Africa had to be: a family adventure.
Let's face it: traveling as a family can be, to put it mildly, 'intense'. Ok, with small children everything is intense: it is rare the day that nine o'clock arrives at night and you do not feel the fatigue of someone who has spent 12 hours 'putting out fires', or what is the same: avoiding tantrums, managing emotions, trying to keep them with life.
That fragile ecosystem that your day-to-day consists of, largely supported by the blessed routines, blows up when you decide that you will spend vacations out . But how much 'out' is too much 'out'? Let's see: spending the summer in the town house can be fairly easy, but almost any other type of vacation that involves taking planes, trains, rental cars or sleeping in a different hotel every day can upset your balance.
To give us advice -and encouragement- before the prospect of an adventure with children comes Traveling with the family and not dying trying (Círculo Rojo, 2021), a brief but complete manual of Mary Ortega Thomas illustrated by Nagore Valera.
Cover of 'How to travel as a family and not die trying'
The author knows what she is talking about: she endorses it, among other feats, a trip to no less than the antipodes with three children , made when the eldest was five years old!
In the pages of the book, then, we find recommendations on how to choose the destination and the route ; what should we take into account when travel pregnant ; what documentation will we need to go from one place to another; how to motivate a little one before and during a trip; how to pack –and no, no matter how much you feel that you will need everything, it is not convenient to check one suitcase per child...–.
She also helps us face the big fears when it comes to taking our children out of their comfort zone (will they get sick? What will they eat?), She offers tips for reduce expenses and to manage family tension on a trip and even she tells us about how prepare a children's birthday abroad!
Lastly, Ortega also gives us plenty of inspiration for trips with infants and, of course, lists all the reasons why, although sometimes we wish we had stayed home, it is so wonderful –and important– to travel as a family.