This article is part of Traveller’s Holiday Guide to family-friendly holidays. See all stories . This is an unfamiliar feeling: I wish my kids were here.
Don’t get me wrong, my kids are lovely. They’re funny, curious, kind. They just don’t make travel easier.
Going long-haul with a five- and a three-year-old? You deserve a medal. “Akin to being on a cruise ship that doesn’t move”..
. Club Med Kiroro Grand, Hokkaido, Japan. Speaking of which, there are many champions standing before me today.
One is trying to peel her child off the carpet after he decided to make “snow angels” in the middle of the lunch buffet. Another is picking pieces of shattered pasta bowl off the floor in the main dining room while her toddler looks on, fascinated as to how this could have happened. Yet another I recognise from the bus ride here from Sapporo is the dad desperately trying to clean up after his young son suffered motion sickness.
Legends, one and all. An Australian mother I chat to sighs as her kids go screaming off towards the main atrium where there are cartoons playing on a loop. “It’s hard work making beautiful memories,” she says.
“That’s what I always tell myself.” A master family suite at Club Med Kiroro Grand. It’s my natural tendency to look at all these people and think: ha, better you than me.
When you have young children, a “holiday” is often just parenting in a nicer location. It’s not what you would describe as fun. But right now, I’m wis.