h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We took our son on walking trips in the South Downs when he was little and further afield later on.

The problem is the journey to the mountains, which can be long and tedious.

I have walked the South Downs way pre-kids with a friend.

Just trying to remember how we managed the long traveling.
Learning to read was a definite improvement. Just give them a pile of books / comics. Before that we listened to music and spoken books.
We tried a portable DVD player, but have only used that once so far, three years ago.

Try singing? We kids used to be able to sing our way through several states in three-part harmony - and our car journeys were often 12+ hours long.

Once, we sang every song we could think of that linked geographically to a state, taking the states in alphabetical order, all 50. Eventually, my parents stopped being grumpy about the long journey and joined in on 'Beautiful Ohio'...it's a good way to keep grownups from complaining during long car trips.

I remember a particularly wet trip to Ireland when my son was quite young. We had a tape of 'The sun has got its hat on', while outside it was pouring. My husband got fed up with it and insisted on turning it off!

Good one!

My parents learned the hard way that audio books and classical music helped to make long journeys smoother - I enjoyed reading in the car, but it did have a tendency to make me travel sick!

The mountaineering camps sound excellent indeed - something for everyone. That's great that the children entertain each other, and everyone looks out for everyone else, so that you can hone your mountaineering skills and your family enjoy themselves, too. Reminds me a bit of a resort in Greece that I went to on holiday with my family one year - it had staff who arranged sports, games and lessons, so eg I could play boules while my sister went scuba diving, rather than having to compromise to find an activity that we could both do.

We also do the singing bit, yes. Unfortunately, my daughter, who is an excellent singer, doesn't do volume control and has a high range way up to near ultrasonic. I myself are a good mono-tasker, so I don't sing and drive at the same time (despite urgent pleas by the rest of the family).

The year before we found out about the mountaineering camps we had our own arrangement, where we camped with a single friend of ours on a campsite that hosted an outdoor company where you could book day activities. (Climbing, canyoning, rafting, via ferrata). Our friend went off everyday, while we alternately minded the twins (then 3 years old), taking short walks, looking at what the others were doing or joined our friend.

THanks for sharing this with . I am sorry that it takes a longish trip for you all to get to mountains from the Netherlands. I am looking forward to your next installment!