Travelling: some love it, some detest it. What about kids? Our experiences tell us children love traveling.
We have learnt that the love for travel can be seeded and grown along time, fostering is a traveler mind frame: you can travel by reading books, watching movies and documentaries and by playing.
Curiosity and the wanderlust can be taught: there are so many ways of learning about the world! We collected here some suggestions, for planting seeds of curiosity and sparking the desire of travel… use at your own risk, you may find that curiosity is addictive!
Maps
Italy for Kids | Mappa di Milano
We love them: they enlarge perspectives, tell stories without being boring, and – if carefully read – make you feel at home everywhere.
So, if you love Italian cities, Italy for Kids maps are your treat! You can have Milan, Turin, Rome, Florence and also Genua! You can use them at home, to figure itineraries, look for curiosities, meet historic characters. You do not necessarily use maps when you are on site: it is such a good way to start preparing your journey or lingering to a recent trip memories.
We simply adored the book Maps by Aleksandra Mizielinska and Daniel Mizielinski… so carefully read and examined in our house to end up hidden by the babysitter, obsessed by the babysat’s continuous requests of thorough maps examinations!
Coloriages
Omy | POSTER P’TIT VELIB Balade à Velib dans Paris
Some are huge and beautiful such the ones by OMY. They show a selection of cities with their peculiarities, you can display them on the wall or lay them on the floor for easier coloring: just don’t be shy with felt pens and pencils. It is a very relaxing activity, coloring together children and grown-ups! While you fill in the contours, you can make your own idea about the city and its landmarks, you figure out what the atmosphere is and what tastes you could find. It gives you lots of hints for new destinations.
For collectors
Scratch map deluxe by Scratchables
If you are a serial traveler you cannot but own a scratch-map by Scratchables: one by one, using local change, you can scratch away the golden leaf hiding countries you have visited. It is a very satisfactory activity, but only for frequent travelers!
And then there’s our own Art Stories CITIES, obviously. By playing with CITIES children can learn through play familiarizing with the atmosphere and the key elements of some of the most beautiful cities in the world. It’s a starting point, the first spark of a travel.
To be honest, I got the idea that traveling was super by an old book: The travels by Marco Polo: very ancient, but never outdated! And what about you? What was the first seed of love for exploration?
