We just finished packing for our overseas flight tomorrow. We are ready for our 3-week-long family vacation to Taiwan and China. This will be the kids’ first trip to Asia.

My husband and I both love to travel, and we have plans for our children to embrace this passion too. Earlier today, I offered a bit of guidance to my children to ready them to be world travelers. And lesson number one is to travel light. This enables the traveler to easily move about, and have less things to pack and unpack, and have more time to enjoy the sites, taste the local food, and soak in the local culture. I told them that cool travelers leave the comforts of home behind, and are unconcerned with apparel while on the road. Travelers that must bring along huge suitcases are cheesy tourists.

I decided to allow my children to decide on their own traveling clothes. I gave them instructions to select 3 pairs of pants, 4 tops, and issued more tips that included selecting travel clothes that are comfortable and appropriate for hot weather. This was easy task, they went and came back in just a few minutes. They both came back with shorts, and t-shirts.

“Hum…the shorts are fine. But I have to veto all the t-shirts,” I said, as I quickly gathered the t-shirts, and head back to their closets.

“Why?!” the kids followed me into their rooms.

“T-shirts are too boring!” as I put the rejects back, and started to pull out more interesting tops.

“Is this going to make us look like cheesy tourist?” my baby became concerned sensing evidence of cheesiness.

“Oh! Young travelers are allowed to look cute!”

I am grateful to still be allowed to make up the rules as I go.