Traveling with teens can be incredibly rewarding, but no matter what age they are, it also comes with a fair share of challenges.
These challenges alter, as your kids get older, needing new strategies and quite often – a whole new way type of holiday.
When kids become teenagers, they have a whole new set of challenges to take on themselves, generating little anxieties like ‘fitting in’ and ‘fear of missing out’.
Their friends become far more important to them as they start to fine-tune their interests and develop their adult personalities. Being in the school band is no longer cool, but being in A band might be.
Scooters are replaced with skateboards, Disney is replaced with Animé, socks cease to exist above the lining of one’s Vans and parents are no longer the fountain of all knowledge and the rulers of the world.
Trust me we have 5 kids, 4 of whom have already reached the magic eye-rolling, humphing age of 13.
So a fair bit of understanding, and leeway is required if everyone is going to get along on holiday (or at all).
But don’t let that put you off going on holiday with them. And don’t for a moment think they no longer want to go on holiday with you, they just don’t want to go on the same type of holiday you took them on when they were five.
With a bit of forward planning, it is still possible to enjoy each other’s company.
10 Tips for traveling with teens
1. Involve them in the planning process. Ask them where they’d like to go – perhaps somewhere they’ve always dreamed of going.
2. Try something new – take them somewhere they’ve never been before, somewhere exciting that will build anticipation and give them bragging rights in the school playground. Whether that’s hiking the rim of Kings Canyon or the Grand Canyon, snorkeling with whale sharks on the Ningaloo Reef or snow boarding in Japan.
3. Think about fueling their adrenalin, beyond action movies, computer games and theme parks, with activities like jet boating in New Zealand, scuba diving with bull sharks in Fiji or pot holing at Jenolan Caves.
4. Choose your accommodation wisely. Whether your budget is large or small, you are going to need more room with teenagers, and seriously, separate rooms. If your budget decrees separate tents rather than separate rooms, fine, just make sure they’re separate.
5. Revisit your youth with the YHA. There are plenty of budget options for bigger families. Youth Hostels are a great idea, most of which now have double rooms and family rooms, so it’s possible to find a combination of the two that works.
6. Make sure your chosen destination or resort has a range of activities suitable for teenagers – whether that’s surfing, horse riding, volleyball or football.
“Nothing bores a teen more than watching everyone else have fun without you, watching your younger brothers or sisters enjoy activities that you’re not invited to because you’re over 12.“
7. Find activities that will challenge both of you, and face those challenges together, whether that’s facing a fear of heights at the top of Auckland Sky Tower, a black run down the mountain or trying scuba diving for the first time. When you come through the other side unscathed and pretty damn pleased with yourself, you’ll have bonded in more ways than one.
8. Accept the fact the smart phones are coming on holiday with you and take steps to avoid “roaming mobile bill shock”. Ensure the hotel or resort you’re staying at has wifi, find out the cost involved and if necessary buy yourself a local SIM card.
“Any hotel wanting to welcome teens is going to need wifi so that we can stay connected with our friends back home. We don’t need to be checking in every five minutes, but we need to know we can check in when we want to.”
9. Be flexible and allow plenty of down time, or what my kids like to call “lazy days”. It’s okay – you’re on holiday, so it’s acceptable to spend at least one day in your pyjamas watching in-house movies.
10. If at all possible, avoid holiday plans that require early starts. Sleeping in seems to be a human right that teenagers hold dearly. If you don’t want to sleep in yourself, use the time to have breakfast in peace or go for a walk.
Do you have any tips for traveling with teens?
Read how this one family manages a lifestyle of travel with a teenager.
I can’t imagine 4 teens (+1 other). You’ve got to have a lot of patience! I think your suggestion of involving them in the planning is brilliant. It holds for any travel partner, but is especially true for kids!
Me either Lance. We struggle with 2 kids 🙂
Ha ha! I didn’t plan on having 5 kids – but somehow that’s what I’ve ended up with. It takes a fair deal of good organisation. Luckily my partner is half German and it comes naturally to him 🙂 He’s good with packing lists too – maybe I should share those too?
This seems totally a different and new new strategy.Traveling with teens is really a challenging one.And your suggestion is simply awesome.
Glad you found the tips useful Charis.
Thanks Charis – I’m glad you found the post useful!
We’ve definitely had to do all of these while traveling with our teens- nice to see them in one neat list to remember for future trips! Thanks!
Thanks Sarah – I guess with teens yourself you understand they require a bit of understanding – and a fair bit of compromise 🙂
We used to allow our teen to bring a friend along after the age of 14 because she was the only child. They usually don’t want to just hang out with mom and dad at that point. But, on the trips that she did bring a friend, we all had a blast. Until she and the friend tire of each other lol. Teens…what a wonderful age. Thankfully mine is almost 18 now!!
I can only imagine Gabrielle. We have all that to look forward to 🙂
Lots of great advice there, having spent years on the road with my family as a teen (five years continuously at one point on an epic around-Australia trip), though I was sad to read: “Accept the fact the smart phones are coming on holiday with you”.
My phone never leaves my side when I’m working, which is most of the time, being both a travel and food writer and a blogger. But I have to admit that when I take the rare day off or have some downtime, I leave it far from reach. I don’t have children, let alone teens, so I don’t know what you would go through if you actually forbade them from using the phones for a while.
But when I was a teen my television watching was restricted and for many years we didn’t have a TV on the family round-Australia trip. I never missed it and I think it was the best decision my parents made as it forced my sister and I to read and we became avid readers. It also meant we were so much more engaged with the trip, the landscapes, the people, and learning about it all. As a family we were more engaged with eachother too, because mobile phones simply didn’t exist in the 70s and 80s so my parents weren’t using them either.
If I had kids I think I’d attempt to travel the same way again. It makes me so sad to see holidaying families here in Cambodia, sitting in a cafe or out at a restaurant and they all have their eyes on their mobile devices, not communicating with eachother. Nobody seems to people-watch anymore either – I actually have a post coming up on my blog about that in a couple of days – everybody is so engrossed in their online worlds they’re paying less attention to the world around them and I find that terribly sad.
Yes. You have no choice but to engage in activities for the young. You have to ask them clearly where they want to go and what they like to eat.
Hi, this article is wonderful. I travel full-time as a solo parent with my 3 kids for 6 years already, we started when all of them were young and now two of them are teens. I see the change and the evolution we all went through. And as it is challenging, it is also very rewarding.Your tips are very valuable. Thank you.