Adventuring With Children: An Inspirational Guide to World Travel and the Outdoors (Avalon House Travel Series)
Nan Jeffrey


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Nan Jeffrey's classic guide to adventure travel is not to be missed by any family interested in--or even curious about--traveling off the beaten path. Jeffrey, who has traveled with twin boys and a baby, covers every possible aspect of adventure travel: hiking, biking, sailing, canoeing, and basic world roaming. You'll get down-and-dirty tips (ways to calculate how many diapers to take to a tropical island--and how to wash them), good preparation advice (learn to live in small places, study another language, take practice hikes, turn off the television), and suggestions for great family destinations. No, Jeffrey doesn't mean Club Med or Disneyland--she suggests instead Nepal, the Alps, Alaska, Guatemala, or Turkey. Adventuring with Children is not only fascinating and informative, as its subtitle promises, it's inspirational as well. Whether you're off to Bali, Chile, or Morocco, you can now be sure to have a bon voyage! --Ericka Lutz
1 Inspirational and also very practical
I still haven't had a chance to use the tips from this book, since our trip to Greece with our one-year-old is planned for a few months from now. I can say that reading so many real-life, much more complicated examples of Ms. Jeffrey's family's own travels have made planning a few weeks in Greece seem like no big deal, though.

I was also pleasantly surprised to read so much about the things her children learned through travel at different ages, as well as through the homeschooling done on the road. (Ms. Jeffries also provides very useful homeschooling references.) Our daughter is much too young for a lot of this, but I found it all inspirational. It's amazing how much more children can learn from travel, plus reading, rather than from reading alone.

I started reading just to find the basics of how to travel with a child (what to take, how to keep entertained, etc.), but ended knowing so much about how traveling with a child will actually be more beneficial to the whole family than I ever imagined.


2 World class book for world class adventures...with children
There are many travel books on the market, and there are many travel books for those who have children. This books stands out because the author actually took her kids on wonderful, real "adventures," not just tame camping trips in the U.S. She and her husband traveled to remote places (Morocco, Spain, Bali, Nepal, New Zealand...), kids in tow, and share the experience with us through text and photos. They sailed, biked, hiked, and drove about, and lived for several weeks in different countries.

While most books of this sort will list things to bring along, the author gives us real explanations for each of the things she brings--and she doesn't bring much--and tells us how to make do with less. Invaluable are her personal stories of medical needs, literary needs (her boys brought a few books and exchanged books with other travelers), laundry and social needs. There is even a terrific discussion of diapering while traveling!

Perhaps my favorite section, as a homeschooling mom, is her chapter on education while on the road. The author truly sees the educational value of travel. No doubt her boys were very well educated by their many adventures. They learned foreign languages and the differences between many cultures. Thinking of adventuring?Buy it, and you'll want to try it!



Sunday, 06-Jul-2008 05:38:39 CDT
Quote of the Day:


Although we modern persons tend to take our electric lights, radios, mixers,

etc., for granted, hundreds of years ago people did not have any of these
things, which is just as well because there was no place to plug them in.
Then along came the first Electrical Pioneer, Benjamin Franklin, who flew a
kite in a lighting storm and received a serious electrical shock. This
proved that lighting was powered by the same force as carpets, but it also
damaged Franklin's brain so severely that he started speaking only in
incomprehensible maxims, such as "A penny saved is a penny earned."
Eventually he had to be given a job running the post office.
-- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"

A lot of people I know believe in positive thinking, and so do I. I
believe everything positively stinks.
-- Lew Col