The four-month-old, strapped to her mother’s chest in a baby carrier, her head lolling gently with the rhythm of the ferry crossing from Split to Hvar, opens her eyes as the engines cut and the harbour comes into view, and what she sees (the terracotta rooftops, the palm trees, the sea glittering under the Croatian sun) is not something she will remember. But the feeling, the warmth, the motion, the sound of her mother’s heartbeat, the salt in the air, is being recorded somewhere deeper than memory. Travel, for a child, is not about the destinations. It is about the sensations. And the right age to start travelling, for the child, is any age. For the parents, the calculus is more complicated.

The Travelling Child: A Stage-by-Stage Guide

0-6 months (the “portable” stage): The baby who sleeps anywhere, feeds anywhere, and is not yet mobile is the easiest traveller you will ever have. The logistics: the nappies (pack twice as many as you think you need; the heat, the change in water, the unpredictability, double it), the feeding (breastfeeding simplifies everything; formula-fed babies need sterile water and the patience of a saint), the sleeping (the baby carrier is the essential travel accessory; the pram is useful on flat ground and a burden on cobblestones). The destination: a villa with a pool (the controlled environment, the shade, the routine maintained), the beach (the baby tent, UV-protective, the shade, the sand-free zone), the city (the park, the café terrace, the baby sleeping through the noise). The baby will not remember the trip. The parents will. The photographs, the baby on the beach at sunset, the baby meeting the Italian grandmother who pinches her cheek and says “bellissima”, are for the family album, not the baby’s memory bank.

2-5 years (the “why” stage): The toddler who asks questions constantly, “Why is the sea blue? Why do they speak differently? Why do we have to go home?”, is absorbing the world at a rate that adults cannot comprehend. The travel strategy: the playground (every European city has playgrounds, the giardini in Italy, the Spielplätze in Germany, the aire de jeux in France, and they are universally excellent and universally free), the ice cream (the daily ritual, the reward, the bribe), the train (the toddler on a train, the excitement, the window seat, the tunnel, is a delighted toddler; the toddler on a plane for more than three hours is a gamble with the sanity of every passenger within a 10-metre radius). The destination: the campsite (the outdoor space, the freedom to run, the other children, the campfire, the marshmallows), the family-friendly resort (the kids’ club, the pool, the other parents who understand). The toddler will remember fragments, the colour of the sea, the taste of the gelato, the donkey on the path in Santorini, and these fragments will form the architecture of a lifelong relationship with travel.

6-12 years (the “golden age” of family travel): The child who is independent enough to walk, curious enough to learn, and still young enough to want to be with you is the ideal travelling companion. The strategy: the guidebook for children (the city-specific guidebooks, the treasure hunt format, the child leading the way), the challenge (the steps to the top of the dome, 463 steps to the top of St Peter’s, the child counting them, the sense of achievement at the top), the journal (the travel diary, the ticket stubs, the postcards, the record of the trip that will become a treasure in later years). The destination: anywhere, with the right framing. The Colosseum, not the history, not the architecture, but the gladiators, the animals, the underground passages where the wild beasts were kept. The Louvre, not the 35,000 works of art, but the Mona Lisa (the crowd, the bulletproof glass, the slight anti-climax, discuss this openly, the child will appreciate the honesty) and the Egyptian mummies. The food, the crepe in Paris, the pizza in Naples (the Margherita, the colours of the Italian flag, the story of Queen Margherita, the pizza named in her honour, 1889, the pizzeria Brandi, the story is probably a myth but it is a good myth), the churros in Madrid.

The parent’s answer: The right age to start travelling with a child is the age at which you, the parent, are ready to accept that the trip will not be the trip you would have taken without the child. It will be slower, messier, and more expensive. It will involve more playgrounds and fewer museums. It will require the acceptance that the gelato budget is now a significant line item. And it will be, in ways that are impossible to explain in advance, better. The child’s first glimpse of the sea. The child’s first word in another language. The child, at dinner, asking to try the octopus. The child, years later, saying “Do you remember when we went to…”, and remembering it. The right age to start travelling, for the parent and the child together, is whenever you are ready to let the trip be about the child. The world will still be there when they are old enough to carry their own suitcase.