Travel Babbo

Travel Babbo

A Family Travel Blog

About Me

Eric Stoen - aka Travel Babbo
Eric Stoen

Take Your Kids Everywhere!®

Welcome to Travel Babbo! I used to work in healthcare, but was (not so secretly) addicted to travel. I would always post about family trips on Facebook, trying to inspire my friends to take their kids to crazy places too. Then in 2014 I quit my job and started this family travel blog to inspire more people.

I’ve been to 101 countries and seven continents. As a child I saw some of Europe and the South Pacific on family trips, but my travel addiction really began in college when I studied in Florence, Italy for a year and Heidelberg, Germany for a semester. Every weekend was a 3-day weekend, and the goal was to see as much as possible in those three days. This was in the days before cheap, easy intra-Europe flights, so traveling meant taking overnight trains – not the most comfortable mode of travel, but it worked, and I saw much of Europe. Once I graduated from college and grad school I kept it going. Email and international cell coverage made it easy to do my job remotely. Digital photography added a new creative element to the travel. I studied Norwegian for a couple of summers in Oslo. I met up with friends around the world. My goal was to see at least five new countries a year, which I managed for several years.

And then I got married. Travel with my wife was just as fun. Then we had kids (currently 14, 16 and 18), and it got really fun. I fully understand that a lot of people like taking breaks from their kids and heading overseas without them. We’re not like that. Two of our kids got to Europe before their first birthdays, and our third at 16 months. And starting at age four, each of my kids gets to pick any destination in the world every year for a one-on-one trip with me. I love the bonding and the different dynamic when I’m traveling with just one child. And my kids aren’t shy about picking crazy destinations – trips have included Australia (ages 4 and 6), Hong Kong (5), Belize (4), Easter Island (6), Iguazu Falls (6), Palawan (8), Bali (9 and 10), Japan (7 and 8), the Maldives (9), and Antarctica (8 and 12). And for two of our 10-year-old trips, we went around the world. The kids can pick anywhere they want, as long as it’s not highly dangerous. And no, we don’t home-school – we just take full advantage of school holidays.

Posts here detail our trips with the kids: the things that we’ve learned and the places we’ve discovered in more than 800,000 miles of family travel. There are a lot of ways to travel with kids – the most important thing is just doing it. Book a trip and go. But there are definitely ways to do it better, like playing the frequent flier mile game. If you go to my Start Here page, you’ll see my top posts for saving money as well as my most popular posts, our favorite destinations and tips for traveling with kids.

As for the Travel Babbo title… In 2012 I was lucky enough to win Conde Nast Traveler Magazine’s Photo of the Year contest out of 21,000+ entrants. The magazine planned an amazing two weeks in Florence for us. The first two days there three different people called me Babbo – Italian for Dad or Daddy. The kids started using it and it stuck – they haven’t called me Dad since we returned from that trip. The funny thing is that Babbo only means Dad in certain parts of Italy. In other areas it means Idiot. I’m pretty sure the kids mean the former – most of the time.

Awards and Honors

  • CNN/Forbes – The World’s #4 Travel Influencer, 2017

Brand Ambassadorships

Groups I’m a Part Of

Places You’ll Find My Writing and Photography

Highlighted Press Coverage

  • Ainfluencer (25 Top Hotel Influencers to Collaborate With in 2023)
  • Business Insider (Travel Influencers See Surge in Demand as the Industry Recovers)
  • Forbes (Top Travel Influencers)
  • Holidays with Kids (The Best Family Travel Influencers to Follow in 2023)
  • Influencer Marketing Hub (@travelbabbo: The #1 Instagram Travel Influencer to Follow in 2019)
  • IZEA (Top 10 Family Travel Influencer 2019)
  • Money Magazine (Recommended by Anthony Bourdain)
  • New York Times (Quoted – How to Travel with Children)
  • Real Simple (Quoted – The Best Hacks for Planning a Trip in Less Time)
  • Room 1903 (Cover Story: Have Kids, Will Travel)
  • TripAdvisor (Highlighted in the Press Release and Press Conference on TripAdvisor’s New Platform)
  • Washington Post (What is a Travel Influencer? Ten Globe Trotting Instagrammers Talk About What They Do)
  • Washington Post (What Happens When a Travel Influencer Can’t Travel? COVID-19 coverage)

Other Places You’ll Find Me Featured

As Seen in Vanity Fair Italia

Where I’ve Been

I’ve traveled to over 100 countries and all seven continents. This list goes back thirty years, but most trips are fairly recent, and well over half were with my kids (noted with an *).

