"Why taking her? She won't remember!"

It's one of the phrases we usually hear when we're sharing our travel plans with someone (of course, who doesn't know us that much). Other that that, there is "why not leave her (with grandma) and enjoy the trip (just with your husband)", or "poor baby, it's such a hassle, she will suffer the whole trip!" Now let me get this straight, my baby girl doesn't suffer during any kind of trips. And we actually do enjoy that she is with us, as much as she enjoys the trip itself. Do we know that she will not remember? Yes, probably she won't. Do we care? No, we really don't.

It's not whether she will remember that she'd visited the Acropolis that is important to us. It's the act of traveling itself that matters. That she experiences the whole process from the earliest days possible. Because traveling, like other types of experiences, helps shaping a child's personality.

Baby girl playing with a the son of a family friend we visited. Picture taken in Szentgotthard, Hungary

Our child is one of the most social kids I know. On one hand, it's quite scary, because she would talk and play and probably goes away with any stranger. On the other hand, it's actually cool. In any kind of gatherings I don't have a child hanging on me or hiding her face behind my leg. She's familiar with meeting new people during our trips, so she doesn't have hard times being in the crowds. More often than not, she's able to entertain herself, with whatever or whoever she finds. I don't have to constantly entertain her and convince her to stay a little bit longer before we'd go home. Generally she's a content child, but I believe that frequent travels had somewhat helped her grow to be one. She's able just to adapt in new surroundings and to enjoy with whatever is around.

See, baby girl eats a lot in relation to her petite figure. She is far from picky eater. Much of this, I believe, is caused by frequent travels. Wherever we go, usually we'd try the local specialties. And if there's more options we have to choose, we'd usually choose the one we never tried before. This leads to the fact that she would, literally, eats anything she's offered. It doesn't always end up by her liking the food, but she would always try. If she hates it, she'd stop and tries something else.

Another quality they'd learn by traveling that will be pretty handy for daily life is sleeping. Baby girl would literally sleep anywhere. She had learned to sleep on the metal bench of the airports, on the pebbles at the beach, in her carrier, or on anyone's bed. She doesn't have "rituals" before bedtime, she doesn't cry for her own bed or pillow or blanket. I found this really helpful in general, even when not traveling. We're actually able to attend weddings with her with no problems because she would sleep whenever she's tired, we can hang out with friends on evenings during the week and she'd just fall asleep while we're enjoying wines after dinner, wherever.

Enjoying morning bath in Indonesia, something new for her; she doesn't bath in the mornings back home,
clearly not outside, and not in a tiny tube. Grans don't own a bath tub!

Generally traveling introduces a child to the concept of adaptation. She might not remember that she visited the Eiffel tower, but she's got all the time in the world to visit the tower by herself later in life, creating her own memories of it. What you could benefit from taking your child with you when traveling is you could probably grow a child that can easily adapt to new environments; and that will result to a child who enjoys everything. Anytime.