I’ve been running photography journeys with On the Road Experiences since 2011. Over the last six years parents have brought their children along on several journeys, which led me to think about organising a family-orientated photography trip.

The children I’d worked with always impressed me by how quickly they learned technical concepts, by their enthusiasm and by the quality of their work. Wouldn’t it be fun for families to enjoy learning about travel photography together? Taking throwaway photos is such a part of everyday life now – think of Instagram and Snapchat – that I thought it would be great to try and inspire young photographers (and their Snapchatting parents) to create images that they would treasure for a lifetime.

Xizhou, taken by a 11 year old

Buoyed by these experiences, we put together a special itinerary and recently ran our first family photography trip. Despite past successes, I was still apprehensive how the photography element would work with a full group of 8- to 13-year olds. Perhaps they would be bored – what if the activities we had planned didn’t seem new or special enough? Please click here for detailed itinerary.

These doubts quickly dissipated and I found myself busier than usual as I coached both kids and parents out in the field, and answered a host of questions on different topics. One afternoon after photographing Yunnanese snub-nosed monkeys in a nature reserve outside the remote town of Tacheng,

Photo by Sean Meng

I had planned to stay in the lounge of our beautiful lodge to help guests review their photographs. The afternoon turned into a four-hour long introduction to Adobe Lightroom, spurred on by endless questions from parents and kids about how to edit and manage their photographs.

It was wonderful to see the kids sharing their photos with each other and their parents,

especially when they managed to capture a particularly special image, and to watch the older kids helping the younger children. More than once, I noticed a child taking their parents’ camera hostage and refusing to give it back! Parents commented happily that their children were spending more time looking and seeing things more closely, as well as less time playing games on their iPads.

Photo by our customer, JaQ Lai

Our final night wrap-up session brought both hearty laughter and amazement as we all shared our favorite images from the trip. When I hear comments from parents such as “I can’t believe that a trip with children happened where nothing went wrong!” or when a child tells me that it was the “best trip I’ve ever had in my life”, it makes all my work worthwhile. Now I’m just looking forward to the next one…

On the Road Team!