If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from travelling Australia with my kids, it’s that the best memories rarely come from the big tourist attractions (even though it was a great time on that roller coaster). Instead, I find it comes from the time spent with my kids interacting with them and watching them learn and grow while on the road.

It is the unplanned campfire chats. The unexpected roadside stop. The quaint town facades harbouring shell and rock collections. Discovering interesting town and people history. The maths equation that doesn’t make sense cause you learnt to work it out differently. Those interesting meals made. And those days when things don’t go to plan. All experiences and stories you can relive and laugh about years later.

If you are travelling Australia with your kids doing the big lap of Australia or on a road trip, or dreaming about it, here are my best tips I’ve learnt along the way. Of why travelling with kids around Australia is a great thing to do.

 

Pros and Cons of Travelling Australia with Your Kids

 

I think the pros of travelling Australia with kids far outweigh the cons.

 

Pros of Travelling Australia with Kids

 

• Topping my list of pros for travelling with kids around Australia is the family bonding. Spending every waking moment together has brought my family closer together.
• We all have learnt valuable life skills. All of us have learnt to be patient, adaptable, flexible and developed our understanding of Australia.
• Discover Australia together.

 

Cons of Travelling Australia with Kids

 

• There can be limited adult time.
• Kids are always around and not much free time to yourself.
• Need to do kid-friendly things to keep them entertained.

 

 

Tips for Travelling Australia with Kids

 

1. Planning

 

There is lots to plan before your even hit the road when travelling with kids. Depending on their age, include them in the planning stages. Let them know where they will be sleeping every night. And ask them is there any place they want to visit and a particular thing they want to experience, visit or see.

Recently, my son wanted to climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge on a sunset climb. So we factored this into our week long Sydney visit. While he did this, I preferred to sit in a restaurant near the Sydney Opera House and enjoy a good meal while small figures walked up the bridge in the distance. He was happy and I was happy.

 

2. Pack Smart

 

Like us, kids like their own stuff when they travel. Let them bring some of their favourite things, within space limits of course. And don’t forget any weight limits also. Give them their own set of colour-coded packing cubes to help them manage their stuff – then you don’t have to! And this is a great life skill looking after, and knowing where you stuff is. Like their clothes, shoes, school work and fishing rod!

Check out these colour-coded packing cubes from Amazon.

Keep kids organised with a seat organiser from Amazon.

 

3. Give Kids a Special Place

 

My kids had 3 special places when we travelled around Australia. Their spot in the car, their bed and a camp seat which was moved around to suit what was happening. Like sitting at the dining table, around the camp fire or on the beach while fishing. Even though they left their space regularly they knew they could easily come back to it.

 

4. Slow down

 

You could be on a time-limit on your Australian travels and so, want to see and do everything possible. Yeah, that is great, but rushing things can lead to burn out and loss of interest in the trip. So slow down. I found my kids often remember the places they’d been when they had time to explore, climb, touch, play and understand. Sometimes less driving and staying in a place longer provided a better experience. That’s a win from me.

And factoring in down time meant we didn’t burn out from constantly being on the go.

 

5. Keeping Routines

 

Keeping in a routine helps the kids, and you, stay sane. We had a time we all got up. Then we all ate breakfast together and helped tidy up and pack. The morning was often spent exploring. Back to base for lunch and some home schooling. More exploring in the afternoon or relaxing. Dinner time – everyone was involved with preparation and cooking and tidy up. Then sitting around after dinner having great chats or more night exploring. Then bed time.

But it is OK to vary what you do each day and be flexible.

 

6. Involvement

 

I learnt pretty quickly that kids didn’t always want to see and do what I wanted to see and do. Then the experience of dragging an uninterested child (of any age) around ruined the experience. 

So, when arriving in a new place, we would visit a tourist information centre, find out what to see and do, then sit down as a family and decide what each of us wanted to see and do. Sometimes we did things together, other times we split up. And great experiences were had that we talked about around the campfire or over the pub dinner later.

As well as the involvement in the planning of what to see and do, there was the every day involvement to include the kids in. Like getting them to make their own breakfast. Help cleaning up. Give them a job for setting up and packing up camp. After all, it is a family vacation and why should the adults do everything!

 

7. Capture the Memories

 

Photos are wonderful, but don’t forget to record the funny comments, favourite campsites, new friends, and special moments. And know, you don’t have to be responsible for doing this. Teach your kids how to journal. Buy them a journal and allow them the freedom to write, yes write, down their feelings, what they saw and what they did. They can stick into their journal brochures of where they went, entrance tickets or draw what they saw. This will be a wonderful memory for later on when memories can fade.

You could buy them a professional looking travel journal or any kind of book to write in.

 

8. Turn travel into learning

 

Every destination has something to teach and learn. I found discovering Australia became one of the best classrooms. And not only for the kids.

We learnt about the history of places and some of the people that created the history. We learnt about local wildlife and why they live in particular places. And we discovered geography and geology. Lots of things I remember learning in school but made more sense when I actually saw it for myself. So, travelling around Australia was not only great learning for the kids, it was great learning for me too!

And speaking of learning, when travelling for an extended time and have school-age children you will need to look at education options. Will you homeschool or will the kids do distance education. We found distance education worked for us. School work was sent and my kids sat down for a period each day (Monday to Friday) to do school work. We needed to ensure we had internet for the weekly Skype lesson with the teacher.

Each State and Territory has different rules and hopps you need to jump through for registration so start by speaking to your kids current teacher or the local state education department. 

 

9. Manners

 

One thing I noticed while travelling Australia was that my kid’s manners improved. From an early age my partner and I took our kids to cafes and restaurants and all sorts of places to show them how to act in public and at home as a family. And travelling, well, it just improved them. Or maybe, help consolidate them.

I noticed they would sit down nicely in cafes and restaurants, read the menu and look at the waiter or waitress and order the food they wanted. And they even used the cutlery to eat their food! They did this without any prompting. And then they created conversation over the meal. Win, win!

 

10. Embrace the imperfect days

 

Not every day is perfect. There will be melt-downs (and not just from kids), tantrums, spilled snacks, lost stuff, flat tyres or mechanical issues (which is why I do some vehicle maintenance checks), supermarkets closed and lots of changed plans. This is all part of the big Aussie adventure of travelling Australia with kids (and without).

 

11. Connect

 

Last on my list of travelling with kids, is connection. This is one of the greatest gifts of travel with my kids. Having uninterrupted time together created shared experiences and conversations that are priceless. We enjoyed adventures, freedom and lots of family time. Something I hope my kids pass on to their kids one day! Travelling Australia is a great way for a family to connect. So if you are reading this and considering travelling Australia with kids, all I can say is ‘just do it’!

 

Happy Discovering Australia with Kids