Some of our memorable trips with our kids are the ones where we were not rushing to follow an itinerary and where we were staying with local people. 

It always came naturally to us whenever we planned a trip, to take care of booking the stay, tickets, and packing the essentials and leaving most part of the trip to go with the flow.

The philosophy behind slow travel is based on three core principles: immersion, connection, and mindfulness. It’s about embracing the journey as much as the destination, and enjoying the present moment without worrying about the next one.

On our first tour after having a kid, it was the trip to explore the Western Ghats in the monsoon with our 7-month-old infant. We never made an itinerary for exploring the destination or googled ‘must do activities for families traveling to Lonavala’.

After talking to one colleague who was living there to connect us with a local stay option and he told us that one didi from our training program there can host us at her farm house and to our surprise we got this small villa surrounded by paddy fields.

It was a time of our life with famous monsoon of Western Ghats never making us feel alone for more than an hour and with hundreds of crabs clacking in the evening. What could make a rainy evening more special than the homemade finger-licking food Didi kept sending us from her home.

Public transport for commuting locally with our kid and amidst all the rains seemed a little unreliable so we borrowed the scooty from our friend and explored nearby waterfalls, trekked to a fort, spent a day in Khandala, and also roamed one evening in Pune city.

These adventures we were enjoying while putting our raincoats every morning and keep sipping Chai with snacks wherever we felt like without worrying about the next stop in our nonexistent itinerary.

We took the similar approach in exploring Rishikesh in an offbeat way with family, away from the touristy camps and river rafting crowd when Almeer was 10 months old. Our son got almost half-day to play with sand and stones at a riverbed, took a dip in chilling Himalayan stream.

The way we hiked to the hanging bridge was like half of the time we were holding Almeer in our arms and other half carrying him on our shoulders like the image of fathers in the Indian stories showing the world to the kids.
There still was plenty of time for us to relax and reflect after some months of our first-time of parenting journey.

First experiences are special

One good reason about choosing slow travel with kids is that everything in this world is a new experience for them. They need some time to spend at everything and this curiosity makes the way for learning and happiness.

Our first train journey with Almeer was when he was 45 days old and we know that despite not being able to understand anything, it was important experience for him and now trains are his favorite thing.

After exploring the world being a travel enthusiast ourselves, some things are so ordinary for us but for the kids even feeling the flowing water or seeing the tall trees or walking down on a hill slope are enthralling experiences.

We can never forget the giggle (Video here) that came after a sudden pause when we made Almeer stand upon water flowing from a fall near Lonavala, or the first time he touched a river and just wanted to jump and start swimming (watch here).

Anyone travelling with kids can start with having not a packed schedule to be able to make their every first experience special. They might just want to try climbing a random rock for 1 hour and if without our trip being slow and organic, we would be rushing to do the next thing.

Remember, Kids don’t have a bucket list!

Slow travel is easy on pockets

If someone is thinking of traveling regularly with the kids, which surely will be a beautiful thing to do (Read here: Why you should make travel a weekly affair with your kids) then it must not cost you fortunes.

People tend to make maximum out of their once in a while planned sightseeing tour to make it efficient in terms of time and money. Slow travel might seem like boring or more costly if we start thinking of staying at some place longer without proper planning, but let us tell you that it will be opposite.

Once you take the steps towards local transport, local stays, and exploring any destination beyond just famous points, you will find it more rewarding with actually spending way lesser than typical touristy way.

Staying at one place longer and just wandering locally without any plan will take you to spots where not everyone might have gone and you will discover stories and meet people and share some genuine life moments with them. That can never be boring.

We have so many stories of our travel when we hadn’t booked out stay for the next day or return ticket and we enjoyed each time more than ever just going with the flow.

For the times, they’re a changin

The life is different for us compared to our parents and they felt the same in case of our grandparents. Here we are talking about livelihoods, skills, and ways of entertainment.
Our grandparents usually either set-up a business or secured a job and worked in it for lifetime, traveled to a hill station or a beach in some years and needed just general education for earning.
Then our parents needed more industry specific knowledge, also some worked in private sector, traveled every year for some sightseeing.
We are a more nomadic generation from recent times, most of us go traveling regularly, keep changing our jobs after learning new skills, and we surely know that how more people skills are going to matter for our kids.

With artificial intelligence solving problems which even require complex skills and deep knowledge, the human element is the only USP of our next generation.

Our kids will study about Himalayas, its glaciers, or rivers, they will have knowledge about crops and how our food grows but this all knowledge and expertise will be just replaceable by some AI system.

Feeling a freezing cold water stream coming down from Himalayan foothills, talking to a native from the western ghats to understand its ecosystem, or spending a week at tribal villages to witness the complex relation of humans and forests, the wisdom gained from these immersive travel experiences is what will help our kids to design better solutions for the earth.

Not just the outer world development matters, but we know in our journey how connecting with our own soul and finding refuge with nature helps us to keep sanity.

We must show our kids the magic of trekking and how it heals our mental state, we must introduce them to a tree somewhere in the forest of central India which they can hug telling him their secrets whenever a trusted being needed in life, we must make them learn to build relationships beyond transactions and that they can live life with collaboration rather than just means.

What are you waiting for then, plan some slow travel with your kids in this year!

Feel free to connect with us for any help in planning or just sharing something with us. Write to us at thekhanabadoshfamily@gmail.com