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View as: GRID LIST

HAVE KIDS, WILL TRAVEL

1
Hello motherhood, goodbye travelling?
Not necessarily.
Becoming a mother inevitably means giving up many of the things you love. It starts during the nine long months of pregnancy, particularly with your first child when even the most stoic of women succumb to a large dose of paranoia. No champagne, red wine or even a couple of nurofen tablets to quell a blinding headache. When your child eventually arrives it marks the end of many adult indulgences you took for granted.
One indulgence my husband and I really dreaded giving up was care free
SelfishMother.com
2
travelling. Like many over-worked childless couples impromptu city weekend escapes were our specialty. Not for us mainstream Paris or Barcelona though. Budapest, Helsinki or Ghent are more up our street. A 3-night “break” in Accra then straight to the office from the airport armed with a jug of caffeine? Why not?
Longer holidays were eagerly anticipated and usually involved trips to far flung destinations few of our friends had even heard of. When we became parents we vowed to continue travelling extensively as a family and we have been fairly
SelfishMother.com
3
successful in our mission.
SPONTANEITY IS OVERRATED
Pounding the streets all day sightseeing or joining a midnight street party are sadly no longer attainable as feeding and napping schedules take priority. Both our kids hated having their routines disrupted especially when they were babies/toddlers. Actually the drama of reestablishing routines back home really isn’t worth the hassle so we always stuck religiously to their schedules. I am also one of those parents who doesn’t like to leave her kids with hotel babysitters. I carried my daughter, a
SelfishMother.com
4
year old at the time, in a sling for hours just so I wouldn’t miss the Singapore night grand prix and still suffer awful backache from it. Lessons learnt.
Foregoing spontaneity has its rewards. Seeing the joy of discovery through the eyes of our beloved. The look of awe on my daughter’s face when she encountered the giant gold Buddha at Wat Po in Bangkok aged 6. My 18-month old son’s delight when a kindly chap in Ubud handed him a giant coconut. On the rare occasions that we manage to escape sans enfant we find ourselves wistfully wondering how
SelfishMother.com
5
our kids would react each time we encounter something enlightening and end up missing them dreadfully.
CIAO ADVENTURE?
To our relief we discovered we could actually continue to travel with our little ones in tow but we’ve had to compromise. Our previous relentless pursuit of adventure has given way to rejuvenation and comfort. Destination luxury resorts that we dogmatically shunned have become desirable. Luxury need not mean sterile though. Our daughter took her first steps, aged 13 months, on the beaches of Bintan Island, a short cataraman ride from
SelfishMother.com
6
Singapore and a world away from the notoriously dull city state.
The Banyan Tree resort in Bintan was a wonderful place to spend a week. Accommodation is in private villas built on stilts to preserve the tropical vegetation and wildlife beneath. Living in the midst of the tropics certainly felt adventurous yet safe. The seafront villas have stunning views of the South China Sea. Escapism at its best. We loved breakfast on our private terrace served by a skilled butler whilst our daughter befriended the many birds and little monkeys that would come and
SelfishMother.com
7
visit every morning.

FOOD
A compromise I do not make at home or away is the acceptance of bad food. Why travel all the way to an exotic destination and spend every mealtime at a ‘family friendly” restaurant? Take your kids to a noisy cheap and nasty diner and they will behave in accordance with their surroundings. Turn up at a genteel establishment serving the best local cuisine has to offer and you will be amazed just how impeccably your kids will behave. Well, most of the time. Our trip to Langkawi springs to mind. We dodged the dreaded hotel

SelfishMother.com
8
buffet in search of authentic Japanese cooking that the island has become famous for and found ourselves at the conservative and pricey Mizumi restaurant favoured by Asia’s elite holidaymakers. Fellow diners were rather bemused when a plate of tempura was placed in front of my daughter and she immediately began to bawl loudly on discovering there was no tomato ketchup to go with it.
Smart restaurants generally tend to tolerate rather than encourage little people so I have developed quite a thick skin over the years. A few deep breaths and a large gulp
SelfishMother.com
9
from my wine glass and the embarrassment of one of our two inevitably spilling a drink on a pristine tablecloth, whilst the maître d’ looks on disapprovingly, wears off pretty swiftly.
£££
One thing I’ve certainly noticed is how much more we spend on travel these days. Tap in a couple of kids on any hotel booking form and suddenly you are not offered the regular room you might have wanted but a suite of grand proportions with a price tag to match. Then there’s the issue of only being able to travel during school holidays when the travel
SelfishMother.com
10
industry whacks on their usual tax on parents with premium rates. A real pain, yes, but what’s the alternative? Purpose built UK holiday parks? Yawn. My solution is to go for fewer, but fabulous breaks.
 
