Why You Can Still Travel With Kids | Sitting Down With Iz Harris

One, two, three

Oh, we did it! One, two, three. Wait. That was at the same time, wasn't it

No, not even at all. Hey guys, today I'm sitting down with Iz Harris, who is one of the founders of Bright Trip

and she has an entire course on our platform about how to travel with kids

and so today is just going to be like a super casual interview it's kind of a long form thing

where we're just chilling and talking and we can hear all about isa's experience traveling with kids

and talking about where she learned all these things and kind of what's in the course so i'm

just gonna quickly cut into that interview and let you guys enjoy you had kids when you were

really young and you had traveled before you had kids, right? Yeah. So, but not, I traveled way more

after kids than I did before kids, you know, like even in the first few years after kids

I had more travel experience than I did pre kids. Did you think that that was going to be the case

No. I mean, I didn't think our whole life was going to be the way that it was, but

you know traveling and traveling overseas it wasn't something I grew up doing it was not a

part of my world it was not a part of my uh upbringing at all and so I don't even think I

had the like ability to foresee the way that our life has gone and like how we've raised our boys

and how we have traveled the world with them I just had no frame of reference for something like

that at all. You know, I didn't even know, like, I didn't know about vloggers or travel bloggers or

anything like those things that were happening. I was so naive and unaware. Do you feel like

family travel or travel with kids is like properly represented in social media? Or do you feel like

it's often like faked or like, like, do you think it's, I don't know, do people have accurate

expectations of what it's like? You know, that's a broader question, which is more actually, do I

think travel is accurately reflected? And the answer to that would be no. It's actually something

that I think inspired the start of Bright Trip. And I think I'm correct in saying has inspired

team members like you to come on board. The idea of like portraying travel in a way that

is relatable to real life travelers. And that includes real life parents who travel

I don't fault the creators for that, you know, like they're putting their lives out there. And

so of course, everything has a little bit more of a kind of tied with a bow, uh, thing. And I

I do think I wanted to kind of break that. And I didn't, I didn't know not to, I didn't know

enough about being online to edit moments out. So like this moment behind me, actually

I don't know if you can see, but like we're in the white cities of Spain and O had just like on

camera grabbed the orange juice and he completely dumped it on himself. I don't know. It didn't

cross my mind that I wouldn't include that in. So no, I don't think it's accurately reflected

but part of that is like how are you gonna you know think to grab a camera when your kid's having

a tantrum because they will when you're traveling you know so part of it is just like it's kind of

difficult to capture and part of it is just the way social media is you know we don't talk about

like the the messiness and actually like that is something that in in our travel with kids course

was a major focus, was the messiness. Like things you don't really hear about

like, you know, that there are going to be, you know, sick kids and accidents on airplanes

And like you will end up with like spit up or some other fluid all over you at some point in the middle of a flight and we really looked at kind of our years and years and years of travel experience with these boys

and pulled from that to try to present like an accurate almost like arsenal of tools

for someone to go and and do this on their own. Do you think that the misrepresented version of

travel with family or kid travel, uh, makes it more daunting for parents to travel with kids

since they feel like it has to be like done in this picture perfect way. Yeah. I think that

that makes it more daunting. And then we say multiple times in this course and on this channel

and as a company, like we're not talking about just overseas. Like we're talking about like

setting up a tent in your backyard. That can be your practice run, like going on a two hour road

trip to a town you've never been to, uh, for one night, you know, overnight stay. There are so many

practice runs and there's so many budget friendly ways that you as a family can travel that apply

all the same like rules and stepping stones and mindsets. And, um, I think that that's something

too like where families don't feel like they can travel whether it's a budget thing or a logistics

thing or they're just scared you know and so they don't even try this this like smaller trips the

road trips or the day trips or the you know overnight trips how did you navigate like you

said you traveled more after you had kids which you didn't expect and so for people who are like

having kids and nervous of like, how soon can I travel with little ones or how am I going to pay

for this? Or like, what are things that you've learned that could be helpful for them

Oh man, I think back to our first trip and, you know, our son, our older son has autism. So

um, we were traveling with our, um, this is our first overseas trip. So we went to Italy and our

youngest was six months. Then Henry, our oldest was, he would have been three years old. He

you know, had never slept outside of a crib. He had never, um, he was non-verbal at that point. So

our communication was based off of these like picture cards. He had a big need for routine

and, uh, a tendency towards kind of rigidity within that routine. And, um, I had no idea how

it was going to go. And we, we get on this plane. I didn't sleep a wink. Like just don't even

that's one of the things we talk about. Like travel with kids is a game of setting expectations

and setting them nice and low. And that doesn't mean it's not going to be fantastic, but it's like

you set yourself up for failure, expecting that it's going to be travel without kids

