The Lonely Planet books have been a central component of the travelling population igniting the wanderlust in solo travellers, couples, and families for the last 45 years. Our friends gifted us our first Lonely Planet travel guide for when we were embarking on our overseas trip to Europe. It was this guide that we referred to before and during the trip as it offered the most relevant up-to-date information on destinations that we would be visiting for the first time. It was a resource we turned to for finding travel inspiration, places to stay, things to do and experiences to encounter.
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Lonely Planet expanded their range in 2011 by including their first children’s book, launched to spark curiosity in the young and pave the way for a future filled with adventures and discovery.
As a long-term fan of Lonely Planet books, I was thrilled to receive some exciting new additions to the Lonely Planet Kids books that I knew my daughter would love. I share all of them below.
Lonely Planet Kids: First Word Book Series (RRP $19.99)
For when you need to learn how to say hello in different languages, the Lonely Planet First Word books have you covered. With over one hundred travel-relevant words these books are perfect for young travellers, children who are taking a different language at school or for kids who are interested in other cultures. The books have beautiful bright illustrations that capture the children’s interest immediately. The common words are simplified for the reader with an English pronunciation guide across from the picture. My seven-year-old was so inspired by these books she decided to create her own with the help of First Words: Italian.
With these books, you also have access to a free audio pronunciation guide by visiting www.lonelyplanet.com/kids/first-words where you can hear each word spoken aloud.
There are six books in this series: Mandarin, Japanese, Italian, French, English, and Spanish
Buy First Word Books Here!
Lonely Planet Kids: Around the World in 50 Ways (RRP $24.99)
Choose your adventure books were one of my favourite books growing up as a child. Not only are you taken on a journey when you start to read the book, but you are given the choice of how your epic adventure plays out. Children are not often involved in the decision-making process when it comes to planning adventures and trips. This book enables them to create their journeys by deciding what type of transportation they want to use or how many hours they want to travel. At the beginning of the book, your journey starts in London, along the way children will learn fascinating and fun facts about destinations all over the world. The book aim is to return to London. However, you may hit a few surprises (dead ends) along the way which will cause you to restart the book and choose a different path. As children have the most inquisitive minds, not only is this book fun but it’s a great early learning resource and opens up conversations with your young explorers on places and cultures around the world.
As this book is recommended for children over 8 years, it has become one of our firm favourite bedtime books. I enjoy reading it (I must admit I have learned a lot along the way) as much as my daughter loves to create her unique journey, and I’m sure she is dreaming of all the places she would like to explore when she drifts off to sleep.
Buy Around the World in 50 Ways Here!
Lonely Planet Kids: Sticker World – Museum, Theme Park, Zoo (RRP $9.99)
These activity books will keep the children entertained for hours. The bright colours throughout make the books visually appealing to kids, and each page has activities from drawings, colouring in, and dot to dot. There is no limit to what children can do with the enclosed stickers as they use their creativity to design and craft their unique zoo, museum and theme park. The stickers were Mia’s first chosen activity within these books and with over 500 all children will be in sticker heaven – I know mine was!
One of the parts I love about these activity books; each page offers instructions on what to add, but in the end, your child is left with the decision on how the result will look, encouraging them to use their imagination.
Picture being able to design a theme park, joining a dot to dot puzzle to discover what prehistoric animals look like, creating your own bug display or bringing to life a sky-fari home for tropical birds with colouring pencils.
These books are recommended for children aged 5 to 8 years, but due to their creative nature, I feel slightly older children (who still love stickers) would also find enjoyment from them.
Buy Sticker World Books Here!
Lonely Planet Kids: My Family Travel Map – Australia, Europe,
North America (RRP $19.99)
Each Family Travel Map has over 180 stickers which kids will enjoy and engage with as they unfold the giant continent map. Kids can personalise the maps by adding stickers to places they have been, where they live, where they are going as well as the inclusion of extra fun stickers to use on the maps. The perfect introduction to countries and cities in the world, flip the map over to read the fascinating facts and information about the continent. Recommended for children aged 8 to 12 years these books would be an extremely useful resource for learning more about geography.
