About the Author: Marta Correale
Ciao and a very warm welcome to my family travel blog!
My name is Marta Correale. I am an Italian expat in Ireland, a wife, a mother of two amazing children, a lover of travel, food, books, and an avid home exchanger.
I am from Rome, Italy, but for the last ten years, I have been living in Dublin, Ireland. I originally moved here to stay close to my now husband, Philip, and this welcoming city has since become our home. Our two kids were born here: Mr M, also called The Bear (currently 10) and Little Ms E, aka the Rabbit (currently 8).
Learning Escapes is a personal blog about a great passion of mine: cultural travels with kids
If you would like to work with me, please get in touch or find my work CV on LinkedIn.
About Learning Escapes Blog: what is cultural travel?
Cultural travel is defined as a a type of travel that emphasizes experiencing life within a foreign culture, rather than from the outside as a temporary visitor.
For a cultural travellers, travel is an immersive experience: it involves tasting new food, learning a new language, be exposed to different and sometimes challenging traditions and in general have experiences that make you get a taste of what life must be like if we were born or lived in a different part of the world.
Cultural travels with kids?
Cultural travels are by many considered out of the reach of families with kids but they don’t have to be. If you want to keep travelling with kids the way you did before and you are ready to put the work in, it can be done and it can be done in such a way that it is fun for the whole family. How do I know? Keep reading…
The kind of travel I love and how it all started
My first travel experience goes back to childhood family holidays. I am from Rome and one of the great things about growing up in continental Europe is how easy it is to hop in a car and drive from one country to the next.
I still remember how we did it. On an oppressive, hot summer day we would pack up the boot of our car with a tent, a basket of low-tech camping gear (battered tin cups is what stuck to my memory) and the huge amount of books and we would head North, letting curious names of places or main landmark decide our stops.
They were quintessential road trips and I used to enjoy them to no end.
It was independent family travel, a perfect blend of adventure, fun and education, and now that I have children of my own, the kind of experience I most of all wish to share with them.
‘Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire’ – W. B. Yeats
How to use the blog
The blog wants to be a resource for parents interested in experiencing cultural travels with their children and who enjoy crafting their own itineraries wherever they go. The main navigation menu of this site is at the top right:
DESTINATIONS MENU: here you find the list of all the destinations we have visited so far. The articles in this section contain trip reports, destination guides, itineraries suitable for families and recommendations for family accommodation, the one thing we spend the most time looking for!
HOW TO GUIDES: in this section, we have posts with practical advice about travelling with kids: tips about flying with children, packing lists etc. These guides are especially useful to families with young kids who may be concerned about the practicalities of travelling with buggies, strollers and catering for small ones while on the go.
I hope you enjoy our blog and if you want to follow our travels as they happen, don’t forget to like our page on facebook and to follow us on instagram!