our top 8 favorite children's travel books
After we made the decision to travel for a year, we knew that step two was to get the kids onboard with this adventure! Books were easily the best way to bring their upcoming travels to life. We already had a majority of the books below on our shelves and we picked up a few more during the upcoming months before we departed.
Below are our top 8 favorite children’s travel books and 4 bonus books that we haven’t read, but can’t wait to pick up soon!
OUR TOP 8 FAVORITE CHILDREN’S TRAVEL BOOKS
Bright and beautiful, this book gave not only the kids, but myself so much travel inspiration. The illustrations help the kids decide what they want to see in each city we visit.
The kids also love the search challenges for each country. Red buses for London. Gold Medals for Athens. But their favorite is the Paris page where they need to find five wedges of cheese!
This was our first children’s travel related book. We spent hours pouring over it! We love that each country has the most popular name for boys and girls. Popular foods from each country are also illustrated on each page. On a few occasions, the kids would pick a country and we would cook a dish featured in the book.
What “City Atlas” is for the world, “The 50 States” is for the USA. Planning a road trip would be amazing with the use of this book!
We own so many books in the “This is” series, but Rome may be our favorite. Beautifully illustrated with a serious historical foundation. We read this before our trip to Italy and the kids learned all about the SPQR abbreviation. They loved walking around Rome and shouting “SPQR” when they saw it on everything!
Just when travel books were getting a bit too predictable, out came this book. We received it, and the adult version, for Christmas from my mom. They’re just what you need to get you off the beaten path and remind you that traveling is more than just seeing the most popular sites and cities.
Larry is a beloved figure in our house. This book series keeps it simple for kids and strikes the best balance between fun and learning. We also love the board books series “Larry Loves” geared to toddlers.
You can never go wrong with Mo Willems. The story is great and it also introduces kids to traveling by plane and how sometimes things are a little different than back home while you travel. It also makes them a bit more aware of their most special “lovies”.
T first began reading “Magic Tree House” in school and would come home each day to tell me all about the stories. The kids love to pretend to be Jack and Annie and go on missions. T is reading this book before our upcoming time in Greece and is going to teach us a lesson on Ancient Greece when we’re there.
We love and own so many books in this series. The Ocean one might be our favorite! This book covers so many different topics about the world (animals, food, sights) that it’s easy to find something to spark their interest.
This first of our bonus books! “Fact-filled” in the book’s subtitle is enough to sell me on purchasing it. As are the colorful illustrations.
We are big fans of Lonely Planet in this house. I just recently poured over 9 editions of their magazine in the span of two days. I think the kids would love this book to recount their past travels and pick out some adventures for their upcoming trip.
We love to travel slow because we get to imagine what it would be like to live in the city. I love the “day in the life” focus of this book. Also, the title is so great!
I remember when Ashley Bruhn of hitherandthither.net and her family went to Rome last summer and used this book to get her children engaged with what they were seeing. Kids earn points to become secret agents by looking for things in museums or using foreign languages to speak to the locals.
Are we missing any of your favorite children’s travel books? What other tactics do you use to get your children excited for upcoming trips and keep them engaged on the road?
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