"Travelling has created my way of seeing things. I would want nothing less for my children"

TRAVELLER ID

Names: Elisa, Mirko, Emanuele and Lorenzo

Instagram: ema_lori_traveling_the_world

Ages: 42, 47, 6 (Emanuele) and 9 (Lorenzo)

Nationality: Italian

Peculiarities: Always on the go 

Type of traveler: Family on the road

Most beautiful place you've been to: Perenthian Island, Malesia

Motto: The only limits are those we set for ourselves

Elisa, could you describe your family?

I’m 42 years old and I’m an architect. My husband is 47 and he’s an entrepreneur, so we both have flexibility. The children at the moment are 6 and 9 years old, but they have been travelling forever. We also have a dog. He doesn't travel with us (laughter), but he goes to stay with grandma.

How do you travel?

You are looking at the family’s tour operator. Basically I start tracking flights a few months before we go. Skyscanner is generally my reference for this part. Then when a good flight comes up, meaning a flight with a reasonable price and without a thousand changes, I show it to my husband. If he agrees, I’ll buy it. At that point, I start thinking about where to go and what to see. The next step for me is generally to purchase domestic flights. Once I get them, I start checking hotels or apartments, car rentals or other ways to get around. Then that's it, I don't plan the trip in every single detail.

When do you travel, now that your kids go to school?

Before our kids went to elementary school, we had a little more flexibility, of course. Now we are more limited. We travel in the summer, during Christmas and Easter vacation. Every now and then we tell each other we should take advantage of every long weekend, but then we decide to take 2 or 3 more substantial trips. I plan in advance so I can find better prices. Also, Mirko and I are trying to adjust our work schedules to maybe take one less trip, but longer ones, so we can visit more than one country, maybe one area. Ideally for us, we would leave in the summer for 2-3 months. Right now it would still be difficult with our jobs.

Did you already have a passion for travel before having kids?

Yes, absolutely! We have always travelled according to our economic and time possibilities. Before the kids we had a lot more free time, but I was working a lot more. After our kids were born, we didn’t feel the need to travel less, take different kinds of trips or stay closer to home. I need to hear foreign languages to take a break. I can’t help it. My passion for travel is somewhat genetic. My parents have always loved to travel. Mirko, on the other hand, started travelling because his family, partly for economic reasons, never travelled. As soon as he could afford it, he went as far away as he could. We really hit it off on that point. 

Why do you want your children to experience travelling?

I have never returned from a trip the same way as I left. I have always brought back something with me, and my children, from a very young age, have always experienced this for themselves as well.  My oldest son, at 9 months in the North Cape, he learned to crawl. Later their major life changes frequently were linked to one of our trips. It was like the trip somehow detached them and us from a routine, from a habit, and made them take another step forward. This is baggage we carry with us. Now that I have been traveling for many years, talking to people, I realize how much all the travelling I have done around the world has created my way of seeing things, even when the experiences were painful, heavy or difficult. I would want nothing less for my children. For my kids, travelling has given them incredible flexibility and adaptability. Even when we don't travel and we have to go to a restaurant, they taste food that they have never even seen before. They have never had issues with that. They never had problems sleeping in different beds, or trusting people, regardless of the color of their skin or the language they spoke. These things in my opinion are priceless, and it is very difficult to pass them on to children without these direct experiences.

How do your kids feel about all this travelling?

When people started to be able to move around again after the lockdown, my kids immediately asked, "When can we get back on a plane?" In our daily lives, my husband and I normally have a level of stress and commitments. When we travel, however, it’s just us. We can give our children all our time and we are much less stressed. I myself am more stressed in my normal life than when I travel, even though I may be travelling at a hectic pace and have to worry that everything is working well. Actually, I'm physically busy but I'm much more relaxed and the children feel your emotional state. In my opinion, that does a lot for them. They associate travel with an emotional state of more serenity, presence and sharing. Then they like to come back with lots of things to tell everyone. Now that they are also starting to speak English quite well, when they are abroad it’s a proving ground for them. In fact, we encourage them to talk to people. Then when they go back to school, they can see how useful the things they learn on their trips are.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of the way you travel?

