Encourage Kids to Travel for ROL
Funding experiences that expand your child's worldview can be one of the most fulfilling uses of your money, especially during the summer. Travel encourages young people to step out of their comfort zones and experience just how wide and diverse the world and its people really are.
And if you frame travel not just as a luxury but as a purposeful investment of time and money, your kids will learn three important lessons that will set them up for lifelong success.
1. Building Character and Resilience
Your family's routine provides security and comfort. Within that consistent framework, your kids are building habits and developing skills that help them ace their homework, score goals, and cultivate relationships with friends and family.
Travel can take away that safety net and force your kids to learn new skills. Adapting to a local menu and a new sleep schedule could introduce kids to their innate resilience. A college student who gets lost on the subway will learn to solve problems without panicking. Immersion in other languages and customs will make the unfamiliar feel less uncomfortable.
And each of these experiences will help your kids back home when it's time to try a new restaurant, join a new team, start a new school, or, eventually, leave for college.
2. Building a Global Network
Thanks to the internet and advances in travel, the world has never been more accessible.
And yet so many of our children live in such small worlds: closed friend circles, year-round sports with the same group of kids. Their lists of online "friends" might have dozens or even hundreds of usernames. But only a fraction of those approximate real relationships. And even fewer will help your child grow from a "gamer" into an adult.
Travel can provide many opportunities for kids to interact with new people. Younger kids might hit it off at a playground or beach while the grownups are chatting. Older kids and teens can participate in study abroad programs, sports camps, or college-sponsored trips where they'll work with, learn with, and live with young people who are approaching similar stages of life from entirely different angles.
Friendships that develop under these conditions could prove invaluable later in life, whether your child needs someone to practice their Spanish with, somewhere to crash on vacation that's comfier than a hostel, or an international contact to help with a job application.
3. Enhancing Their Story
In the ultracompetitive worlds of college applications and job searches, having top grades only gets you so far. Eventually, even high achievers find themselves in a pool with kids from the same kinds of schools who received the same high grades.
Admissions staff and corporate recruiters at the absolute top institutions are looking for people who stand out from the crowd. Often, the key differentiator isn't anything that shows up on transcripts or resumes. It's the maturity and character that shine through during a face-to-face interview. An awareness of what's going on in the wider world. A passion for something bigger than profit.
When decision makers pick up on these signals in a young person, they often start to wonder, "What's this kid's story?"
The more they see the world, the more experiences they have with a wider variety of people, the more understanding and empathy they develop, the more compelling your child’s story will be.
And the more people they’ll encounter who will want to help them write the next chapter, personally and professionally.
Of course, you already know that enhancing life stories is a vital part of our Life-Centered Planning Process. Let’s review your travel budget for the rest of the summer and see how you can give your children experiences that will help them keep learning and growing.