January 11, 2019 - New Study Shows Traveling with Your Kids Makes Them Better in School and Tanya Leaves for Barcelona, Spain

Elisa's Daily Scoop 
Covering Long Island & NYC Boroughs 
CURRENTLY IN: LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK
​NEXT TRIP DEPARTS IN: 36 DAYS: DISNEY WORLD, FLORIDA

Tanya's Daily Scoop 
Covering the West Coast & the World
​CURRENTLY IN: SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
NEXT TRIP DEPARTS IN: TODAY: EUROPE

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Traveling with Kids Makes them Better in School

Happy Friday!!! Yup, the weekend is finally here and may I say that if you read my Daily Scoop yesterday, and remember how annoyed i was - well, I'm in great spirits today and as chipper as ever!

Woke up to a super freezing but sunny day.  The temps were down in the low 20's this morning. Thank goodness for my girls that "Mama" always starts the car 10 to 15 minutes prior to school drop off to get it warmed up.  Today, that extra 15 minutes didn't really seem to make a whole helluva difference.  It was still rather chilly in my Hyundai Santa Fe when we got going.

Oh well, that's what we get for living in the northeast!

Today is a very exciting day for Tanya, as you may have noticed - she is leaving for her first of four European trips this year.  She'll be hitting Barcelona and some other fun places in Spain, including the Canary Islands and then heading to north Africa to Morocco.  I'll be right there "along side her" in our daily blogging.  

While Tanya experiences it all in person, I'll be sharing some interesting facts and tidbits about the places to which she is visiting.  It's going to be a fun couple of weeks!

Moving right along - there is a new study which just confirmed something that Tanya and I pretty much knew intuitively all along - that traveling with your kids makes them better in school!!  I've always been the biggest proponent of this belief and it is for this reason, I never hesitated while the kids were in grade school, to take them out here and there for travel around the country and the world.  ​

Me and my girls in front of the statue of St. Wenceslas, Prague (circa 2014) (c) travelincousins.com

Climbing the Eiffel Tower with Kelsey (circa 2013) (c) travelincousins.com

London in April 2017 (c) travelincousins.com

My girls at JFK Airport leaving for Dominican Republic last month (c) travelincousins.com

I believe it has tremendously paid off in their self confidence, independence, tolerance for different kinds of people and cultures, but let's see what the study says.

According to an article published in Travel & Leisure this week,  Traveling With Your Kids Will Make Them Better in School, Study Suggests, a survey of almost 1,500 U.S.-based teachers, commissioned by the Student and Youth Travel Association (SYTA), found that 74 percent of educators believed that travel has “a very positive impact on students’ personal development.” 

​Wow - well, let's see how... the article goes on to say:

• 56% believe that travel’s positive impact can extend to a student’s education and career
• Teachers agreed that children who traveled to experience cultures other than their own have increased tolerance and respectfulness, willingness to learn and a willingness to try new things.
• Kids who traveled were more likely to have higher independence, self-esteem, confidence, adaptability and sensitivity.
• Well-traveled kids are more outgoing and have better self-expression than kids who stayed at home.
• 42 percent of teachers thought that a well-traveled kid looked more attractive to college admissions recruiters.

What's more (and beware, if you expose your kids to traveling (insert grin), the article warns,  "​Much like giving a mouse a cookie, taking a kid on a trip will only make them want more. Of the teachers surveyed, 76 percent said that they saw kids wanting to travel more after being taken on one trip."  

How amazing is this!!! The good news is that according to the study, travel need not be defined by globetrotting.  Taking your kids locally or to nearby cities where the culture is a bit different results in the many of the same results!

I just love getting validated for what my intuition has told me all along.  It's a great feeling.

Well, on that happy and upbeat note, I'm going to bid you adieu and get moving on my list of to-do's for the day.

Have an amazing Friday!!

-Travelin' Elisa
xoxo

Leaving for Barcelona, Spain

And we are off!!!

Greetings from LAX. I'm currently sitting here at my gate...quite a bit ahead of time before my flight.

I hate being late. But I'm also not a huge fan of being super early. Today my choices were rather limited. A friend of mine had graciously offered to give us a ride to LAX and he wanted to leave at 4am. UGH 

Our flight isn't until 10am, but opted to go along with the 4am departure since we didn't want to deal with the expected long security lines.

Dave and I are ready to go! (c)travelincousins.com

My friend David, who drove us to LAX (c)travelincousins.com

The lines were not at all bad and the terminal was fairly quiet. Whereas it is completely bustling now and I am totally sleepy right now (but trying to get over it, at least until we board our jet). 

Why oh why an I so sleepy?

I'm super tired (c)travelincousins.com

​Ya see, I had quite a bit of a crappy day yesterday (I won't go into the gory details, but it involved theft) the situation completely stressed me out and gave me a stress headache that lasted the rest of the very busy and late night. BOO

By the time I fell asleep it was around 1:15a(ish) and yet I had to wake up to my alarm sounding off at 3am. 

Aside from shaking the stress, putting the yucky situation behind me and being sleepy, I am totally excited about our upcoming destinations...

Stick around for lots more!

Tootles,
-Travelin' Tanya