kind of life when your child is born. Not going far, but looking at everyday life strangely, discovering the jewel-like moments in it. Of course, I have to endure the hard and hard times climbing high mountains like the family in this book. But it’s okay. We’re a family that doesn’t stop playing for a moment, even if we have to walk deep into the night until we see the rising morning sun.
Living with a child changes everything, and everything doesn’t change. It’s the same as traveling. Every day something new happens, and we learn from it. Traveling is the best school ever.