A globe-trotting UN diplomat has written a fascinating guide for parents who plan to travel to foreign lands with their children. But even parents who expect to stay closer to home will find the book packed with excellent advice and useful tips. The Rough Guide to Travel With Babies & Young Children (Rough Guides, $15.99) includes a wide variety of tips, including coping with road trips, plane travel, health concerns, entertaining kids on the road and cultural issues. Written by UN envoy Fawzia Rasheed de Francisco who has advised 16 governments on health policy, the guide is the culmination of years spent on the road with her two young sons. She started traveling with her younger son when he was only two weeks old. Her older son had been to five continents by his first birthday. Some of the cultural tips are fascinating:
- In India, have your children apologize profusely if they touch someone with their shoes, an especially offensive act.
- In Thailand, children are perceived to be well brought up if they make light of inconvenience.
- Patting children on the head is considered disrespectful in many parts of the world.
Even if your travel plans will keep you closer to home, you'll find plenty of useful tips for your next vacation:
- Give each child a shoebox to decorate before you leave home or after you get to your destination. At each stop on your journey, let them buy a postcard and have them write a brief memory on the back, along with the date and their age. They can put these and other trinkets they find along the way in their Travel Memory Box.
- Have each child keep a journal. They can write about things they do or see on the trip. They can also ask people they meet along the way to write a brief message. If you're in a foreign country, ask new friends to write in the local language or sign their names.
- Give each child a disposable digital camera to make a personal record of their trip.
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