My Kids Won't Try Anything New on Holiday — What Am I Doing Wrong?
You've planned it for months. You've saved up, booked the flights, packed the bags, and pictured the whole thing — your kids wide-eyed, trying new foods, soaking up a different culture, falling in love with the world just like you did.
And then you get there.
And they want to stay in the hotel. They won't touch the food. They're grumpy, overwhelmed, and not enjoying it at all.
Sound familiar?
You're not doing anything wrong. But there are a few things that can make a real difference — and most of them start before you even leave the house.
The secret? Familiarity before adventure
Here's something I've learned from years of travelling and working with children: kids don't resist new things because they're difficult. They resist them because they feel unsafe.
When everything around them is unfamiliar — the smells, the sounds, the food, the language, the bed — their brain goes into self-protection mode. And self-protection mode doesn't look like curiosity. It looks like I want nuggets and I want to go home.
The answer isn't to force them through it. The answer is to build a bridge between the familiar and the new — and the best time to start building that bridge is at home, weeks before you travel.
Start at home, long before you go
Introduce the destination before you arrive.
Watch a documentary about the country together. Cook a simple version of a dish from that place — you're not trying to make an authentic paella, you're just making it feel known. Look up a few fun facts together. What's the national animal? What's a funny word in that language? What's the most famous landmark and why?
When your child steps off the plane already knowing that Spain has over 40 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, or that Scotland's national animal is a unicorn, the place stops feeling alien. It starts feeling like somewhere they already know a little bit about.
Let them help plan.
This one is huge. There's a massive difference between this is what's happening on our holiday and what would you like to do while we're there?
Even small choices make children feel like participants rather than passengers. Let them pick one activity. Let them choose which beach you visit on Thursday. Let them have input. When they've chosen something themselves, they're invested in it — and far more likely to actually enjoy it.
Try the food before you go.
Not the full cuisine — just a taste. Find a Spanish tapas place locally, or cook a simple French dish at home. Let them try olives for the first time in your kitchen, not in a restaurant in a foreign country when they're already tired and overstimulated. Familiarity takes the fear out of it.
When you're actually there
Build in proper downtime.
New places are exhausting for children. The stimulation, the noise, the different routine — it takes more out of them than we realise. If every day is packed with activities, you're going to hit a wall. Build in a slow afternoon by the pool, a morning with no plans, time to just be somewhere without it meaning anything. A rested child is a curious child.
Encourage one small new thing at a time.
You don't need to push them into the deep end. "Let's try one new thing today" is a completely different ask to "let's have an adventure!" Try one new food. Walk down one street you haven't been down before. Say hello in the local language. Small steps, celebrated genuinely, build the confidence for bigger ones.
Validate how they're feeling.
If your child is overwhelmed, telling them they should be grateful or excited doesn't help — it just adds shame to the overwhelm. Acknowledging that new places can feel a lot ("I know this is a lot of new stuff, isn't it? It's okay to feel a bit funny about it") helps them feel safe. And children who feel safe are the ones who eventually start to explore.
Don't abandon the familiar entirely.
Packing a few things from home — a favourite toy, familiar snacks, their usual bedtime book — isn't mollycoddling. It's giving them a safe base to return to while they adjust. Think of it like a comfort blanket that makes the new world feel less threatening.
The bigger picture
Children who grow up feeling safe to try new things become adults who are curious about the world, open to difference, and genuinely excited by other cultures.
That doesn't happen by forcing them into discomfort. It happens by building their confidence — one small step at a time, one new food at a time, one fascinating fact at a time — until they start reaching for the new things themselves.
The holiday that turns a child into a world-lover isn't always the one packed with experiences. Sometimes it's the one where they felt safe enough to be curious.
And that's the whole point, really.
🎁 Before your next adventure — grab our free screen free car journey activity pack. 5 fun activities for little explorers, instant download, completely free. 👉
Gemma Herron is the founder of Colour the World, a series of children's travel activity books designed to help children fall in love with the world — one country at a time. Find out more at www.colourtheworld.co.uk