For Eric Stoen, the writer and photographer behind Travel Babbo, there’s no single point when he started traveling with his family.
“There’s no first trip that I can remember—we simply never stopped traveling,” he says.
When he was growing up, Eric traveled to Europe and the South Pacific with his family. But his passion for travel started when he studied in Italy and Germany during college. He never stopped traveling after that—first alone or with friends, then with his wife, then with their three kids, now 11, 13, and 15.
Eric used to work in healthcare, but six years ago started blogging about travel. “I haven’t looked back!” he says. The family is based in Southern California, where they take advantage of school holidays.
We caught up with Eric to chat about why his family plans ahead, how to get better travel photos, and what he loves close to home in SoCal.
In three words, our travel style is…
Adventurous, cultural, independent.
Our top family-travel hack is…
Not really a hack, but I highly recommend booking airport transportation in advance. It’s stressful getting into foreign airports after long flights with tired kids and then having to figure out how to get to your hotel or rental. It’s worth a little extra money to have a driver waiting—the likelihood of getting lost or scammed or leaving something behind goes down exponentially.
If you want to take better travel photos…
Go where other people aren’t! Avoid destinations at peak times of year, walk around before tour groups arrive or after they leave, and seek out lesser-known sites and parks. Any photo of your kids enjoying a destination with no one else around is better than a shot with hundreds of people in the background.
The best travel advice I ever received was…
Take non-stop flights and travel early in the morning to reduce the likelihood of having flight issues.
Our family’s favorite destination is…
Greece. We all love Greece and we return as often as we can. The Greek Islands in the summer are perfect.
The places on my bucket list are….
The Pyramids and the Northern Lights, which I’ve never seen. And I’ve never traveled the Silk Road. Hopefully soon!
If our kids ask to go somewhere…
We go. Otherwise we discuss potential destinations as a family and vote on them.
Most of our travel planning is done by…
The kids. I do the booking. They research things to do wherever we’re going and let me know what sounds good. A kid-planned trip will always be fun, and the kids will be happy. That’s not the case if you try to take the kids along on an adult-planned trip.
Some of our favorite spots closer to home are…
We’ve loved exploring all of the national parks in California and Utah the past two summers. It took a virus for us to finally seek out the amazing places in our backyard, and we’re loving it.
Other families who want to travel the way we do should…
Book far in advance! We love staying in the perfect hotel in the perfect location, or finding the perfect rental, or doing the best cooking class, or getting the one guide who gets the best reviews. So I’ll sketch out our travel plans a full year in advance (or more) and book the things that I need to.
Our must-have travel gear is…
A smallish suitcases/duffels with wheels. A typical trip will have us rolling our bags to and from ferries or on and off of trains. Otherwise there’s nothing that’s vital to a trip—we pack light and we rarely come home with souvenirs.
If I could, I would ban…
Large group tours. Nothing ruins a pedestrian area or a cultural site like a 55-person tour group, or multiple large groups. That’s a terrible, inflexible way to experience a destination anyway. Anywhere you travel you should be able to find private or small-group tours, even off of cruise ships.
The most important lesson my kids have learned from traveling is…
Always dine at restaurants with small menus! If a place has a 20-page laminated menu with multiple cuisines, they’re not going to make anything well. Search out the small places with five items written on a chalkboard.
Other families learn more about me at…
www.travelbabbo.com, and @travelbabbo on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and TripAdvisor.
