5 Ways To Raise A Travel Enthusiast

Travel is a brilliant way to broaden the mind, engage with other cultures and create life-long memories. Here’s how to raise young pioneers that can’t wait to travel:

Capture their imagination

Places to go. People to meet. Adventures to be had. Travel is full of opportunity! By encouraging our children to use their imagination before you even get out your suitcase, we encourage them to explore the notion of travel in a safe environment. Picture books are a great way to present the concept of holidays and new cultures from toddlerhood. Take a look at:

Richard Scarry's: Busy, Busy World

Travel the world with 33 stories featuring destinations such as New York, Paris, Egypt, Tokyo and Australia. A worldwide adventure with delightful travel related illustrations to explore

Maira Kalman's: Next Stop Grand Central

An engagingly captioned picture book that captures the excitement and hustle and bustle of travel through the depiction of New York’s Grand Central Station.

Barefoot Books: World Atlas



A beautifully depicted book packed with info on different cultures and communities across the globe – an alternative to Googling everything for them!

Adventure-based books like Rick Riordan's travel books are great for older children. Riordan teaches his readers about world history and mythology in a fun way, so they’ll be excited to engage with it in real life.

Get learning a second language

A child’s brain is developmentally best-suited to accept and learn a foreign language up to the age of 8 years old (when they start losing the ease to hear and reproduce new sounds). Meaning the younger a child is exposed to a second language, the easier it is for them to pick it up!

Luckily for our kids it’s never been easier to start learning a second language through apps, YouTube videos and fun toddler language classes.

Have a look at Gus on the Go and Teach Kids Languages to get your child started with a new language from home.

Experience different cultures at home

When you can’t travel, bring travel home. There are many ways you can experience different cultures without leaving your city. Try new foods from local world food stories, cook exotic recipes together, try Spotify for foreign playlists and chat about different national dress, sports and cultural customs.

CBeebies’ show Where in the World and My World Kitchen are a nice way to introduce pre-schoolers to new cultures from the comfort of home.

Encourage their curiosity

In the busyness of modern life, it’s easy to hurry our kids away from their nature curiosity. Part of raising a travel enthusiast is raising a child who is excited about the world around them, wherever they are.

Let them be curious. Let them stop and look at textures and colours on their walks through town or to the school gates. Let them stop you to ask questions about sounds and sights, people and animals. The more we can celebrate their joyful desire to slow down and take in the small stuff as children, the easier they’ll find it to do as adults – when we find out the small stuff is the important stuff.

Start travelling with them

The sooner they get to experience the thrill of exploring new environments – the better! If you’re put off by the idea of how your family will handle long journeys together, preparation is key. Plan for any long car/train/plane stretches with a pack of Journey Play Prompts from our friend and early years specialist Claire Russell of Play Hooray.

How have you started to get your Hotdogs engaged with travel?