SelfishMother.com

By

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- 29 Apr 14

Hello motherhood, goodbye travelling?

Not necessarily.

Becoming a mother inevitably means giving up many of the things you love. It starts during the nine long months of pregnancy, particularly with your first child when even the most stoic of women succumb to a large dose of paranoia. No champagne, red wine or even a couple of nurofen tablets to quell a blinding headache. When your child eventually arrives it marks the end of many adult indulgences you took for granted.

One indulgence my husband and I really dreaded giving up was care free travelling. Like many over-worked childless couples impromptu city weekend escapes were our specialty. Not for us mainstream Paris or Barcelona though. Budapest, Helsinki or Ghent are more up our street. A 3-night “break” in Accra then straight to the office from the airport armed with a jug of caffeine? Why not?

Longer holidays were eagerly anticipated and usually involved trips to far flung destinations few of our friends had even heard of. When we became parents we vowed to continue travelling extensively as a family and we have been fairly successful in our mission.

SPONTANEITY IS OVERRATED
Pounding the streets all day sightseeing or joining a midnight street party are sadly no longer attainable as feeding and napping schedules take priority. Both our kids hated having their routines disrupted especially when they were babies/toddlers. Actually the drama of reestablishing routines back home really isn’t worth the hassle so we always stuck religiously to their schedules. I am also one of those parents who doesn’t like to leave her kids with hotel babysitters. I carried my daughter, a year old at the time, in a sling for hours just so I wouldn’t miss the Singapore night grand prix and still suffer awful backache from it. Lessons learnt.

Foregoing spontaneity has its rewards. Seeing the joy of discovery through the eyes of our beloved. The look of awe on my daughter’s face when she encountered the giant gold Buddha at Wat Po in Bangkok aged 6. My 18-month old son’s delight when a kindly chap in Ubud handed him a giant coconut. On the rare occasions that we manage to escape sans enfant we find ourselves wistfully wondering how our kids would react each time we encounter something enlightening and end up missing them dreadfully.

CIAO ADVENTURE?
To our relief we discovered we could actually continue to travel with our little ones in tow but we’ve had to compromise. Our previous relentless pursuit of adventure has given way to rejuvenation and comfort. Destination luxury resorts that we dogmatically shunned have become desirable. Luxury need not mean sterile though. Our daughter took her first steps, aged 13 months, on the beaches of Bintan Island, a short cataraman ride from Singapore and a world away from the notoriously dull city state.

The Banyan Tree resort in Bintan was a wonderful place to spend a week. Accommodation is in private villas built on stilts to preserve the tropical vegetation and wildlife beneath. Living in the midst of the tropics certainly felt adventurous yet safe. The seafront villas have stunning views of the South China Sea. Escapism at its best. We loved breakfast on our private terrace served by a skilled butler whilst our daughter befriended the many birds and little monkeys that would come and visit every morning.

FOOD
A compromise I do not make at home or away is the acceptance of bad food. Why travel all the way to an exotic destination and spend every mealtime at a ‘family friendly” restaurant? Take your kids to a noisy cheap and nasty diner and they will behave in accordance with their surroundings. Turn up at a genteel establishment serving the best local cuisine has to offer and you will be amazed just how impeccably your kids will behave. Well, most of the time. Our trip to Langkawi springs to mind. We dodged the dreaded hotel buffet in search of authentic Japanese cooking that the island has become famous for and found ourselves at the conservative and pricey Mizumi restaurant favoured by Asia’s elite holidaymakers. Fellow diners were rather bemused when a plate of tempura was placed in front of my daughter and she immediately began to bawl loudly on discovering there was no tomato ketchup to go with it.

Smart restaurants generally tend to tolerate rather than encourage little people so I have developed quite a thick skin over the years. A few deep breaths and a large gulp from my wine glass and the embarrassment of one of our two inevitably spilling a drink on a pristine tablecloth, whilst the maître d’ looks on disapprovingly, wears off pretty swiftly.

£££
One thing I’ve certainly noticed is how much more we spend on travel these days. Tap in a couple of kids on any hotel booking form and suddenly you are not offered the regular room you might have wanted but a suite of grand proportions with a price tag to match. Then there’s the issue of only being able to travel during school holidays when the travel industry whacks on their usual tax on parents with premium rates. A real pain, yes, but what’s the alternative? Purpose built UK holiday parks? Yawn. My solution is to go for fewer, but fabulous breaks.

 

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