I love travelling with children. It lends a whole new perspective and the experiences we have and the people we meet as a result of being with them are so wonderful. I believe travelling helps keep your mind open and your soul free - for that reason, I’m keen for my children to travel and experience different cultures and meet people from different backgrounds so their minds stay as open as they are naturally predisposed to be.

Watching the children interact without the self consciousness, embarassment and barriers that sadly we often feel as we get older, melts my heart. When they meet people for the first time, they don’t see anything other than a smile and a potential playmate.

This was never more evident than on a recent holiday to Thailand. We were on a trip to a little place where they looked after a small number of elephants. After we had seen the elephants being bathed and fed, we were taken to the Mahout’s (elephant carer) village which was essentially a few basic wooden shacks in the middle of nowhere. A little boy, perhaps aged 3, who lived there came straight over to my two year old daughter and gave her his little trike to play on. He then scurried off to try and find himself something to ride so they could play together.

They didn’t speak the same language, and their backgrounds couldn’t be more different, but they still communicated with each other, purely through playing, pointing and facial expressions, mainly smiling.

"I think I've got a bit of engine trouble..."

It was so lovely to watch them. Tearing my daughter away when it was time to go was a challenge to say the least.

Perhaps we should all smile and play a little more.