Traveling with kids is exciting, joyful, action-packed…and messy, chaotic, and loud! When organizing a summer vacation with children, particularly one that involves a deal of travel, solid planning is key. Having an itinerary of activities is one of the best ways to ensure that your family trip goes smoothly.
When planning to travel with kids it is also incredibly important to consider sustainability and environmentalism. Vacationing with the family can often slip into easy, non-eco friendly activities just to keep things smooth, so in order to remain sustainable and ethical, some forward planning is usually essential.
So before you click ‘BUY’ on that best last minute cruise deal, or book your motel stops on the cross-country road trip for the summer, check out some of the best green activities for traveling kids as well as a few tips for traveling in a more eco-friendly manner. You’ll soon see how easy it is to incorporate more sustainable adventures into your summer vacation!
Tips for green travel
Reusable water bottles
Carrying portable, reusable water bottles is one of the key things to make traveling more sustainable, and is a must when you have thirsty kids on the go. Try to avoid buying plastic disposable bottles of water, and remember to fill up your water flask whenever you can!
Do less laundry
Kids have a tendency to be messy, and at the same time to be careless about their clothes. Use travel as a great opportunity to encourage better habits when it comes to water use. Show your family that towels and linens can be hung and reused, while most clothes can handle a second (or even a third) wear, particularly if they are only worn for a small amount of the day. Challenge them to pack light, flexible, and versatile, and to avoid doing laundry while on the road.
Choose eco-friendly accommodation
Look for eco-lodges or hotels that advertise particularly green practices, from solar power to recycling. Plenty of the most eco-friendly accommodation is also the type of vacation that kids love the most, like treehouse-style cabins or even camping!
Green activities for kids
Hikes, walks, outdoor exploration
Walking is one of the best ways to explore a new destination, and also one of the most eco-friendly vacation activities there is! Wherever you are in the world, taking your kids walking will be a rewarding experience. It might mean getting lost in meandering, cobbled streets in an historic old town or taking on challenging trails through forests and up hills. Either way, you’ll end the day with happy (albeit exhausted!) kids, without much in the way of a carbon footprint!
Cycle tours
In a similar way to walking, cycling is a great way to explore your vacation destination, giving you a brand new perspective on the city or landscape you’ve chosen, as well as being about as green as it gets!
Watersports
Take your kids to the beach and get them out on the water with eco-friendly watersports. Avoid the loud, polluting jet skis and harness the power of wind and waves for excitement, with windsurfing, sailing, surfing, and kitesurfing all on the list of adrenaline-pumping, totally green activities!
Regenerative tourism
If you are looking for a truly green vacation opportunity, why not consider getting your family involved in some regenerative tourism. This usually means volunteering in some shape or form, whether it’s planting trees, cleaning up beaches, or building wildlife habitats. These can be doubly enjoyable for kids, with the fun and excitement of getting their hands dirty alongside the interest of learning about the natural world.
Alongside these ideas for green activities, why not encourage kids to understand a little more about animals and their environments too? This animal habitat sorting activity is a great place to start.
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Thanks for checking us out, and do come back to the site again soon,
Helen
This is a collaborative post.
Helen
Helen is a mum to two, social media consultant, and website editor; and this site is (we think) the only Social Enterprise parenting magazine!Since giving up being a business analyst when juggling travel, work and kids proved too complicated, she founded KiddyCharts so she could be with her kids, and use those grey cells at the same time.KiddyCharts has reach of over 1.1million across social and the site. The blog works with big family brands (including travel) to help promote their services, as well as offering free resources to parents of kids under 10.It gives 51%+ profits to Reverence for Life, who fund a number of important initiatives in Africa, including bringing running water and basic equipment to a school in Tanzania.Helen has worked as a digital marketing consultant (IDM qualified) with various organisations, including Channel Mum, Truprint, Talk to Mums, and Micro Scooters. She loves to be creative in the brand campaigns she works on.Get in touch TODAY!