And the same way that, that it's not going to be travel without kids in those, like, you know, you're going to relax on the plane. You're going to watch a movie. You're going to

rest. Yeah. Those things won't happen, but it's also like, it's, you know, you, it's true on the

other side of things where it's like travel without your kids also means you're not seeing

that place through their eyes and you're not seeing them like play with like local children

in Italy on a playground and like not even mind a language barrier. And you're not talking about

them, you know, these places with them for years to come. So, you know, it goes both ways, but

um, but that trip, it was such an incredible thing. I have this memory of getting on a train

and we were using this like picture board schedule to help Henry, you know, understand like after

like after you have to sit and eat, we'll go on the train. He was obsessed with trains. So we were

just like okay we can like hop these villages and use the train as a way to

like help him adjust and feel comfortable and feel excited and it just blows my mind like it all of the ways that he rose to the occasion and exceeded our expectations and actually thrived on much of

the chaos and newness of that experience. And it honestly grew me up in a lot of ways as a

parent. And it, yeah, it shifted our entire, you know, family culture and future. So I think

my advice I guess would be give it a try it might not be for you like that that's okay too but at

least give it a try and go in with reasonable expectations that it's not going to be travel

without kids but that a lot of beauty comes from it being travel with kids you know that would be

my advice and you know I break down more of the step by step and like the like here's what you

should have with you here's what you should pack here's how you should pack here's what you should like get in terms of like toys or snacks or like these are the most important things

Here's how you should schedule things out. Those are all really, really important. But the biggest thing is giving yourself an opportunity to figure out if it is something

that you want to be a part of your family culture, you know. I'm curious if you've seen benefits post travel even like obviously on the trips, you get to

experience these things and learn things with them. But, like, do you see any effect in, like, who they are as a person when you're at home, like, from your experiences of traveling

Yes. One of the major things, and it wasn't just us, it was Henry's teachers and his therapist as well, that we noticed was he would always have a massive surge in learning and curiosity and kind of awareness of his surroundings and, like, comfort within those

but also both of them actually have really benefited from the show that can be travel

Both of them, you know, kids really, really love routine and they like their routine and they like

you know, our youngest actually almost more than Henry, like clings to his routine

What happens is normally when we're traveling, those things kind of go away. I noticed that

they're way more adaptable. They're way more like, uh, way less reliant on kind of those routines

and things going a certain way because travel, just like it pushes us to be a little bit more

like comfortable with going with the flow. It pushes kids in the same way, you know

and we address that too, where it's important to be aware of both sides. Like again, they

yeah, they come home and there's these amazing benefits of them being a little bit more laissez

fair but then it's important to remember that they are experiencing the same kind of chaos and

stress that we experience when we go to a new place and to build in kind of breaks and moments

for them to process that whereas most of your travel experience happened after you had kids

i was the beneficiary of my parents taking me when i was really young and so yeah i can i know that

your kids will be so grateful in the future. And like, I feel like even from a super young age

it helped me have like this global perspective that was much more than just like my little

hometown, you know, even small trips that, that are like still within the U S or still within my

own country or whatever. Um, yeah, they're so helpful. I love hearing that. That makes me so

happy. Um, I think that's such a fascinating experience to have had too, you know, it's

it's so different than my upbringing. And I do wonder like, what is this going to be like for

them? Like that certain things are normal that just absolutely weren't for me. I just, you know

they're going to have this kind of awareness of how small they are in the world. And I think

that's probably the thing that excites me most is just having that perspective of, um, our culture

is our culture you know our societal culture even our family culture but it isn the culture I feel really excited about them being exposed to that notion early on Do you feel like um there are any like cornerstones or things that you kind of

feel about yourself were shaped by your early travel experiences? Yeah, I, I think so. I come from a very like homogenous state of belief system and like

ethnicity and everything and so being like traveling from a really early age all over the

world and seeing that like not everyone believes the same way I do and not everyone looks the same

way I do it made it so that when I did come back home and interacted with people who looked and

believed and acted like me I I still operated with a different understanding that like this isn't

the universal one way that we all talk to each other. And this isn't just the one way that things

work. And so, um, I think it's a perspective that like, yeah, has definitely influenced

I mean, how I approach my own beliefs and, and things like that. So I definitely feel like

travel from a young age has like shaped, yeah, things as deep as my belief system for sure

You know, we talked a little bit early on in this conversation about that idea that like most people

feel like the, the travel is dead once you've had kids, like it's over, it's done with, you know

unless you have a family member that can like cover the kids or, you know, childcare, some setup

One of the things that I wanted to encourage in, in sharing our travels and creating this course

in documenting, you know, travel with kids in my show with Eater and having that included

was this idea that you can still do this and that you can still have that part of yourself

and that part of your identity. And that doesn't need to end just because you brought two little, three little, however

many little lives into this world. For me, it's been so empowering to keep that part of myself

And is it more chaotic? Yes, especially when I'm producing something like that is journalistic in nature

It is much more chaotic or I'm producing a course. It's much more chaotic

But the benefits far outweigh, you know, the negatives. And and I think what I would say is as we've learned, we've gotten so much better at it

And we are like truly like a well-oiled machine now. and I just like have so much pride in these moments where I see my kids like literally

running down you know the like runway what's that called like the little ramp

they like the airplane their little yeah they get their ticket scan they run down they find

their seats they're like counting the numbers they get buckled they're waiting they know that

they can't have their screen until we're like up in the air because I really want them to take in

like the moment of takeoff and all of that and Henry knows turbulence and all of these things

like there's just so much wonder and there's so much wonder in seeing it through their eyes

And, uh, I would encourage anyone to give it a try, give it a try, but take our course because

you will learn a lot of do's and do nots, but give it a try, give it a try in a small way or a big way

Just see how your kids respond and they might really surprise you and you might surprise yourself

you know thank you so much for for talking to me today i think that everyone will love this

of course thank you uh for making great stuff and being a part of the team thank you guys for

watching if you want to find that whole course you can go over to brighttrip.com and find the

travel with kids course we also have a bunch of other stuff on the platform and so we'd love to

see you over there see ya