My kids cage-dived with sharks on vacation. People may judge my parenting, but I don't want my children to live in fear.

29.09.2024 - 09:59 / insider.com

This as-told-to essay is based on conversations with Monet Hambrick, a 36-year-old travel blogger based in Florida who shares itineraries and tips for traveling with children on her blog, The Traveling Child. Monet shares two daughters with her husband James Hambrick: Jordyn, who is 10, and Kennedy, who is 8. Monet has been to 50 countries so far in her life, while her daughters have been to over 35. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

When I was in high school, I got a scholarship for a program called The Experiment in International Living.

For the summer, I lived in Botswana with a host family in a village who treated me like their own daughter.

Learning about their culture, their food, their language — and then also having the opportunity to explore and go camping in the Okavango Delta and go to Chobe National Park — truly made an impact on how I choose to travel with my family now.

My husband and I met in college at the University of Florida. From the start of our dating, we traveled together.

When we had kids, everyone was like, "Oh, you're never going to be able to travel anymore now that you have kids." And we were like, "Have you met us?"

Travel is instilled in us, in who we are.

I am definitely the person who plans our trips.

Adventure stuff? That's my husband.

I don't do crazy things. I don't like roller coasters. I don't like heights.

We went zip-lining in Costa Rica quite a few years ago. Halfway through the zip line, there was this Tarzan swing where they hook you in and then they let you go. I was nearly crying during the zip line, so I was definitely not doing the Tarzan swing.

Our eldest daughter was like, "I want to do it."

We let her do it. When she finished, she was like, "It kind of hurt my stomach a little, but I'm glad I got to do it."

When we went to Cape Town in 2022, my husband and daughters went shark cage diving. They were six and eight.

I stayed on the boat — I took photos and videos from the safety of the boat.

They were five and seven when they did hang gliding in Orlando.

Typically, with hang gliding, you run and go off a mountain. There are no mountains in Florida.

How they go hang gliding there is they literally attach the hang glide to those single-propeller planes. The plane takes off and takes the hang glider in the air. Then, when you get to a certain height, the guide un-attaches the hang glider from the plane, and then they start their free-falling descent.

I did not do that, but they loved it. When my youngest daughter came down, she was like, "I want to go again."

In certain situations, my fear has hindered me from having some amazing experiences because I'm terrified.

If something is deemed safe and my children want to do it, we'll let them.