We just came back from a short and exciting trip to London with our two boys, ages 8 and 5 where my husband came up with a brilliant traveling idea — he suggested we buy a soccer ball (we had misplaced ours back home) and carry it around with us as we toured the city. This might sound like a ridiculous thing to do, but trust me when I say, it is one of the best things you can do on a trip.
Because it was a whirlwind last-minute trip, we had to deal with bone-deep jet lag and needed a relaxing outlet. The soccer ball was to the rescue. In between trips to the British Museum and London tour, we took a detour through Hide or Regents park and had fun kicking the ball around with each other and some local kids (when they came around).
While you can effortlessly bring your ball with you on the plane ( provided you deflate the ball as you don’t want it to pop if it is too hard) it is also worth taking a trip to a place called Soccer Scene (near Oxford and Regent Streets in Oxford Circus) — which provides all the exciting, multi-colored Europe soccer paraphernalia you can think of.
Since both of our kids needed new sneakers, we ditched the old hole-ravaged ones there and had an interesting time checking out all of the shoe color combinations on display — many of which you’d have a hard time finding in the US. On second thoughts, I would opt to bring the ball with me to just about any city that has parks and playgrounds. Taking a soccer ball with you on a trip is the perfect way to eliminate the monotony that involves lots of sightseeing and walking for kids around my boys’ age. Remember to explore more travel tips on our blog.
POSTED IN: TRAVEL · TAGGED: GIFT FOR KIDS, SOCCER, SOCCER BALL, TRAVEL WITH KIDS