Round the World

Practicalities Types of Holiday Round the World The Psychology 

It is almost more important that you think through the emotional aspects than the practical ones, though both are vital to the success of the enterprise.

However much desired, holidays can be stressful times and the longer the holiday, potentially, the more the stress. In part this is because everyone in the party is likely to be experiencing and doing something new - whether that is spending a prolonged time away from the nursery or school peer group or learning how to balance the desire to explore with the needs of children for the familiar.

Careful preparation and planning will go a long way towards removing some of the stresses, though this doesn't necessarily mean pre-booking or detailing what you will be doing down to each hour of which day. A degree of flexibility is useful in making the experience workable.

Particularly worth considering are:

• How will the children cope away from familiar friends and relations doing the familiar things back home? This is a particular issue if you are travelling with a lone child. If they are gregarious they will almost certainly find company en route. If they are slower to build up contacts you should probably factor in stays at places where this is easy, either somewhere with another family as hosts of guests, or somewhere with a kids club or organised children's activities.



• Will your child be able to make friends. Bigger groups of new friends can be hard to break into and can be a problem for later arrivals at kids clubs for example.



• There seems to be a natural problem point at around eight weeks when you might well find everyone hates everyone else and wishes they were back home. Timing the trip either to make this the time you get back or to be somewhere highly desirable/with plenty of distractions might be helpful.