Finding Friends for Kids on the Road

One of the best resources we have found on this trip is Families on the Road. A group from this web site, myself included, are participating in a blog carnival with the goal of providing a resource for anyone interested in traveling full time with a family.

The topic is finding friends for kids on the road. You can check out other people's entries here.

Our standpoint may be a bit unique on this front; we are traveling for a finite amount of time with a combined goal of seeing the sites through new eyes and visiting friends and family from whom we live so far away.

Therefore a good number of our destinations have built in cousins or friends waiting to forge or further friendships with our children.
Times are such that more often than not families and friends are spread out geographically. We have been incredibly lucky to see a few regularly, but there are too many of those whom the years had begun to slip between us.
Busy, busy lives we have been taught to lead.
The trip has been well worth it for us to see our children have the opportunity to spend some quality time with our loved ones and theirs.

This is one aspect of their social circle this year. Another is the friends we make along the way.

As I am writing this my children are up the road with another family of children watching the Lake Cachuma Park ranger try to coax a raccoon out of a garbage can.
We are parked just across from the playground and have spent the past four days watching this new friendship unfold.

Tethered by the constraints of their parents' schedules, mealtimes and rules they keep an eye on the playground and field waiting for signs of other kids. In turn they brave the rain and wind and try to be "kid magnets" (their phrase not mine) to attract playmates. After the first couple play sessions the friendships are cemented and we need only to make sure they return for some sustenance every now and again.


In short, go to a campground and park near a playground and let nature take its course.

Last but certainly not least; their dear friends at home. Postcards, emails, and the occasional phone call are never enough but at least allow them to keep in touch.

I'm confident the skills our children have acquired in making friends at a playground, a museum or a library, with cousins they see a couple times a year and ones they didn't remember, with the children of their parents' childhood friends and people who happen to be camping at the same campground will serve them on this journey of growing up they seem to be speeding along.