The advantage is that for me it would have been a terrible imposition to have to think about going maybe 13/14 years of my life without travelling just because I had young children. It's something that would have been very difficult and it would probably have had an impact on my kids. Another plus: all the faces all the different cultures we met, all the different foods we tasted. All the knowledge we gained and all the beauty we have seen. One of the images I carry in my heart is from the last trip we took before Covid. We went to Brazil and among the places we saw was Iguazú Falls. It’s a place that I didn’t expect to be so powerful. I just started crying. Not only aesthetic beauty, but beauty in an absolute sense. Beauty that makes you vibrate and makes even children vibrate. That, like so many other places, is valuable in terms of life experiences and emotions I carry with me even in the darkest moments. Clearly there are also many difficulties. So much good often goes along with much hard work. Travelling with adults is easier in so many ways, particularly in terms of time management and getting around. Children have their own personal needs, and they may not necessarily be willing at a certain time to come to terms with that need. If a child has to pee, he has to pee. If he is hungry, he is hungry. Travelling with children, you have to think about giving them time where they can just play. They need free time. In general, you have to come to terms with their needs, and sometimes it’s very tiring. Every time we come back, my husband and I think about going away for a week just me and him, but every time I have to make reservations, I have a hard time not including our children. We feel too bad and we haven't succeeded yet (laughter).

Can you tell me about a difficult situation you had while travelling with your kids?

The first trip with my first son, when he was 5 or 6 months old, was dramatic. I had planned to do something simple and so I arranged to take a cruise. This was supposed to do part of the Mediterranean, go all the way to Marrakech and back. We had taken cruises before and I had thought it would be very relaxed because I always knew where I was sleeping and where I was eating. After we left the port of Genoa one day, I got a case of acute gastroenteritis. My son was being breastfed and he got it too. Since we were sailing on those days, you couldn't get off the ship. We were very sick, and cruises are generally not equipped for newborns. They didn't have medicine for babies. They couldn't give me anything, because otherwise I would have passed it to Lorenzo with breastfeeding. We had a bad time. In Lisbon we got off the ship and made a run for the children's hospital. It was really challenging, but this made us become more aware. Now we never travel without health insurance, the multi-trip and family kind, so that we always have a phone number to call, no matter what happens. We then decided to go to places where you can always find a pharmacy or hospital. Over the years we were able to figure things out. In general we are all healthy, we don't have any chronic illnesses or anything else that makes our trips harder. 

Can you tell me about a positive situation you had while travelling with your kids?

This question makes me think of Lorenzo, who was one and a half years old when we took him around Indonesia. On that trip we had a driver and a guide with us. This made us feel more relaxed, given also what had happened a year earlier. Lorenzo, who has always had a peculiar personality, "blossomed" on that trip. Lorenzo did much of the tour of Bali in the guide's arms, interacting with each other. I saw him playing with children who came from all over the world. The experience of seeing him dealing with people with a different language, skin color and customs was so enlightening that we decided to have a second child.

Would you recommend other families to travel with their children?

I have always recommended it. Then you know, everyone has to do what they feel is right, because every family has their own habits and every person has their own issues. I don’t get anxious when I’m travelling, but if someone does, and then decides to travel anyway and it turns out to be hell, I would say, "Give it some time and start slower." It's kind of like those people who take a plane with their kids, but they're afraid to fly. If you're afraid to fly, your children don't have to sit next to you, so they don’t pick up these kinds of fears from you. The same goes for travelling. 

You can't force yourself. I have always supported the value of travel for families and for children, but then everyone has to be into it. If a person feels comfortable going to a different part of Italy each time, that's fine. The important thing is to get around and allow everyone to have a new experience of some kind. Maybe once in a while try to leave your comfort zone, because that lets everyone grow, adults and children.

What advice would you give to a family with kids that wants to travel but doesn't know how to get started?

Get informed. There are so many blogs about travelling with children. There are groups. There is a Facebook group called Famiglie Globetrotter, where families exchange their experiences, questions, doubts etc. These give you practical tips and help you realize that it is more doable than it seems. I would then say to take small steps. It is possible to do things slowly and well. There are very few destinations in the world now that are not recommended or difficult because of disease or political situations. You can really afford to expand your radius little by little, calmly. Last but not least, get some insurance.