Could Out With The New And In With The Old Be Your Family’s Best Vacation Motto?
When we travel with our kids, most of us hope that exposure to new cultures and experiences will help them to develop a more rounded worldview. This is why, often, there’s a temptation to always reach for new destinations and excursions. In reality, though, when it comes down to it, shiny new experiences might not be the only potential travel benefit after all.
In fact, with many families also opting to invest in something like these holiday homes Cornwall, or even permanent pitches in overseas campsites that facilitate repeat visits, it’s obvious that recurrent trips also have a lot going for them. For kids, especially, recurring vacations can feel like a far more set and certain element of life. While you might not want to do away with new explorations altogether, then, we have put together a list of reasons why going out with the new and in with the old for at least some of your time away might be beneficial for your family after all.
An increased sense of relaxation
While any vacation should ultimately bring the benefit of relaxation, there’s often also a fair amount of stress involved in a trip that sees you navigating flight paths that you’ve never managed before or language barriers that are unlike anything you’ve known. For kids, this can throw up a fair amount of anxiety, at least until you reach your destination and settle in. Yet, that’s anxiety you can entirely negate by heading back to your family’s favourite locations more often than once. Regularly heading to, say, the same off-grid camping spot or caravan site can certainly see your kids (and you, for that matter), feeling chilled out from the second you leave home to the second you return, without once experiencing the stress or uncertainty of other forms of travel. By proxy, these repeat excursions are therefore more likely to help your kids enjoy well-rounded trips with benefits that they can tap right into at all times, instead of having to work through countless challenges to even order a drink for themselves at that full-board bar!
A chance to develop more meaningful friendships
Seeing our kids make friends when we travel is one of the best things for us as parents, especially if those friends speak different languages, or come from entirely different cultures. After all, what better way for our children to learn fast than to make connections like these? Yet, while a short connection made on a one-time trip is a plus point, it will rarely have the chance to become so deep-seated that our kids can benefit from the full scope of lessons on offer here. By comparison, trips that see us returning to the same places time and again can give our children the chance to develop more meaningful, deep-seated friendships with other children unlike themselves. Of course, to some extent, there’s no guarantee that the same kids will visit the same spots year in and year out, but opting for things like static caravan parks will typically see you coming to recognise and know at least a few families along the way. If their kids are the same age as yours, then it’s almost inevitable that lasting friendships will start to form at some stage.
A better cultural understanding
When it comes to developing the cultural understanding of young minds, regular visits to new locations often take the top spot. After all, there’s a strong feeling that the more locations you expose your child to, the better cultural scope they’ll have. Yet, while exposure is undeniably important, the reality is that a week-long trip to a destination that you barely scrape the surface of doesn’t hold as much cultural-educational importance as you might think. By comparison, recurrent trips that see you stepping away from the pool and touristy areas to shop where the locals shop and eat where locals eat are far more likely to provide lasting lessons in different ways of living. The fact that even vast cultural differences in these locations will become a norm for your kids within a few trips can especially help to ensure that your children grow up as accepting and culturally educated as they can be. Who knows, in the future, a lasting connection to that place you all love might even see your children opting to move overseas to truly immerse themselves in a different way of life!
A home away from home
Speaking of moving overseas, it’s also vital to note that, unlike hopping from one faceless hotel to the other when you all go away, visiting a set accommodation in a regular location can provide a home away from home for your family. For your kids, especially, the ability to visit the same spot throughout their lives can create a fantastic connection to your chosen destination, as well as providing them with yet another space where they feel as comfortable as possible. The memories that you all make here can especially work well when it comes to passing down the keys to your holiday home, caravan, or whatever, and could even see the next generation, and perhaps the one after that benefitting from the experience of a spot that you’ve chosen. This would never be possible if you took a trip somewhere different each year, and is guaranteed to lead to many happy family memories, and shared experiences that keep you all that bit closer than any other trip has the potential to do.
A final word
The appeal of visiting new places with your kids in tow is obvious, and there are certainly plenty of benefits on offer from doing so at least some of the time. That said, if you’re forever jetting off somewhere new, you may be missing out on these undeniable benefits of visiting the same locations more than once. Overcome that setback by considering once and for all whether out with the new and in with the old could end up working better for your family vacations after all.
