Little Passports: Bringing the world to your child, one package at a time

Disclosure: I was sent the following product to review at no cost to me. I was not compensated for this post. All opinions are mine.

Thanks to Christina at Champagne Taste on a Beer Budget, I was invited to review Little Passports‘ World Edition Explorer Kit with my children. Geared towards kids 5-10 years of age, I thought it would be a perfect activity for my son (5) and daughter (8) to do together. As it turns out, my son wasn’t very interested in it (he’s less into learning about the countries of the world right now and more into learning dinosaur names and the habits of zoo animals!). But my daughter, Delaney, and I had a good time with this intro kit which includes:

Travel suitcase with an introductory letter from globetrotting 10-year-olds, Sam and Sofia
World wall map
Travel passport
Stickers
Activity sheet
Access to online games and activities with the boarding pass

Each package centers on an adventure and activities from a new country along with souvenirs, stickers, photos, and a letter from Sam and Sophia. Access to online games and activities are also included in each month’s package with a special code, although we haven’t had a chance to try them out yet.

Little Passports can be purchased month-to-month or in three-, six-, and 12-month installments. They can also be given as gifts. Prices range from $10.95 per month, up to $13.95 a month, depending on the package you select.

Here’s what Delaney said about The Little Passports World Edition Explorer Kit:

“I really liked it because it had fun activities and I loved filling out the passport book.”

She told me that doing the activities (which were a series of puzzles to be solved by using the world map) made her want to take a trip to Mexico:

“I really want to visit Mexico because chihuahuas were discovered there and I read in a book that people in America visited Mexico to see chihuahuas and they brought them home if they liked them.”

Um, this girl’s got a puppy on her wish list? Yikes. I’m keeping this kid far AWAY from Mexico until we’re ready for a second pup!

The Little Passports suitcase is bright green and blue and it’s adorable. It’s a little larger than a lunchbox and it’s pretty sturdy too. It can probably survive kids dragging it around with them everywhere (which they’ll want to do because it’s so cute).

I’ll admit that while the suitcase is a fun component, my daughter and I were a underwhelmed when we opened it and saw what looked like just a few papers inside. But, as I learned, the suitcase is designed to be the catch-all for everything that arrives in future packages. Once I knew that, it made sense that it wasn’t stuffed full of things when we received it.

The activities included in the Explorer Kit were short so I’m not sure the double-sided, black and white sheet would hold the attention of most 10-year-olds. Delaney completed all of the tasks in about 10 minutes. When she was done we had an enjoyable time together discovering all of the places in the world that we’d like to visit. And Little Passports led us to a discussion of my own worldly travels. I was born in Germany and later lived there. As a child I visited seven different countries and it was fun to point out each one on the vibrant map and share stories of my travels with my daughter.

While the activities were short and simple, the suitcase, passport book, and map were all a hit in our house. For me, the best part of Little Passports was the conversation it created between me and my daughter. We’re talking more and more these days about traveling to other countries, where people look differently than we do, eat differently, and live differently. Each day we dream a little bigger, sharing our hopes of visiting as many places as we can to learn about and appreciate the various languages, cultures, and lands in this great, wide world.