Why You Should Travel With Your Kids in 3 Little Words

This time last year we jumped in our caravan and hit the road for three whole months.

Let me set the scene for you. We’re talking two adults and two children aged four and seven, smooshed into a living space the size of a garden shed. The kids shared a double bed, and our van doesn’t have a bathroom, so there were many hikes to toilet blocks in the black of night. I’m an introvert. Remaining family members are extroverts.

‘Nuff said.

We travelled from our home in Launceston, Tasmania, up the East Coast of Australia as far as Cooktown in far Northern Queensland (about 12,000 km, or 7,400 mile return trip). Which meant there were some days when all we did was drive.

It had its challenges but, for the most part, it was all kinds of wonderful.

There are the obvious reasons: days upon days spent horizontal on white-sanded beaches.

Watching the roll and slap of whales on their Southern migration. Kids barefoot and playing in nature: making boats from seedpods, crafting shell mobiles to sell to grey nomads or cracking open coconuts. Strolling through markets and sharing tales beneath the sky-sparks of a campfire.

But the most life-changing, soul-expanding aspect of an elongated travel experience like this one is distilled to three little words: less is more. It’s a principle that’s hard to teach our children in a supersized culture, where we bounce around in roomy, open-planned homes and appetites for the newest, most up-to-date, most cutting edge [insert product name here] are rarely slaked.

“Better a little with the fear of the Lord than great wealth with turmoil,” Proverbs 15:16 reads.

Less is more.

There are many verses in the Bible along these lines… calling us to hold material possessions lightly (Luke 14:33), to keep our words to a minimum (Proverbs 10:19), to withhold judgement (Matthew 7:1), to put the needs of others above ourselves (Philippians 2:3). Less is more in God’s economy, because less of us means more of Him.

This is the lesson we learned.

As we packed a carry-on suitcase equivalent of clothing per person, we acknowledged that we didn’t need the extravagance of our enormous wardrobes. As we made our beds beneath the caravan’s canvas ends, we acknowledged that we were blessed to have a soft place to rest our heads. We ate dinner on a rickety table seated on camp chairs in the wide outdoors, we acknowledged that this dining room surpassed any man-made design. As we encouraged the kids to build sandcastles and climb trees and shell macadamias, we acknowledged that less screen time equaled more creative play.

Less was so much richer.

Less ‘house’ meant less cleaning (and all the Mammas said HOORAH!) and more impetus to get outdoors and have fun with my family. Less glam (I didn’t wear makeup, use a hairdryer, wear heels or use fake tan on our trip – and a bra was even optional!) meant more authenticity to be uniquely me. It means less friends and family around us was hard at times, but it also meant we got to know each other better, and our marriage was strengthened. Less routine and responsibilities meant more wonder.

Spontaneity feels like holiday to me, and we had it in spades. We gave ourselves permission to drop everything and indulge in wonder-seeking at any given moment.

And for every “less of…” element to our holiday, there was more of our great and mighty God. In our less, he was more. He was the more of beauty we were witness to daily. He was the more of ministering to our hearts when confined spaces sparked conflict. He was the more of joy and fun and laughter and rest. He was in the vehicle, the home, the bed, the food,
the sun and the sleep of our holiday.

“How wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,” Ephesians 3:18 reads. And we can attest to that – because it stretched all the way up the East Coast of Australia with a family keen for adventure.

Is it frivolous to travel like this?

That’s a question I mulled over for a long time before we left, and indeed it’s probably another blog post entirely. The answer will be different for different people in different seasons of their lives. But God gently told me that He wanted to bless us in this. And oh my, He certainly did.

Those 3 Little Words? Less is more.

When we traveled, we discovered a very tangible expression of how less of us always ushers in more of Jesus.