#TimetoTravel2020

By Amie O'Shaughnessy
September 24, 2019
3 Min Read

I know I’m not alone in my sentiment that time goes by too quickly when it comes to raising our children. We blink and suddenly our kids are in middle school … then high school, and before we’ve experienced all we want to with them ‘as kids’ they’ve left for college! I try and live a regret-free life, but a place that makes that objective awfully difficult is around managing time. There’s never enough of it and tragically, once it’s gone, it’s the one thing we can’t get back. And the paradox in raising children is that although we are tempted to wait until kids are old enough to travel to maximize the impact of the trip fully, as soon as our kids hit such milestones, they will be too busy to travel.

After running Ciao Bambino for the past 15 years, my belief is that an alternative approach is required to maximize moments with our children. Instead of making travel planning the last thing on the to-do list or the thing that we do only if we get extra time in the day, we must push travel planning up the priority list and put intention behind the travel experiences we want to share with our families months and years ahead of time. Otherwise we’ll be in the dreaded position of running out of time and having these beloved trips not happen at all.

Our Long Term Planning page is all about the importance of tackling travel wish lists list early — we’ve even provided a tool to help get the ideas flowing. I also believe that as we approach 2020, a year that is guaranteed to be intense given the election in the United States paired with a steady stream of critical global events, taking time now to set aside time to unplug and bond with our children is more important than ever. Travel is an unbelievably effective and rewarding way to do just that.

I’ve hired the perfect person to help families travel more in 2020: Anne Taylor Hartzell, the talent behind Hip Travel Mama and a long-term advocate of the value of traveling with kids of all ages. Anne kicked off her work with us with an article on our family travel blog sharing practical and actionable tips for using back to school as an optimal time to lay the important groundwork for travel plans, which will give families the time they need available to get away together. Anne will continue to work with us through the year to help families create time when none seems to exist and to make every moment count.

We’ll help families with travel ideas that fit their needs and interests and slot the ideas into the seasons that work for best for those ideas. We know travel can be expensive and cost-prohibitive; we’ll help families understand tips for getting value from their travel dollars. And time is money — we’ll give families tips that make the most of their time in a destination. Finally, we think long-term planning is important and we want to help families at least understand the timeline for the trips they want to take with their children and what steps are needed to make those dreams come true.

In light of our lofty plans, we’ve come up with a hashtag that will remind all of us what we are here to do and inspire: