Traveling With Children

Finding things to do when you live in a foreign country can be a little intimidating even when you live in a country that sort of speaks the same language as you. I have lived in England for the past 16 months and have not traveled nearly as much as I had planned. I moved to here be with long lost family and the first year I was so focused on building that family that I forgot to travel. After moving across the pond did not pan out as I had planned, I moved on to plan B, make friends and travel!

My daughter is currently enjoying one of her extensive breaks from school. There is a rumor that the more you pay for school the less they want to see your children. We must be paying a fortune because every 10 weeks my daughter manages to get 3.5 weeks off. No, that is not a typo. She is really off for 3.5 weeks every 10 weeks of school excluding the summer; there is a whopping 10 weeks between terms. So I find myself trying to entertain her quite frequently.

As most of us know, traveling with a child is a need a drink experience all in it of itself. This weekend we decided to brave London to go to the National History Museum. Based on previous trips to London, I have to tell you that I had a bit of anxiety,  all I could imagine was a child jumping all around, a grumpy old senior citizen too lazy to pick up his feet and mumbling under his breath behind us on the train. I was not sure if I could make the journey. Luckily I did, and I’ll fill you in on a secret, we did not have to sit next to any grumpy senior citizens and I was really happy! The trip down was uneventful and then made for a pleasant afternoon, which showed me my worrying was for not.

The National History Museum in London is a wonderful place to take the family for the day.  It is free to get in and anyone who is traveling to or has traveled to Europe lately knows that our USD doesn’t go very far. An occasional free thing to do is always welcomed.  Believe it or not, you can spend the entire day at the museum and not want to leave.

But just in case you have a lot of money to burn, you can take a short taxi ride for about £5 to Harrods and spend some of that hard earned American cash. On a positive note, if you only want to browse, there are tons of things for children to do there. My daughter managed to find a limbo contest in the children’s department.

While, you might not be able to spend £280 ($465.00) on a purse for a 6 year old, it will be nice to see how the other half lives.  While they do cater to a clientele that is in a different category than you and I probably are, they have a few things that I could afford.  We did manage to get my daughter a pair of flip-flops that would cost about $1.00 at WalMart for £17 ($28.00), which have already broken. Oh well, it’s all about the experience!