Photos: Kids Capture Their Family Vacation in NYC, Bangkok, Rome, Paris and Washington, D.C.

To find out how kids’ travel experiences differ from their parents’, we asked families around the world to share their perspectives – and pictures.

Riding on his father’s shoulders, Villum Vejlin Sogaard arrived at the gate to board the ferry departing from Lower Manhattan like a miniature, triumphant explorer.

His eyes flashed from the downtown skyline to a souvenir seller for another tourist with tickets in hand. This is the 6-year-old’s first time in the United States and he will see one of the country’s iconic landmarks: the Statue of Liberty.

“I have to see if you’re in town,” said Simon Vejlin Sogaard, Villum’s father, who had traveled with several other family members from home in Denmark. “It’s a beautiful piece of history. And it’s actually more interesting to understand the history behind the statue and what it means – which, I think, is more important.

Villum was perhaps too young to appreciate, as his father did, what the statue represented. However, when he arrived at Liberty Island and climbed the stairs to lay his eyes on the giant green woman, her arm attached to a torch, he was shocked by her size.

The differences in the perspectives of Mr. Vejlin Sogaard and his young son are emblematic of what many families experience when they travel, and a question that is often asked by parents around the world: Do young children benefit from traveling to new places? If so, how? Do they find value in seeing historical landmarks and museums? And how does traveling through a child’s eyes differ from a parent’s perspective?

We started to learn just that.

This year, The New York Times sent a team of reporters to popular tourist landmarks in several cities around the world, from Washington, DC, to Bangkok. At each location, parents and children were given cameras and tasked with taking the most interesting photos. The photos give us some insight into what’s going on.

“Culture. Know things from history. A new experience.” These are some of the things Maria Segura wants her children to learn from their visit to the Colosseum in Rome. Her husband, Alberto, hopes the trip will fuel her curiosity and thirst for knowledge. They have brought their three children from their home in Madrid.

“I really like history,” said Julia, Seguras’ 10-year-old daughter, who wants to be like her parents. “That’s to find out now.”

However, unlike her mother, who photographed the red-brown stone and concrete scene surrounding the ancient amphitheater, Julia was drawn to the miniature model of the site inside the museum. In fact, he was among the few children interviewed there who identified the model, a dollhouse-like replica, as his favorite part of the trip.

What do you like most about your 6-year-old brother David?

“Everything,” David said. “Nothing in particular. Wait, model. I like the model too. And sea birds.”

Her younger sister, Iria, had no opinion – not because she was only 3, but because she spent most of the journey in her pram, sleeping.

Even according to historians, appreciating the formal lessons of the past is not the most important thing gained from travel.

“It’s not all about a rather bleak history lesson,” Mary Beard, a British scholar and author of “SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome,” wrote in an email, focusing her special lens on the museum. “The great thing about a museum for children (and adults) is that it’s a place of wonder, surprise, confusion. One of my earliest memories is marveling at a 3,500-year-old Egyptian cake in the British Museum.

“Sometimes I feel really overwhelmed when I see old people who feel the need to visit a museum is a long history lesson,” he said. “Well, sometimes it can be useful, I guess. But really, going to a museum is learning to think differently.

This is the approach taken by two families from Denmark who also visited the Colosseum. Hien Nguyen, one of the mothers, recently watched the movie “Gladiator” with her children and was excited to show her children the Colosseum in real life.

“We want the kids to be able to see ancient things, to see how old humans are,” she said, and she’s happy that her children can experience the place for themselves.

“We believe that the experience of building is more important for children than giving, you know,” said Ms. Nguyen.

He might be right.

“If you think about your patterns as a person, most of them come from the first decade of your life, when your worldview is still being built,” says Erin Clabough, a neuroscientist, associate professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and author of a book on how neuroscience can inform parenting. .

“When someone approaches a problem, or any situation in their life, they bring this tool kit of all their previous experiences that they can draw on,” Dr. Clabough explained. And visiting different cultures can add to those tools, by giving children new ways of thinking, doing and knowing, she says, all of which can help them “navigate the world in a more complete way.”

“It gives you the possibility, in a way, of all the things you can do,” he added. “And I also think it’s not just creativity, but it also helps develop empathy.”

There is beauty in the simplicity of what appeals to children. So, while adults can marvel at the magnificence of mosaics that retain their colors for centuries, children’s interests may be drawn elsewhere, to things that seem more trivial.

Claudia Vermeer is traveling with her two daughters, Emma, ​​​​12, and Sophie, 10. Their home is in Germany, but they are on a seven-month trip that takes them around the world.

The family finally arrived in Thailand, the 11th country they visited on the tour, and explored Wat Pho, one of the royal temples on the Chao Phraya River in the heart of Bangkok. The site is famous for its numerous stupas, statues and a 151-foot-tall golden reclining Buddha statue.

Ms. Vermeer was constantly struck by how different her perspective was from her children’s, she said.

“They see things that I will never see and they experience different things,” said Ms. Vermeer. “In general, I want to open my horizons and make people patient.”

Inside the sun-drenched buildings with intricate decorations, beautifully decorated items are displayed, such as a huge Buddha statue, standing and receiving guests. But what caught Sophie’s attention were the small copper bowls, more than 100 of which were in the hall for tourists to donate and place orders. This pleased Sophie.

“I like to drop a small coin into the bowl,” he said.

Adolescent fixations can become uncontrollable because they are unpredictable.

On a recent day in Paris, at the end of winter, the weather is cloudy and gray. Sandra Yar first brought her 5-year-old son, Noah, from Germany. They had visited several other places popular with tourists – Versailles, the Louvre – and now it was time for Noah to see the Eiffel Tower.

Despite standing in the shadow of one of the world’s most iconic landmarks, a wrought-iron tower that rises more than 1,000 feet above him, Noah is drawn to the pocket-sized items for sale on the ground: tiny Eiffel Tower buttons. chains. He can’t wait to show his friends in Kindergarten.

“Paris is beautiful, but next time we come without children,” said Ms. Yar. It’s hard to visit with her young son, she said, because he’s “too young to know that five keychains is more than she needs.”

Back in New York City, after returning from Liberty Island, Villum, a 6-year-old boy from Denmark, has changed from a lively and curious child, propped on his father’s shoulder, to a tired and lonely child, standing among family members. and wait for someone to declare that the day is over.

According to the pictures taken that day, it is clear what happened:

He most likely spent a good part of his energy on Liberty Island trying to see through the walls and rails that were too high for people to easily see through.