I’m a day behind, but maybe I’ll post another post before the end of the day. If you don’t know what I’m talking about read this about the A-Z Challenge.
Kids Travel Journal: H is for Hotels
If you look at an old travel guidebook you may notice something different from how they are made today. Back in the day, the more attention was paid to the history, political, and geographical information about a place. A small section was devoted to hotels. These days that has switched. They give you some background info, a lot of details about logistics of the sights to see, and a ton of info about the hotels.
I love a good hotel. HOWEVER, in my opinion should go back to giving more background info and limiting hotel recommendations in guide books. There are a ton of sites with first-hand experience from people who stayed at hotels that, really, it’s just not as necessary anymore.
Even though that’s what I feel about guidebooks, it’s different from how I feel about personal travel journals.
In this A-Z of travel journal prompts for kids, I dedicate 1/26th of the prompts to hotels. Why? Because to kids, at least my kids, hotels are magical. My kids love checking into new hotels, figuring out what the hotel has to offer, and then discovering the new room. During a trip, their hotel room is a private place where they don’t have to worry about lines, behavior (to a certain extent), or anything except relaxing.
The fun for them starts, well technically when we mention we’re going to a hotel, but once checked in it’s at the elevator. Which floor are we on? Can I have the room key? Who can find our room first? Once we find the room they rush in to see the bathroom, pick their bed, look at the remote, and most of all – check out the view.
Since my kids are 3 and 5, we spend more time in the hotel room than we did when we didn’t have kids. We try to stick pretty close to their bedtimes. It gives us some time at the end of the night to wind down. They’re up early in the morning and ready to start our day as soon as possible.
This time, by the way, is a good time to give kids a travel journal to write in. It’ll keep them busy to reflect while the adults prepare for the day.
Hotel prompts include things like:
Where are you? What room number are you in? What does the room look like? What does the view from the room look like?
These are good prompts to start with and why I included them in today’s free printable.
Day 8 of the #azchallenge || Travel journal prompt: HOTELS! Click To TweetDownload the pdf by clicking on the image below.
Update: The download is now only accessible for newsletter subscribers. Subscribe here. Subscribers also get access to the resource library which includes free downloads once a month. If you’re still looking for something to download on this page, I created a one-sheet list of the prompts created for this challenge. Click on the image to download
Question for the commenters
I know a big part of the A-Z Challenge is meeting other bloggers and leaving comments. So, to help those of you leaving comments, you can either comment on something above or let me know –
What is one of the best hotels you’ve stayed at and why did you like it? Why did it stand out?
And next…
Every day during the challenge I’ll be linking to another participant. Today I introduce…
Soul Talk – Reflections and Musings on Life and her post on Inverness. Check her out after leaving a comment below.
I agree that there is so much information on hotels online now, including many first hand accounts, that you really don’t need that much information in a travel book. I’d rather have more history and background on the location.
But, when traveling with kids, the hotel is important. We went t London a few years back and stayed at an apartment hotel which was wonderful because we were able to spread out and have some personal space. Pretty important when spending two weeks in one location.
That’s awesome. Which hotel was it? People are always searching for a good hotel in London for kids and I’d love to give them a good recommendation.
I love staying at different hotels. It’s always exciting to see what kind of view you’ve received or if you have a great room. With some hotels, like chains, you kind of know what to expect. Other hotels (like bed and breakfasts) are more a toss of the dice. Maybe you’ll get a good room? … Maybe not.
It’s awesome that you get your children to reflect on the hotels that they stay in their travel journals. Maybe as they get older it will help them figure out what they like best about hotel staying and be aware enough to look for it when they get old enough to start making their own travel plans. Or… perhaps helping you with your travel plans!
I agree. Chains are fun because they’re familiar. But, that can be boring. And the good rooms at boutique or non-chain or bed and breakfasts are so awesome. I stayed at a bed and breakfast in Dublin that had THE best breakfast. And the room was just a cool room.
Now I want to go and stay at a hotel again.
This is a great idea for traveling with kids! It is interactive and also gets them thinking! They will be travel experts once they are older!