The Ciao Bambino! Story

Ciao Bambino was conceived out of my need to continue living the life I loved pre-kids — a life filled with travel — after becoming a parent. I had thought the yearlong travel sabbatical that my husband and I took in 2001 would take care of my travel bug, allowing me to happily settle down in one place and start a family. I should have known better, my last hurrah before motherhood only intensified my desire to see more of the world. Little did I know at that time what joys that travel as a family would bring, and ultimately, that the mission of the company would expand from enabling travel to happen at all to inspiring travel experiences with meaning for all ages and stages.

I started building Ciao Bambino! in late 2003, after searching extensively for credible resources to provide family-focused travel advice, age-appropriate direction, and useful accommodation information. The focus as a company was and still is answering key questions for traveling families including: What destinations work best for different ages? What hotels offer the best family-friendly room configurations? What age-appropriate activities are the most memorable and fun? How can families best engage with their experience, while bonding with one another?

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than the ones you did do. So throw off your bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

– Mark Twain

A big part of taking the fear out of traveling with children is knowing what to expect … Ciao Bambino has curated a coveted knowledge base of information on our blog that literally covers the world. We learned along the way that some families want to go beyond self-service and work with a trusted Advisor who can collaborate with them to create an incredible itinerary that is customized for them, yet uses hand-selected resources that are tried and tested again and again by families with children of different ages. To meet this demand, we launched a full service travel agency in 2013.

At this point through both our Family Travel Blog and Family Travel Agency, Ciao Bambino has helped thousands of families travel successfully to every continent. We wholeheartedly believe that travel is one of the most powerful ways available to educate children meaningfully and have them become ambassadors for global community-building, tolerance, and the conservation of our planet.

We hope to inspire your family to explore the world together!

Ciao and happy travels,