Continuing our new "Things I love about" series, this week we have a guest post from the lovely Hannah who blogs at Budding Smiles.

Hannah is mum to Toby, one, and has been working in childcare and special needs for nearly 10 years- across nurseries, specialist residential homes, schools and in the home. Hannah has also spent a lot of time travelling and is passionate about seeing all that the world has to offer. She and her husband hope to raise their children to be open-minded and creative, to explore and seek adventure from life. Follow Hannah on Twitter (@buddingsmiles) and catch snaps of her family adventures on Instagram too. Hannah writes this week on things she loves about travelling with children.

When the words ‘travel’ and ‘children’ are put together, there’s generally a sharp intake of breath, thoughts of screaming mini humans in confined spaces and terror at the thought of stepping out of routine. I won’t lie, my son Toby doesn’t always make travelling easy – even the journey from the lounge to kitchen can be fraught with unforeseen disasters – but I love getting out and about with him and the pros outweigh the cons.

Here are my 10 things I love about travelling with children:

1. Every new place is amazing to them and nothing is more magical than watching your child’s face light up when they see something that’s amazing to them.
2. Whether they remember holidays and days out or not, they will get a lot out of the experience in that moment. We took Toby to Tenerife when he was 7 months old and not only have we got some amazing photos of the holiday, but he was fascinated by his first time on the beach and he was so happy looking out to the ocean.
3. Sometimes stepping out of the routine is exactly what you need. When Toby was 6 months old we drove to South Wales, which took about 7 hours in total. Prepared for it to be horrific given than his silent reflux had meant we’d avoided journeys of over an hour, Toby was an absolute star and it gave Phil and I the confidence to venture out more.
4. It’s lovely to have photographs of you as a family in lots of different places around the UK and abroad.
5. People are really kind – Toby screamed the whole flight home from Tenerife but people were so non-judgemental and sweet about it so although I wanted the ground to open up, it really helped me appreciate the good in my fellow human beings.
6. As your children grow up, they won’t be scared of new places. I firmly believe that Toby’s confidence is partly down to us going on days out and trips since he was a newborn so he’s never become too reliant on one place or environment.
7. Older children love talking, so give them interesting things to talk about!
8. The saying goes that a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. As parents, we help our children take those steps and I personally thing that’s a huge honour.
9. If you’re going somewhere with a different climate to home then you get to buy your child(ren) gorgeous new clothes to suit. Well, you just have to, don’t you?
10. It’s fun! Us grown-ups can be really set in our ways but a day out living through the eyes of a child is simply wonderful.

Have you got anything to add? Do you agree that travelling with children is a good thing or would you rather avoid it at all costs?