Engage Kids with Fascinating Opportunities to Learn While Traveling

A visit to a museum or gallery as part of a family holiday sounds great in theory. The reality can be a nightmare of boredom and tantrums. We’ve struggled with our own kids and can probably recall our own childhood traumas when confronted with room after tedious room of culture. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Few museums prove as daunting as the Prado in central Madrid. This vast complex, housing one of the world’s greatest collections of European art, proves a hard sell to the average kid. Fortunately, private tour companies such as Across Madrid offer tours specifically designed to bring the fusty museum to life for younger visitors. Across Madrid’s tour lasts 2.5 hours and is structured as a treasure hunt, guided by Dr. Almudena Cros, an art history professor who previously worked as an elementary school assistant. By focusing on themes of universal interest to kids (monsters and heroes, animals, fashion), the tour aims to stimulate and entertain. Dr. Cros also offers tours of the wider city specifically for kids, helping to decipher Madrid’s long history and explaining some of the quirks of Spanish tradition and lifestyle.

Kids don’t need a tour guide to get the most out of El Retiro, the 350-acre park situated immediately east of the Prado. In summer it attracts local families, strolling the shaded paths and rowing rented boats on the large central lake. A giant greenhouse within the park, Palacio de Cristal, displays free art exhibitions featuring pieces from Reina Sofia Museum. Street artists, musicians, magicians and living statues perform throughout the park. On Saturdays and Sundays, Teatro de Titeres del Retiro stages free puppet shows. Although the shows are in Spanish, there’s plenty of slapstick and music to keep kids amused even if they don’t understand the language.

At National Palace Museum in Taipei, both the spoken and written language can present a challenge for English-speaking kids. Nonetheless, in addition to housing a peerless collection of Chinese art and artifacts, with more than 700,000 items, the museum also boasts a basement children’s gallery. Here kids of all ages and nationalities take part in interactive activities from drawing to learning to play Chinese drums.

PHOTO: © KARELGALLAS | DREAMSTIME.COM

Exposure to different languages and cultures remains one of the rewards of international travel with kids, and it can have a lifelong benefit. My own life owes much to the childhood visits I made to African game parks, and on every subsequent visit I’ve found it gratifying to see other children falling under the spell of the African wilds. One of the most kid-friendly parks is Kruger National Park in South Africa, a vast protected area scattered with safari camps. Letaba Rest Camp, roughly in the center of the park, features an interactive museum and education center where kids can measure themselves against elephant skeletons and some of the largest tusks ever recorded. Many of the camps feature tribal dancing in the evenings and also sell a wide variety of local carvings, beadwork and pictures … pieces of Africa to take home.

In Australia’s Outback, five miles from downtown Alice Springs, Alice Springs Desert Park provides a wonderful place to encounter a variety of wildlife including kangaroos, bilbies and quolls (types of marsupials); dingoes (wild dogs); and thorny devils (spiny lizards). But every April the park transforms into the main venue of an incredible cultural festival. A 10-day free event, Parrtjima (pro- nounced PAR-chee-ma) celebrates Aboriginal culture with light installations, artwork, performances and interactive workshops. After dark, the 300-million- year-old MacDonnell Mountain Range serves as the canvas for a spectacular light show, and kids can cavort on illuminated ground displays of Aboriginal art. It’s a magical experience.

PHOTO: © MIRJANA SIMEUNOVICH | DREAMSTIME.COM

Indigenous culture also holds a prominent position at the Canadian Museum of History in Ottawa. From May until October the riverside park behind the museum — once an ancient trading post — houses a reconstructed indigenous village. Visitors can book guided tours for craft and music workshops, canoe trips and storytelling sessions, all reflecting the more than 15,000 years of history of Canada’s indigenous peoples. Since 2021 the same initiative broadened to include the dedicated 164-acre Mādahòkì Farm in Ottawa’s greenbelt, where seasonal indigenous festivals take place and where kids can experience hands-on activities such as making a dreamcatcher. Don’t miss the opportunity to meet the farm’s five Ojibwe Spirit Horses, descendants of the unique horses bred by the Ojibwe people in the five centuries since the Spanish first introduced horses to North America. The Museum of History also incorporates the Canadian Children’s Museum, closed during the pandemic due to the hands-on nature of its exhibits but slated to reopen soon.

COVID-19 changed the world. Museums and cultural groups endured a particularly severe impact. But new opportunities emerged out of adversity — not least, new ways of reaching kids in their own homes. New York’s Guggenheim Museum, for instance, initiated virtual programs to teach children about the Guggenheim collection and to encourage them to create their own artwork. The museum website continues to offer downloadable art kits and audio guides examining selected paintings. A regular online event, Sketch with Jeff, helps kids learn to draw under the guidance of artist Jeff Hopkins. With the lifting of pandemic restrictions, the Guggenheim once again offers a full calendar of in-person events as well as a special program for children on the autism spectrum. (With increasing awareness of special needs, many museums around the world feature similar programs.)

The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation boasts a proud track record of utilizing the city’s open spaces for cultural activities, many aimed at kids. Activities include dance classes, drawing and painting, and after-school programs. Check the department’s website for upcoming events.

At less than 1.5 acres, Unity Park is not one of Chicago’s largest green spaces, but with community support it has become a vital neighborhood facility. Every summer it stages Art in the Park, during which local kids and many visitors create art based on a unique theme each year.

PHOTO: © JOSIEELIAS | DREAMSTIME.COM

For two memorable years, my own neighborhood was the Spanish town of Javea on the Mediterranean coast. There the years are measured in annual fiestas, and we learned to adjust our lives around them. Periodically, lively crowds thronged the streets and the nights echoed with fireworks and firecrackers. One of the largest and most colorful of these fiestas, Moros y Cristianos (Moors and Christians) marks the reconquest of Spain by Christians and the ultimate expulsion of the Muslim Moors, who ruled the country for 700 years. The fiesta includes reenactments of the battles and culminates with a large parade. The festivities involve everyone, from the youngest children to old pensioners. For outsiders it offers an incredible spectacle, a living legacy of Spanish history. For local children it remains an annual milestone in a calendar full of annual milestones. While it is fun to experience new, exotic cultures, ultimately, culture begins at home.