Buy My Family Travel Maps Here!
Lonely Planet Kids: Brain Teasers (RRP $14.99)
If you are searching for a children’s book that’s exciting, fun, challenging, educational and rewarding than you can’t look past this one. Brain Teasers is the perfect size travel companion, and the whole family can be involved in answering the riddles, solving the challenges, and completing the puzzles. There are many positive benefits from brain teasers for both children and adults, and these travel-related teasers within the Lonely Planet book are guaranteed fun and will have everyone thinking differently. If you’re stuck you don’t have to worry you’ll find the answers in the back – just don’t be tempted to flip to them first!
Buy Lonely Planet Kids Brain Teaser Book Here!
Lonely Planet Kids: My Holiday Scrapbook (RRP $14.99)
Do your kids like to collect souvenirs when they are on holidays? Are they inspired to draw a picture of something that caught their eye during an outing? Do they love art and craft? Do they like to keep a journal of their travel adventures? The Holiday Scrapbook is jam-packed full of ideas to recreate and remember those special holiday moments. The book will captivate and engage children as they go on a treasure hunt for certain items, become a secret agent in a game, experiment in science and much more. Once again there are over 150 bright and cheerful stickers to help complete the activities.
Buy My Holiday Scrapbook Here!
Lonely Planet Kids: My Holiday Drawing Book (RRP $14.99)
Sharpen the pencils as the kids will love this book that gives invaluable tips on how to sketch and draw various items. The step by step instructions is clear, simple and easy to understand for children. They will discover how to draw people, birds, and trees, create quirky pictures from shapes, learn art terms, learn how light and shade brings drawings to life, and lots more!
Buy My Drawing Book Here!
OUR FINAL THOUGHTS
The Lonely Planet books are not only fun, and enjoyable but each page is a portal for children to learn about people, places, and cultures that may be different to their own. Kids are inspired to use their vivid imaginations with the activity and sticker books that encourage them to build on their creative nature.
The Lonely Planet books would be a perfect travelling companion, rainy day activity, school holiday hobby, learning resource or boredom buster. Whatever the reason for purchasing these books you can be sure you are buying investment pieces for your children’s future.
WEBSITE
Visit the Lonely Planet Kids website and social media pages facebook.com/lpkidstravel and twitter.com/lpkids for more information on these books and the others in the Lonely Planet Kids series.
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Disclosures: We were gifted these books by Lonely Planet for the purpose of conducting a fair and impartial review. As always, our opinions are our own, and we only share what we believe you’ll find helpful. This post does contain affiliate links. If you follow an affiliate link and go on to purchase that product, we may earn a small commission (at no extra cost to you!). These are all products/services we highly recommend through our own experience. Thank you for supporting Inspire Family Travel as this allows us to continue sharing more helpful content with you.
6 comments
What a super collection of books to review – it must have been like Christmas at your house when they arrived 🙂 I like all the details you’ve added about each book. Nice post #FarawayFiles
Thank you, Annette! I think books are a wonderful gift, so my daughter possibly thought it was a little like Christmas 🙂 There was so much to share about these Lonely Planet books – I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Oh I love the idea of the brain teasers one! My girls love things like that. All of these books sound wonderful, though, and I like the variety. I need to start teaching them basic word from other languages so perhaps I should get the first word book series! Thanks for linking up with #farawayfiles
The brain teaser book is fabulous, Corey! My daughter was quicker than me with some of the riddles 🙂 I would highly recommend the basic word books as well. They are easy to read and the illustrations are super cute! Thank you!
We used to pick up a children’s book in each location we visited, so we have a virtual tour when we get home, but I love the idea of taking them with you as well when traveling to inform and entertain along the way. My littles aren’t so little anymore, but these would also make great gifts to inspire nieces and nephews!
I love that idea, Erin, and what a fabulous keepsake and memory of your trips away. We love giving books as gifts, so I agree they would be a great present!