North America:

Antigua, Bahamas*, Barbados, Belize*, Bermuda*, Canada*, Cayman Islands*, Costa Rica*, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica*, Mexico*, Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua*, Panama*, St. Lucia, United States*

South America:

Argentina*, Brazil*, Chile*, Colombia*, Ecuador*, Peru, Uruguay

Europe:

Austria*, Belgium*, Croatia*, Czechia*, Denmark*, Estonia, Faroe Islands*, Finland, France*, Germany*, Greece*, Hungary*, Iceland*, Ireland*, Italy*, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta*, Monaco, Netherlands*, Norway*, Poland, Portugal*, Russia*, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia*, Spain*, Sweden*, Switzerland*, UK*, Vatican City*

Africa:

Botswana, Ethiopia, Kenya*, Morocco*, Seychelles*, South Africa, Tanzania*, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Asia:

Bhutan, Burma, Cambodia*, China, Hong Kong*, India*, Indonesia*, Israel, Japan*, Jordan, Laos*, Lebanon, Macau, Malaysia, Maldives*, Oman*, Philippines*, Qatar*, Saudi; Singapore*, Sri Lanka, South Korea*, Taiwan*, Thailand*, Turkey*, UAE*, Vietnam*

Oceania:

Australia*, Fiji, French Polynesia*, New Zealand*

Antarctica:

Antarctica*

My Current Travel Wish List

Georgia, Iran, Uzbekistan, Dubrovnik, Mauritius, Silk Road, Namibia, Mongolia, Northern Lights, Kerala, Nepal, Finnish Lapland, Madagascar

Some Of The Coolest Things I’ve Done

  • Rafting the Zambezi River in Zimbabwe
  • Exploring Antarctica twice with my daughters (at 8 and 12-years-old)
  • Hanging out of a train in Sri Lanka
  • Traveling around the world in two weeks with my 10-year-old daughter, and then doing the same with my 10-year-old son
  • Accidentally hiking to the top of Table Mountain in Cape Town
  • Celebrating New Years Eve in Oslo and Paris
  • Riding on a Mardi Gras float in New Orleans (Krewe of Orpheus)
  • Hiking the Inca Trail four days to Machu Picchu
  • Going through the Vasari Corridor in Florence
  • Seeing Carmen at the Vienna Opera House
  • Piranha fishing in the Amazon Rainforest
  • Bungee jumping 300 feet from the bridge between Zimbabwe and Zambia
  • Working for President Reagan for a year at his LA office (not travel-related, but really cool)
  • Skiing in Austria
  • Flying halfway around the world to attend a friend’s birthday party in the middle of a Lithuanian forest
  • Hiking the Great Wall (4x)
  • Attending a royal Indian wedding in Jodhpur
  • Climbing Harbour Bridge in Sydney twice, once with my 10-year-old
  • Sleeping in the Thar Desert in India
  • Hiking around a Fijian island
  • Tracking grizzly bears in Alaska
  • Hiking to see mountain gorillas in Uganda
  • Attending the World Cup in Russia and three Super Bowls

Conferences Attended

  • Adventure Travel World Summit 2016 (Alaska), 2017 (Argentina), 2018 (Italy), 2019 (Sweden), 2022 (Switzerland), 2023 (Japan)
  • Family Travel Association Annual Summit 2016 (Tucson)
  • ITB Berlin 2015, 2016, 2018
  • NATJA Annual Meeting 2016 (Oxnard)
  • New York Times Travel Show 2017, 2020
  • SATW Annual Conference 2018 (Barbados), 2019 (El Paso), 2024 (Istanbul)
  • Social Travel Summit 2017 (Austria), 2019 (Italy)
  • Study Abroad & Global Citizenship Summit 2017 (NYC)
  • TBC Asia 2016 (Sri Lanka)
  • TBEX International 2015 (Spain), 2015 (Thailand), 2017 (Israel), 2023 (Greece)
  • TBEX North America 2015 (Fort Lauderdale), 2016 (Minneapolis), 2017 (Huntsville), 2018 (Finger Lakes, NY)
  • TravelCon 2022 (Memphis), 2024 (Portland)

Favorite Foods

Mango (ripe), dark chocolate (the fewer ingredients, the better), sushi, key lime pie, rhubarb, cinghiale (wild boar). And watermelon juice, wine and coffee. We’re not soda or beer drinkers.

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