Best Toys for Travel?

Travel with kids means what best toys to bring with you. How to choose toys for travel? What kind of travel and how long? The decision can be easier than you think.

Boys and girls, big and small, from all over the world, are attracted to our "kid magnet". They light up and usually stop by and want to join in the fun when they spot our daughter's creations that she makes out of Legos and Playmobiles.

These have been the biggest toy hits on our family world trip and we have used them constantly between the ages of 5 and 11 during our travels. Snap Circuit, pollypockets,  ball, bike, tennis racket and various games like Monopoly, Uno and Match have also been the mainstays. We use flat fish tackle boxes as organizers for the small things and a big baggie for the legos.

"Toys are tools" Moreira  from Museu do Brinquedo Toy Museum in Portugal



Even when we pack very light with just a carry-on piece of luggage each, she carries a little sandwhich bag full  of favorite legos and playmobiles, an inflatable globe that can also be used as a ball, and a deck of cards. Of course, we always have art supplies when traveling even in our day back.

She can entertain herself for hours lost in imaginative play and creating things with these open ended toys. It's fun to hear her doing this play in Spanish as she is doing with this 12 year old friend from Bilbao at our campsite in Barcelona. Often times she has a whole slew of kids playing there from three to 15 and speaking many different languages at once.

What is your favorite travel toy?

Comments

[Lifecruiser Travel]

Now I'm grownup and perhaps shouldn't answer, but I can't resist: MY CAMERA :-))))

Saying that I also realize that to buy a small point-and-shoot digital camera and let kids play around with it, would be so much fun - for them and yourself! Seeing things through a camera lens is after all a bit different.

Kids have a wonderful way of looking at things and life that we grownups should actually learn from...

[elena]

definitely my favourite travel toy as a kid was my plastic Lego bag!i would built castles.swimming pools,houses,animals,paople whatever i needed to play with at the moment.
nowdays when i'm travelling with my cousins(aged 8 & 7) we always bring barbies,little toy cars and legos of course!
oh and mozart looks so grown up!
take care

[Jeanne @soultravelers3]

Great points Lifecruiser! Camera's are definitely fun, but I didn't think of them as toys, yet they are certainly part of our kidlet gear!

I wrote a bit about this topic here with a photo she took in Sweden

http://www.soultravelers3.com/2009/09/family-travel-photo-sweden-pets-cats-children-travel-photography.html

Or you can see us in action and what cameras we use for our world travel here:

http://www.soultravelers3.com/2008/07/new-cameras.html

[Jeanne @soultravelers3]

Thanks Elena! Fun to hear that you still have happy memories of your lego bag of travel fun! ;) Open end toys are the best!

[Marlana]

For Kids: Legos.

For Me: ipod.

[Monica Vandeventer]

My kids are younger, 4 & 2, but I have noticed that the less toys we take the happier they are. They find "toys" everywhere, sticks, leaves, stones etc are all transformed into various creatures, tools and playmates.
I think I bring the toys for them for my sake not theirs. They love using their imagination!

[Jane Tara]

Important to carry the lego in a sandwich/ziplock bag, as you mention, so you're not searching for the pieces.

Our other fave is pipecleaners. So portable, and can be turned into all sorts of toys. My boys make knights out of them.

When my kids were very young, this was the best toy I ever travelled with.

http://www.itcheefeet.com/blog/travel-advice/travel-tips-for-travelling-with-kids/the-best-kid’s-toy-i-ever-travelled-with

[Marlana]

Jane, Pipe cleaners. What a fantastic idea!!!! I have no idea where to buy them where I live, but I will remember that if I ever see them as it would be fantastic for the boys for buses.

Jeannie, good to see your blog hasn't turned as controversial as the fb group. LOL.

[Deborah-Eve]

I just have to second the pipe cleaner suggestion. We've taken a bag of pipe cleaners on many trips and they always get a lot of use. It's possible to straighten them out or take creations apart so they can be used over and over. I remember some car trips where more and more elaborate constructions were hung all around like decorations.