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Free, downloadable play packs so families can still share travel experiences

With both flights and kids grounded due to the COVID-19 pandemic, global travel site Skyscanner has created free, downloadable play packs to enable families to still share travel experiences, discover other cultures and teach children about destinations around the world. Each week, Skyscanner’s network of travel experts from across the globe will create activity packs that encourage children to be curious about travel, while helping parents by providing activities and craft projects to entertain little ones whilst at home. The downloadable activity packs for kids aged 5-10 years include:
    Destination discovery quizzes Travel inspired colouring exercises Continent themed word searches
The first play pack is now available to download from here. Brand new play packs will be launched weekly throughout April. What’s more, the play packs include ‘at home adventures’ for families to share via social media. Skyscanner families will be setting challenges for kids across the globe, including:
    Draw your best holiday Build a box: re-enacting journeys in cardboard box-built aeroplanes, boats and gondolas Design and name your own flag
The ethos behind the idea is that travel provides a unique education for children. Whether they are exploring just an hour from home or discovering a long-haul destination, the power of understanding and appreciating others’ lives and cultures is critical to becoming a global citizen. Travel builds tolerance, empathy and awareness, something that we are endeavouring to recreate for families, who currently are unable to let their children truly interact with the world. Skyscanner is working hard to support travellers through the COVID-19 pandemic with dedicated advice and product support for those searching to get home or for future adventures when the world re-opens. Their recent research revealed that 60% of their travellers are optimistic that they will be able to travel internationally later this year, of which half are very optimistic. The most recent launches from Skyscanner are part of their #WeWill movement, which is designed to focus on the future, ensuring that hope and faith endure during this difficult time.

Paul Johnson

Paul Johnson is Editor of A Luxury Travel Blog and has worked in the travel industry for more than 30 years. He is Winner of the Innovations in Travel ‘Best Travel Influencer’ Award from WIRED magazine. In addition to other awards, the blog has also been voted “one of the world’s best travel blogs” and “best for luxury” by The Daily Telegraph.

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7 Comments

  1. I’m not the first to say that it is not easy entertaining kids during lockdown. Anything that helps is much appreciated. Oddly, for kids who are quite well travelled, my two have very little sense of geography. Any education at all will help.

    1. Tell me about it! It’s hard keeping the kids occupied during school holidays in normal times. They’ve been set some stuff from school but anything with the word school on it seems to switch them off straight away. This is more glamorous and might keep them going for a while.

    2. I think anything that keeps them interested is a good way to go. Anything to let their imaginations run wild helps. Drawing, or creating things … or anything that has to do with language, has seemed to be pretty helpful.

  2. What a great initiative, and I quite like Skyscanner so I’m glad they’ve done this. The activity packs sound like a good blend of fun and learning so they can keep their skills developing. Important point that they’ll do new packs each week throughout April too so there’s always something new to check out. The social media tasks sound interesting too to set challenges and provide kids with a bit of structure and a goal to aim towards. A sense of achievement is important in times like this where days are more unstructured, and I’d agree on travel being an important aspect of education for children. I feel like I missed out on that when I was younger and I do think it makes a difference to your sense of the world. As you say with being a ‘global citizen’, and it makes you more confident and comfortable with travel from a younger age so you’ll feel more prepared for exploring and navigating the world as an adult.

    Of course issues of tolerance, cultural understanding and so on cannot be underestimated and these life-skills and personality traits are important for being developed throughout life. The #WeWill hashtag sounds like a good one to get behind too. We definitely need a sense of hope for the future right now.

  3. This is certainly a great idea, and offers a positive for those who need to take their minds off of things. I really love Skyscanner, I’ve been using it for quite a while now. One of the best websites for booking flights, in my opinion.

  4. With covid-19 affecting more and more people every day in different parts of the world, families really do not have much to do but stay at home. Kids will surely be busy surfing the internet or binge watching their favorite series on Netflix. Meanwhile, parents will either do the same or get busy in thinking about their the next meal to prepare. So thanks to this, we now have a new platform to learn and virtually travel the world at the same time. We can connect with other family members even if they are miles away with a single click. Moreover, it can also distract us from the stress and worry that this crisis brings. I hope that it is available in many countries so that more families will be able to enjoy it.

  5. I used these and they were actually really quite good! I hadn’t heard of Skyscanner before either, but will definitely use them on my next trip as it seems quite a handy site.

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