Original Travel has revealed a collection of family holidays designed to nurture and inspire young minds, featuring stargazing, Egyptology and tribal medicine. Olivia Palamountain reports

Original Travel has unveiled its latest innovation: family learning journeys that blend exploration with education, riding the wave of demand for child-friendly transformative travel experiences.

Dubbed “World Work Experience”, these trips reframe family holidays as an introduction to wider cultural and creative experiences, so parents can open their children’s eyes to never-before-imagined life-callings.

Recent research conducted by the company reveals that 59.1% of children are motivated to visit destinations they learn about in school, and 91.3% expressed a desire to pursue a hobby or interest while on holiday, so “it’s a win-win for parents and children alike”. 
Tom Barber, co-founder of Original Travel says: “As any Desert Island Discs aficionado will tell you, it seems most majorly talented people develop a passion for their chosen career path in childhood. That makes family holidays the perfect opportunity to develop your children’s existing passions, but also to discover new ones. We call the concept World Work Experience, and it has inspired a new collection of trips designed to encourage families to see travel as a laboratory for future career choices—at least as much as parents can influence their children’s future endeavours, anyway!”

World Work Experience trips feature everything from “backstage” access to Indiana Jones-style archaeological digs in Egypt, becoming a zoologist for the day in Botswana or gazing at stellar constellations in the company of a local astronomer.

On the Luxury Family Oman itinerary (£4,275pp for an 11-day trip, based on a family of four), kids can challenge their dexterity by making pottery with a local potter, while learning all about the country’s rich history of this centuries-old craft.

During An Indian Wildlife Adventure, families will head out into the emerald landscape of Pench, the inspiration for Rudyard Kipling’s famous tale and a protected tiger reserve.

Gaining knowledge into bird migratory calls, how to identify rare plant species and exploring the jungle for sightings of animals in the wild, are just some of the adventures on offer. This costs from £5,700pp for a 16-day trip, based on a family of four.

This World Work Experience holiday collection is part of the Original Travel’s new Family Brochure, available to order now via the company’s website.

The brochure features 84-pages of advice for families with children of all ages, including trending destinations, tips for new parents travelling with babies and travel stories from renowned journalists and photographers.