When I talk about some of the places I plan to take my kiddos while traveling internationally this spring, one of the questions that pops up is, “Won’t they be bored?” followed by, “My kids would never go for that!” I understand the sentiment and definitely have my own moments of private panic. My kids are not extraordinarily intrigued by these things, and trust me – without creative pre-planning, I would find myself in quite the pickle.

However, after a splattering of failed attempts over the years, I’ve finally worked out a general plan that has worked for my family.

Start young. The fact that my kids don’t know any differently has played in my favor when taking them to museums and historical sites. I didn’t have wide exposure to these activities until adulthood, and if I’m being honest, I never cared much about any of it until I began teaching my own children. I think this is largely because cultural history locales were not a large part of my childhood – though music and performing arts were. But since I started taking my kids to these places as toddlers, they consider perusing art, cultural treasures, and artifacts to be a normal part of life.

Reframe the situation. There are exceptions, but generally speaking, my kids see our excursions as a part of school. They refer to them as field trips, and they’re typically more than happy to go see Machu Picchu than stay home and do a written narration on it. If my kids felt they were losing Lego-building or dollhouse-creation time in favor of a trip to see ancient ruins, they would not respond favorably. But since they feel that the field trips are replacing in-home “school” time, they happily grab their shoes and get a move on. And, without fail, they’re always happy we went.

Feed them early and often. If my younger kids get hungry while walking around a museum – no matter how exciting the subject matter – the situation will quickly deteriorate. I feed them a hearty breakfast on museum days, pack my bag with snacks, and leave a cooler with lunch food in my van. While traveling, we’re relying on public transport so I’ll even break down and purchase over-priced food in the museum cafe (or step outside to a street vendor if we can get back in) if it will allow us to make it through our time with quiet-ish happy campers.

Find out what’s happening. I’m signed up to receive newsletters from all of my local museums, and I search the websites of interesting places in other towns or countries when I know we’ll be traveling. Rather than searching for opportunities to see things we’ve studied, I prefer to make sure we study things that are or will be available to see. That makes planning infinitely easier for me.

Trim adult expectations. Early on, I foolishly attempted to tour entire museums and cultural sites. Big mistake. To this day, it is still difficult for me to pay entrance fees when I know we will only skim the surface of what’s available to explore. But I decided a few years ago that one of my main goals, especially when traveling, is building memories. I’d rather for my kids to remember a cool experience we shared where they saw 2 or 3 interesting things than for them to remember a long, boring day of being dragged around looking at a ton of meaningless stuff that they’ll never remember or care about. I don’t just want them to see it; I want them to care about it.

Make sure they care BEFORE arriving. Showing up to an art museum or World Heritage Site without a plan would be the kiss of death for my family. It would, without a doubt, be a disaster, so I try to never do it. I will miss out on an opportunity to visit a great indoor place before I roll up unprepared with my young kids expecting them to be into it. If it’s an outdoor location (think caves, huge boulders, massive trees, waterfalls, etc.), I’m much more open to just winging it because at least they can run, climb, jump, and move while learning about whatever makes the spot important.

How do I make sure they care? I find something (or multiple somethings) that we can read about or study ahead of time that directly relates to what we’ll see at the exhibit or site. This can be time-consuming for me because I don’t already know about these things [<<< This is so important for me to share! I literally know nothing about the majority of the things we study until I research them, so please don’t feel alone or intimidated.]

I’m one late night and a handful of Google searches ahead of my kids in terms of history.

I have to learn about what’s there from scratch and consider how to present the ideas to my kids in a way that will make them want to go see it. I’m especially grateful for facilities with great explanations and links on their websites.

Getting the kids to care also involves my attitude. Once I know where we’re going and what we’ll see there, I excitedly share that we “get” to see such and such or we “have an amazing opportunity” to experience this or that. My attitude about what we plan to encounter goes a long way towards setting the atmosphere in which we’ll study a topic.

Before beginning a study, I’ll look at how many weeks, days, and sometimes even mere hours we have to dig into a topic before making the connection at a site or facility. That helps me know how much material we can realistically cover and what type of books and/or videos to use. To get an example of how I bring these studies to light, check out the examples below.

No plan? Pay for a tour. I’ve found that I will pay now or pay later. I either have to put the time in up front to lay a foundation for what we’ll be exploring, or I need to fork out the money for a tour (preferably a private one). There’s no shame in relying on tours, and I would probably do it more if money wasn’t a factor. I always make sure to choose a tour guide who specializes in working with families, and when overseas, I specifically request someone ahead of time who speaks very clear English. It’s the only time I ask for that type of accommodation because we try to be humbly unobtrusive in the countries we visit, but private tours are expensive, and the money is wasted if my kids can’t understand what’s being said.

Hometown example:

A year ago, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta (where we live) announced plans for an exhibition of work by African-American artist, Romare Bearden (1911-1988). I knew we’d be studying 20th century history in the fall, so even though I knew very little about the artist, I scheduled him as one of our artists for picture study. I made sure that I scheduled him for Term 1 so we would have a chance to complete our study before the exhibition ended.

I prepared lesson plans for a Romare Bearden Picture Study, and throughout the term, his pictures slowly began to decorate our dining room wall. We learned about his life and studied some of his works. We began to reference him in casual conversation as his subjects reminded us of one thing or another. We scheduled a private tour, and invited friends to join us. And when the day finally came, there was no place my kids would have rather been than at the art museum, seeing the pictures that had become “friends” up close.

International example:

We’re currently in Athens, Greece. There are more museums and culturally significant things in this city than we will ever see, but of course, one of our first stops was the Acropolis. While there we visited the Erechtheion, considered the most sacred temple, part of which was dedicated to the Greek goddess, Athena. On the south porch of this temple, the roof was supported by six statues of maidens known as the Caryatids, instead of the typical columns. The originals outside were replaced with reproductions in 1979 to keep the real maidens safe, and they are now the star attractions inside the Acropolis Museum.

While reading about the Caryatids prior to our trip, I found out that we would only see five of them because the sixth missing Caryatid (See that empty spot in the pic above?) is installed at the British Museum in London, which acquired it nearly two centuries ago after Lord Elgin, the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, had it sawed off the Erechtheion’s porch (jaw drop), along with shiploads of adornments from the Parthenon to decorate his mansion in Scotland before selling the pieces to pay debts.

Whoa. That is an exciting story that I knew my kids would grasp onto.

So late next month, when our travels take us to London, where do you think we’re going to run? Right. To the British Museum to check out that missing Caryatid. And who will be running the fastest? My kids. Something was stolen and has yet to be returned. It’s a missing piece. We’ve seen the other originals, and we must see the last one.

Now they care.

I’m sure we’ll see other cool things at the British Museum, but I can guarantee that nothing will move them like laying their eyes on the missing maiden.

These are just a couple of examples of how I expose my kiddos to art, history, and culture without tears. Hopefully, you can take some of the ideas, tweak them, and make them work for your family!