Fearess Family Travel Interview Series – Imps and Ramblers 

Hello and welcome back to our monthly #fearlessfamtrav interview series! This month we’ve got another daddy traveller – Ian from Imps and Ramblers! Imps and Ramblers have been linking up to fearless family travel since the first linky and are a font of knowledge on family travel. I have been following along with their blog for awhile so am excited to get to ask them some questions for our monthly family interview series

The Imps and Ramblers Family

1. What is your family travel? Full-time, part-time, digital nomads etc.

We are part-time travelers. We maintain day jobs, send our kids to public school, and live “normal” lives. When the kids are out of school is when we get the chance to travel.

2. How has your travel style changed since becoming a family?

Our travel style has not drastically changed since we started travelling with our kids. We always travelled on a budget and tried to experience as much as we could wherever we went. We still do that, though we tend to have shorter days now and opt for AirBnB’s and apartments vice hotels. We also eat a lot more pizza and burgers now than when we travel without our kids.

3. What was your baby(ie)’s first trip? Why did you chose to go there? What were the highlights/lowlights etc?

vatican museums

We didn’t really travel much with our first son apart from car trips to see relatives. If we were going somewhere, he tended to stay with grandparents instead of accompanying us. After we had our twins we began travelling extensively as a family because we relocated to the U.K. when they were 9 months old and we had no relatives to look after the kids. Our first real trip together as a family of five, apart from relocating from Canada to the U.K., came when the twins were 15 months old and we went to Rome because we thought it would be a good introduction to continental Europe for our oldest. One of the babies barely slept and was in the process of recovering from an ear infection, but we still had a great time. Our so was seven at the time and was amazed by the Colosseum and we had to tear him out of the Vatican Museum.

4. What is your favourite family travel gadget and why?

Best gadget

iPads and iPhones have kept our kids quiet more times than I can count or am proud to admit, but our favourite is out set of CARES harnesses for flying with children. It meant the twins could have their own seat at a very young age without having to take a carseat or worrying about a carseat fitting in narrow seats that exist on budget airlines like Ryanair and EasyJet.

5. What is your favourite family travel destination and why?

in athens

So far, we enjoyed Greece the most. Athens was truly wonderful and historic, but when we left the city and toured the Peloponesse and the Mani Peninsula, we truly got to experience life in Greece. It was in the smaller towns that we really had a chance to connect with the locals and experience the culture.

6. What is the most family friendly accommodation you have ever visited?

We have predominantly stayed in AirBnB’s or apartments since we started travelling as a family and most have been relatively family friendly. We choose to do so because it allows us a kitchen to store and prepare some of our meals. We also had the opportunity to stay on a working farm in the Bavarian Alps where the kids could visit with the animals and the family that ran it were great with the kids at meal time. There were balls, toys, and a play structure outside and the kids loved it.

7. Family travel bloggers can be guilty of showing only the good stuff – what is your worst family travel experience?

I don’t think I can be accused of that one if you read some of my blogs! In fact my first blog was called Accepting Failure. Without a doubt though our worst experience was a day in the German/Austrian Alps where we fought with the weather, couldn’t see 100m away while on top of a mountain, and then had to try and clean the rental car and most our belongings during a pouring rainstorm after a terrible car sickness incident. After all that we had to keep the twins up until almost midnight as we were catching a sleeper train to Berlin. Read about it here

8. What are your top three tips for other families who wish to travel?

i. Do your research and have a plan. There is nothing worse than arriving somewhere and having the attraction closed, lacking a reservation, lacking tickets etc. Then you will have to deal with very disappointed kids.

ii. Take your kids everywhere and don’t worry about what other people say or think.

iii. Learn patience, you will need it.

9. What do you wish you had known or done before starting family travel?

How easy it actually is and how rewarding it is. If we had known how easy it was, we would have travelled more with our oldest son when he was little. At that point we were of the mindset that we would be relegated to only “Disney” holidays if we wanted to take the kids.

10. What are your future family travel plans?

Short term, we are going to Budapest and for a few days in the Hungarian countryside in a couple months. Long term, we will be relocating again for work this summer back to Canada and are looking forward to exploring Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Montreal, and the East Coast of the United States including New York, Boston, and Florida. We will also likely try to get to Disney World before the kids all get too old and would like to explore Mexico and Central America if we get a chance. After that, it will likely be relocation time again, and our destination will dictate our travel plans.

If you’d like to find out more about the adventures of The Imps and Ramblers why not check out more on their blog or follow along on the below social media!

impsandramblers.wordpress.com

Instagram: ImpsAndRamblers

Twitter: @ImpsAndRamblers

Facebook: Imps And Ramblers

Pinterest: Imps And Ramblers

If you would like to be interviewed as part of our monthly travel interview series then please leave a comment or send us an email