Children and travel

When my boys are older, say, 10 and 7, I'd really like to take them out of school for either a few months or a year and take them traveling. Where to and what doing I don't know yet, but I believe that traveling and being exposed to different cultures and experiences will teach them something they'd never be able to learn through books.

My husband, of course, has a different idea. He thinks children thrive best with stability, routine, and predictability. Which is great. If you want to raise boring people with no life experience and no personality. See, when I was 8 my parents packed up and went to Alice Springs for 6 weeks, while they renovated the old house they used to live in. For 6 weeks I left my life in Melbourne to go to school in Alice Springs. I made new friends, had new experiences, and witnessed first hand what it was like to live among and go to school with indigenous Australians. It was the first time I came across non-white people (not including Maoris). We lived in a run down house (until it was fixed up) on mattresses, surrounded by red backs (NOT exaggerating). On the way up and on the way back we camped in caravan parks, but without tents. Oh no, tents were a luxury. We had one of those fold out beds, and our sleeping bags, right under the stars. I remember staying overnight....somewhere in the outback, with cattle trains full of cattle mooing and smelling all night, while dingos walked around the perimeter of the caravan park type place we were staying in. My dad called it "millions star hotel". You know. 'Cause of the million stars. On the way home from Alice Springs (we had a car and a trailer) we stopped at Ayers Rock, and I got to climb it, at 8 years of age. It was amazing and scary as hell. All I remember was getting about 3/4 of the way up and crying because it was so windy and I was scared I was going to fall off, and this old man in front of me from California (I remember hearing him talk about it) saying to me "You hang in there!"

Anyway.

Looking back now, I learned so much from that trip. Sure, I missed my friends. I didn't want to go in the first place because of my friends. But once I was there I made new ones, and I very quickly got used to my new life. Children adapt so much easier to change than adults do.