Summer Travel and Reading

We’ve both been travelling with our own families this summer to places near and far, and the topic of “what to pack” inevitably comes up as leaving day approaches. Besides clothes, shoes and a small collection of handbags, there’s going to be few other things to consider depending upon your family’s composition.

For families with very young children, you will probably need to bring the travel baby stroller, car seat and travel cot. We watched in awe as a young family consisting of mom, dad, infant twins, twin 3 year- olds, two baby bucket seats and a double stroller, sat opposite us on our flight. So very brave.

For families with school-aged children, stuffed animals and a few favourite toys are necessary items for travel and as a reminder of home.

For those of us with teenagers, you might think it’s just a big collection of personal devices.

Well… although my family did bring their iPhones and iPads on our most recent holiday (I can’t tell you how many we brought of each because it’s embarrassing and possibly contradicts what we’re writing about), we have a surprising amount of reading material. Between the four of us we have eight books, a Kobo reader and the Globe and Mail from the morning we left Vancouver. Plus, we’re receiving and reading the daily local paper and reading numerous guidebooks and brochures we picked up along the way.

From our gorgeous holiday location, one might wonder, “Why are you reading when you could be outside doing other things?”

Although we are thoroughly enjoying daily all of the outdoor pursuits our holiday has to offer –swimming, boogie boarding, paddle boarding, snorkelling, walking, hiking, zip-lining–we still think it’s pretty awesome that our teenagers love to read and chose to pack books to bring with them.

The kids read on the plane, at night before they go to bed, and yes, we’re all catching up on a bit of American Netflix at the hottest part of the day, but we’re also reading a lot. When I look around during a quiet moment here in our condo, and see that everybody is reading as a personal choice activity, I’m happy and satisfied with the decisions we made when our kids were young.

We’ve been readers our whole lives and sharing the love of reading as a pleasurable pursuit, and fostering and modelling a love of reading at home with our children, has always been one of our highest priorities.