To Katja Gaskell, taking your kids trekking in the Himalayas, exploring Mayan cities in Guatemala and beachgoing in Sri Lanka is—well, normal.
“I moved around when growing up, living between Belgium, France and the U.S.” says Katya, the writer behind the travel blog Globetotting. So being on the move with her own family of five seemed perfectly natural. Each of her three kids was born in a different country (Australia, India and Mexico). Today, they are based in London.
“I love living overseas—it’s such a wonderful way to experience a new country and region—and I really hope that we get the opportunity to do it again,” Katja says.
We caught up with her to chat about the best ways to save money on family travel, the trip that made her fall in love with exploring, and her advice on getting started with your adventures.
In three words, our travel style is…
Adventurous, curious, fun.
During the pandemic, we…
Couldn’t travel domestically—we couldn’t even leave our neighbourhood! So, working in travel has been a real challenge this past year. Things are slowly starting to ease up, however, and we recently enjoyed our first week away since December to the east coast of England.
The first trip we took as a family was…
With Alfie, my eldest, when he was three months old. We flew from Sydney to London so that we could spend Christmas with our families. Because we lived overseas with the kids they’ve travelled from a very young age.
The trip that made me fall in love with travel was…
My first solo trip. At 19 I travelled to Nepal and volunteered with an organisation on an
environmental project for four months. I then travelled for a further two months to Tibet and to India. I loved EVERYTHING about this trip! It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences that has really shaped everything that I’ve done since.
Our best family-travel hack is…
Snacks! I honestly believe that you can travel pretty much anywhere if you have snacks. Access to a pool (or lake, or beach) is also always a winner, too.
Three of my favorite destinations are…
Mexico, Finland and France.
Some great under-the-radar attractions in London are…
God’s Own Junkyard, an art store that sells cool neon signs, Eel Pie Island, a tiny island with a huge history that is today an artist’s colony, and the Old Operating Theatre, which is the oldest surviving operating theatre in Europe. Today it’s a museum.
To save money on travel…
Travelling with young kids is great because you don’t have to pay full fares on airlines, and you can travel during school term times—meaning you have access to low prices and good deals. With older kids, we often choose where we want to go based on good flight details or where we can travel using airmiles. As a family of five, we don’t often stay in hotels these days; a holiday rental gives us more space, is inevitably more affordable and means that we don’t have to eat out if we don’t want to.
My best advice for anyone who is looking to travel with kids is…
To just start! Travelling with children can seem daunting but the more often you do it, the easier it becomes. That’s not to say you won’t have travel disasters—we’ve had plenty! But the more you do it the easier it gets.
I want my child to learn…
That there is more to the world than their home, their school, their friendship groups. That the world is a big and exciting place, and that people might speak different languages, follow different religions, eat different foods, but that ultimately there is a lot of shared commonalities. I want them to understand and respect different cultures and I hope that our travels instil a sense of curiosity about the world and a desire to learn more.
We make our travel plans depending on…
Often, where we can find good deals! Plus, we always like to discover destinations
near where we are living. So, when we were living in Mexico, we travelled a lot around Mexico itself. Similarly, when we were living in India, we travelled a lot in India as well as visiting Sri Lanka and Nepal. Now that we are in the UK, we are spending more time exploring Europe.
My bucket list is…
Never ending! However, the top three places that I really can’t wait to visit are the Galapagos Islands, Patagonia and Mongolia.
